STUDY: FAST-FOOD CUSTOMERS' SATISFACTION HAS DECLINED

JACK ROBERTIELLO

MILWAUKEE -- Supermarkets concerned with losing business share to fast-food restaurants can take some consolation from a recent study that shows customer satisfaction with the restaurant category plummeting.

Fast-food restaurants are far less successful in satisfying customers then they were last year, with their rating dropping 5.7%, according to the recently released American Customer Satisfaction Index.

"What this is saying is that they [fast-food restaurants] are not building effective brand loyalty and that there is room there for new competitors," said Jack West, past president of the American Society of Quality Control, here, the 140,000-member professional society that co-sponsors, with the University of Michigan Business School, the quarterly study of customer satisfaction. ASQC also sponsors the U.S. Department of Commerce's Malcolm Baldrige Award.

"Although there's already plenty of churn in the fast-food industry, what this report is saying is that customers aren't locked in, like they are in the canned-food business. You don't see that type of loyalty in the fast-food business at all," West said.

Customers now give the fast-food, pizza and carryout restaurant industry the lowest rating of 27 private sector industries measured in the ACSI.

Any celebration by retailers should be short-lived, cautioned West. Satisfaction with the supermarket industry is also down, 1.3% since the last survey. And the overall retail category is down 1.9%.

In the ACSI study, consumers are asked to compare their experience at various businesses to their expectations. "Consumers going into a McDonald's have lower expectations than those eating at a Ruth's Chris Steak House, in terms of type of food and service. The question then becomes, 'Did you get what you expected?' ," said West. Businesses are evaluated on not only customer expectation and experience, but also price tolerance, customer loyalty and how well they customize products for consumers.

West defined 'quality' as fitness for use as perceived by the customer. "We're interested in 'Does the customer like it?' If you have a quarter-pound hamburger that has slightly more or slightly less meat, we're interested in that, but we're more interested in 'Does it satisfy the customer?' "

The report does not explain what factors create consumer satisfaction at businesses, said West, but a confidential version does reveal, for instance, whether customers going into a Publix had higher or lower expectations than those shopping at a Safeway, and whether they were more or less satisfied after shopping.

The retail and finance/insurance ratings are based on interviews with 12,036 customers of the 48 companies that dominate the sectors in terms of sales. The ACSI is partially supported by corporate sponsors.

The Satisfaction Gap

The good news, for retailers, is that consumers are less satisfied with how restaurants are living up to their expectations these days than they were last year, according to a recently released report on the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

The not-so-good news, however, is that consumers' satisfaction levels compared to expectations are lagging behind for supermarkets, too, though not as dramatically as for restaurants.

The table below shows how the rival food provider categories have been scoring on satisfaction, according to the ACSI.

CHANGES IN SECTOR/INDUSTRY ACSI SCORES

Supermarkets Restaurants

1994 76 69

1995 74 70

1996 75 70

1997 74 66

% Baseline Change

('96-'97) -1.3 -5.7

SOURCE: American Customer Satisfaction Index, 1997