The perception of customers from Giba Business Park with regards to the effect of self-service kiosks in fast food restaurants.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Internationally fast food retailers have begun rolling out and implementing in store self service technology systems, in the form of kiosks, to supplement their customer experience. This automation in the ordering system has proven to increase sales, increase productivity and decrease overall meal delivery times. It was found that customers internationally opted to frequent fast food outlets that offered this automated service more often than those that did not. With the success found, fast food conglomerates such as McDonalds, have already indicated the roll out of self service kiosks will follow in 2018 in their South African franchises. In South Africa, the fast food industry is a profitable entity with impressive annual increasing sales and customer numbers. The country is suffering however with low economic growth, increasing poverty and major inequalities with regards to living standards and education. Thus inclusion of self service technology into the fast food industry within South Africa, which is a developing country, as a result of the profitable execution of the systems in developed countries, led to this research study. The researcher set out to investigate whether local customers of fast food within Giba Gorge Business park in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, felt there was a need to improve speed of service within restaurants and whether customers would accept and adapt to using kiosk technology as a solution to improve said service. The findings of the study overwhelming, through all socio demographic representations, concluded that these customers view speed of service at fast food restaurants substandard and requiring improvement. Kiosks were further indicated as the preferred means to enhance customer experience and satisfaction. It was thus concluded that local customers are surprisingly tech savvy and a roll out of self service kiosks locally would be positively received and accepted.