SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ACCEPTABILITY AMONG RESTAURANTS ON CUSTOMERS RELATIONSHIP IN KATSINA STATE, NIGERIA
BY USMAN LAWAL A. MANI (MSc HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT) (T130F/29107/2014)
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE SCHOOL OF HOSPITALITY, TOURISM AND LEISURE STUDIES OF KENYATTA UNIVERSITY.
JULY, 2020. ii
DECLARATION PAGE
“This Thesis is my original work and has not been presented for a degree in any other University.”
Signature______Date ______
Usman Lawal A. Mani - T130F/29107/2014
Supervisors: This Thesis has been submitted for examination with our approval as University supervisors:
Signature ______Date ______
Dr. Rosemarie Khayiya
Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Studies
Kenyatta University
Signature ______Date ______
Dr. Mary Mutungi
Department of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Studies
Kenyatta University
iii
DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to my Parents Alhaji Lawal A. Mani and Mrs. Zainab Lawal A.
Mani who sponsored my education and gave me all the necessary guidance to see the sense of learning. May Allah S.W.T. reward you with Jannatul Firdausi, Ameen. It is also dedicated to my family specifically my wives, Khadija Ahmad Rufa’i and Firdausi
Dauda Mani, my children Khadija, Kabir, Hassan, Hussaini, Hindatu, Usman, Dawood and Hafsat who bears the pains of my absence during the period of my study. I love you all, and I pray for the achievement to be beneficial to you all. iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to acknowledge my supervisors Dr. Rosemarie Khayiya and Dr. Mary
Mutungi without whom I would not have had the courage and strength to embark on this journey. I would also like to appreciate the support of Hassan Usman Katsina
Polytechnic and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) for granting me the opportunity to pursue these studies through funding and providing a conducive environment throughout the study period. I would also like to acknowledge the faculty members in the School of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Studies led by the Dean,
Professor Elijah Gitonga Rintaugu and the former Chairperson of the Department of
Hospitality Management, Dr. Rahab Mugambi and the new Chairperson School of
Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Studies, Dr. Esther Munyiri, Thank you all for your advises support and guidance.
I would also like to thank Katsina State Hotels and Tourism Board and the Federal
Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) for their support in ensuring that I get the necessary assistance needed from the restaurants all over the state from the inception of the study to its finalization. I would also like to thank my H.O.D. in my workplace Dr. Muntari
Ado Matazu who gave me all necessary assistance and support from the beginning to this stage. I also appreciate the support from Iyal Usman, Dr. Ali Muhammed Fakandu,
Abdulkadir Ibrahim Abba and Abdulmalik Mohammed Baffa; may the Almighty Allah reward you abundantly for the contributions you have rendered throughout this study period. v
Table of Contents
DECLARATION PAGE ...... ii DEDICATION ...... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... iv LIST OF TABLES ...... x LIST OF FIGURES ...... xiixi ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ...... xiiixii OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS ...... xivxiii Abstract ...... xvixv CHAPTER ONE ...... 1 1.0 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 Background to the Study ...... 1 1.2 Problem Statement ...... 7 1.3 Purpose of the Study ...... 9 1.3 Objectives of the Study ...... 910 1.3.1 The General Objective ...... 910 1.3.2 The Specific Objectives ...... 910 1.4 Hypotheses of the Study ...... 10 1.5 Significance of the Study ...... 1011 1.6 Delimitation of the Study ...... 1112 1.7 Limitation of the Study ...... 12 1.8 Assumptions of the Study ...... 1213 1.9 Conceptual Framework ...... 13 1.9.1 Conceptual Framework of the Study ...... 1314 1.10 Study Variables ...... 1415 1.10.1 Independent Variables ...... 15 1.10.2 Intervening Variables ...... 15 1.10.3 Dependent Variables ...... 15 1.11 Organization of Study ...... 16 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 17 2.0 Introduction ...... 17 2.1 Social Media Marketing and Customer Relationship ...... 17 2.1.1 Concept of Social Media Marketing ...... 17 vi
2.1.2 Customer Relationship ...... 19 2.1.3 Brand Awareness ...... 23 2.1.4 Purchase Intention ...... 26 2.1.5 Customer Satisfaction ...... 2829 2.3 Theoretical Framework ...... 31 2.3.1 Psychological Ownership theory and perceived control ...... 31 2.3.2 Social Exchange Theory ...... 33 2.3.3 Social Penetration Theory ...... 34 2.4 Social Media Consumption ...... 35 2.4.1 Tools in Use ...... 37 2.4.2 Frequency of Usage ...... 38 2.5 Social Media Experience ...... 40 2.5.1 Personal Engagement with Social Media ...... 42 2.5.2 Social-Interactive Engagement with Social Media ...... 44 2.6 Employee Role in Social Media ...... 47 2.6.1 Creators in Social Media ...... 49 2.6.2 Conversationalist (Engagers) in Social Media ...... 50 2.6.3 Critics in Social Media...... 51 2.6.4 Collectors in Social Media ...... 52 2.6.5 Joiners in Social Media ...... 52 2.6.6 Spectators in Social Media...... 52 2.6.7 In-actives in Social Media ...... 5253 2.7 Regular Online Update/post and Customers Motivation on Customer’s Relationship 53 2.8 Summary of the research Gaps ...... 55 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ...... 5657 3.0 Introduction ...... 5657 3.1 Research Philosophy ...... 57 3.2 Research Design...... 58 3.3 Area of the Study ...... 59 3.4 Target Population ...... 61 3.4.1 Restaurant Managers ...... 6362 3.4.2 Restaurant Customers ...... 6362 3.4.3 Restaurant Staff ...... 6463 vii
3.5 Sampling Techniques ...... 6463 3.6 Sample Size ...... 6564 3.7 Research Instrument...... 6766 3.7.1. Questionnaire for Guest and Staff ...... 6766 3.7.2. Interview for Management Staff ...... 7069 3.8 Pre-testing ...... 70 3.9 Validity and Reliability ...... 7170 3.9.1 Validity ...... 7170 3.9.2 Reliability ...... 7372 3.10 Data Collection Procedure ...... 7473 3.10.1 Survey Response ...... 7675 3.11 Data Analysis ...... 7675 3.12 Logistical and ethical Considerations ...... 7776 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ...... 7978 4.1 Introduction ...... 7978 4.2 Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents ...... 7978 4.2.1 Age of the respondents...... 7978 4.2.2 Gender of the Respondents ...... 8180 4.2.3 Monthly income ...... 8382 4.2.4 Types of Social Media Used ...... 8584 4.2.5 Frequency of Using Social Media...... 8887 4.3 Descriptive statistics ...... 9089 4.3.1 Customers Relationship ...... 9190 4.4 Objective 1 ...... 9594 4.4.1 Determination of Social Network Sites used by Restaurants in Creating Brand Awareness ...... 9594 4.4.2 Hypothesis 1...... 9998 4.5 Objective 2 ...... 100 4.5.1 Identification of Social Media Consumption among Restaurant Marketers ...... 100 4.5.2 Relationship between Social Media Consumption and Customer Relation for Staff ...... 107106 4.5.3 Hypothesis 2...... 110109 4.6 Objective 3 ...... 111110 viii
4.6.1 Identification of the Level of Social Media Experience of Restaurant marketers ...... 111110 4.6.2 Relationship between Social Media Experience and Customer Relation on Creating Satisfaction for Staff and Guest ...... 117116 4.6.3 Hypothesis 3...... 119118 4.7 Objective 4 ...... 120119 4.7.1 Determination of Employee Role on Social Media in Creating Brand Awareness using Word-of-Mouth ...... 120119 4.7.2 The Roles of Restaurant Employee in Social Media Marketing .... 120119 4.7.3 Relationship between Employee Roles on Social Media and Customer Relation for Staff and Guest ...... 130129 4.7.3 Hypothesis 4...... 132131 4.8 Objective 5 ...... 132 4.8.1 Determination of how Post/Update Mediate Social Media Marketing and Customer Relationship ...... 132 4.8.2 Relationship between Regular post/update of Social Media sites and Customer Relation for Staff and Guest...... 138137 4.9 Ranking of the Study Predictor Variables ...... 140139 4.9.1 Descriptive analysis of the Social Media Marketing Variables ..... 140139 4.9.2 Multiple regression analysis ...... 143142 CHAPTER FIVE ...... 153152 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS...... 153152 5.1 Overview ...... 153152 5.2 Summary ...... 153152 5.3 Conclusions ...... 157156 5.4 Recommendations ...... 162161 References ...... 165164 Appendix A: Approval of Research Proposal Letter ...... 180179 Appendix B: Katsina State Hotels Board; Research Approval Letter ...... 181180 Appendix C: Map of katsina State, Nigeria indicating its Three Zones ...... 182181 Appendix D: Restaurants in Katsina State...... 183182 Appendix E: Sample Size ...... 187186 Appendix F: Time Scale ...... 191190 Appendix G: Cost Breakdown ...... 193192 APPENDIX H: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STAFF ...... 195194 ix
Section H1: Social Media marketing and Customers Relationship ...... 196195 Section H2: Rate of Social Media Consumption by Staff ...... 197196 Section H3: Social Media Experience ...... 197196 Section H4: Employee Role in Social Media ...... 198197 Appendix I QUESTIONNAIRE FOR GUEST...... 200198 Section I1: Social Media Marketing and Customers Relationship ...... 201199 Section I2: Social Media Consumption ...... 202200 Section I3: Social Media Experience ...... 202200 Section I4: Employee Role in Social Media ...... 203201 APPENDIX J: Interview Guide for Managerial Staff of the Restaurant ...... 204202 APPENDIX K: Interview Guide Checklist ...... 205203
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LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Summary of the Research Gaps………………………………………….55 Table 3.1 Summary of Philosophy of Research ...... ……………………………….58 Table 3.2 Sampling Techniques and Sample Size ...... 6665 Table 3.2 Summary of the Target Population…... ..……………………….………59 Table 3.3 Items Distribution to Sub-dimensions ...... 6968 Table 3.4 Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ...... 7473 Table 3.5 Summary of Data Analysis ...... 7776 Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics for Social Media Marketing and Customer Relation 9291 Table 4.2 Types of Social Media Sites used by Staff and Guests ...... 9594 Table 4,3 Chi-Square Tests of Association Between SNS used by Restaurant and their CR 10099 Table 4.4 Social Media Consumption among Staff and Customers ...... 101100 Table 4.5 Importance of Restaurant Social Media Sites in Facilitating its Business 105104 Table 4.6 Correlation analysis between SMC and Customer Relationship for Staff 108107 Table 4.7 Correlation analysis between SMC and Customer Relationship for Guest 108107 Table 4.9 Social Media Experience of Restaurant Staff and Customers ...... 112111 Table 4.10 Management and Control of the Social Media Site used by the Restaurants 115114 Table 4.11 Correlation Analysis between SME and Customer Relationship for Staff 117116 Table 4.12 Correlation analysis between SME and Customer Relationship for Guest 118117 Table 4.13 Employee Roles on Social Media Marketing ...... 121120 Table 4.14 Incorporation of Employees in Marketing the Restaurants products and 126125 Table 4.15 Improving CR through Employees Incorporation into the Marketing 127126 Table 4.16 Correlation Analysis Between Employee Roles on Social Media and CR 130129 Table 4.17 Correlation Analysis Between Customers Roles in SM and ER ... 131130 Table 4.18 Staff and Customers Views on Regular Post/Update in Increasing CR 133132 Table 4.19 How SMS are updated with Regular Posts, Comments and Suggestions 137136 Table 4.20 Correlation Analysis Between Regular post/update on SMS and CR . 138 Table 4.21 Analysis of Ranking of SMM Predictor Variables Base on Mean Score 140139 xi
Table 4.22 Responding to Customer’s Views, Comments and Suggestions through SM 142141 4.9.2 Multiple regression analysis ...... 143142 Table 4.23 Model Summary for Multiple Regressions ...... 143 Table 4.24 Regression analysis for the Social Media Marketing Predictor Variables 144143
xii
LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Social Media Marketing Factors on Restaurant Customer Relationship 13 Figure 3.1 Map of Nigeria showing Location of Katsina state ...... 61 Figure 4.1. Age of the Respondents ...... 8079 Figure 4.2 Gender of the Respondents ...... 8281 Figure 4.3. Monthly Income of the Respondents ...... 8483 Figure 4.4. Types of Social Media used ...... 8685 Figure 4.5 Frequency of using Social Media ...... 8988
xiii
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AMA American Marketing Association
CR Customer Relationship
CRM Customer Relationship Management
ER Employee Role
FOLDOC Free Online Dictionary of Computing
GDP Gross Domestic Product
ICT Information Communication Technology
IT Information Technology
KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken
MNG Management
NRA National Restaurant Association
OPER Operational
SM Social Media
SMC Social Media Consumption
SME Social Media Experience
SMM Social Media Marketing
SNN Social Network Sites
UGC User Generated Content
WOM Word of Mouth
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OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS ACCEPTABILITY: It is the quality of being tolerable, bearable or allowed.
BUSINESS: An organization or economic system where goods and services are exchanged for one another or money.
BRAND AWARENESS: Giving information to your client about the products and services of your organisation.
CUSTOMER: Is a person or organization who buys goods or services from a store or business.
HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY: The industry is one which embraces the economic activity of undertaking which aim to satisfy the demand for accommodation, food, drinks and recreational activities away from home.
HOTEL An establishment held by proprietor as offering food, drinks and if so required sleeping accommodation for those who appears able and willing to pay reasonable sum for the services and facilities rendered and who are in fit state to be received.
ICT: Information and Communication technology is an extended term for information technology (IT) which stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals), computers as well as necessary enterprise software, middleware, storage, and audio-visual systems, which enables users to access, store, transmit, and manipulate information.
MARKETING: The activities, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
RELATIONSHIP: The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected. xv
RESTAURANT: Restaurant is a business which prepares and serves food and drinks to customers in exchange for money.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Social media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION: The degree and extent to which an individual or groups uses form or forms of social media for a purpose.
SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIENCE: The process by which an individuals or groups interact with each other to provide mutual understanding.
SOCIAL NETWORK SITES: The social media flat forms through which information is passed to and from customers to organisations and vise versa.
STRATEGY: The method or plan chosen to bring about a desired future, such as achievement of a goal or solution to a problem.
xvi
ABSTRACT Social Media has become a good marketing and quality management tool for restaurants and other hospitality sectors. Restaurants continue to be a difficult place for entrepreneurs to explore business opportunities, but by understanding common challenges, owners may be able to develop unique strategies to increase their chances of success on maintaining customer relationship. The major aim of the study was to identify how acceptable social media is in creating restaurant employees and customers’ relationship. The state is made up of three zones namely; Katsina, Funtua and Daura zones. Social media become an important source of information for restaurants and its platforms that smooth the progress of sharing information have been developed. Psychological ownership and social penetration theories of relationship were reviewed in the study to see how relationship developed from non-intimate to intimate. Cross- sectional descriptive survey was adopted in conducting the study and quantitative and qualitative data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The study targeted 2907 staff and guests of these restaurants in the study area. From the 98 total registered restaurants in the study area, systematic sampling was adopted in sampling 49 restaurants from the three zones in the study area from which sample size was selected. The staffs from the selected restaurants were segregated into operational and managerial categories using cluster sampling method. Purposive sampling was used in sampling the managerial staff while simple random sampling was used on operational staff. From the study population confidence interval approach formula for sample size was adopted to select 481 respondents as the sample size. Two questionnaires were used as instrument for the study, one for operational staff and the other for guest. Pre- test of the instrument was done to avoid any ambiguous and bias questions. The questionnaire which is self analytical likert scale type questions were personally administered to respondents and responses collected were used for the quantitative analysis while qualitative data was collected from the results of the interview conducted with the managerial staff and used for the analysis. The data collected was analyzed in SPSS 21, using descriptive statistics, inferential and regression analysis and Chi-square was used for testing the hypothesis. The research found that there was positive correlation between social media marketing acceptability and restaurant customers’ relationship which was statistically significant (p< 0.05). Findings also indicated that both staff and guests of the restaurants rated social media marketing acceptability highly acceptable. The most important social media marketing factors were ‘frequency of usage,’ ‘tools in use,’ and ‘social-interactive engagement.’ Exploring the social media marketing predictor variables of customers’ relationship, this research revealed that ‘frequency of usage’ and ‘creators’ is ranked among the high predictors of customer relationship followed by ‘tools in use’ and ‘social media consumption.’ Overall, it was concluded that both staff and guests of the restaurants regards effective and efficient social media sites as the leading factor of their acceptance of social media as a marketing tool. It was reiterated that satisfied staff and guests posed positive perception about social media marketing acceptability, while dissatisfied ones developed negative perception and disregard social media as a good marketing tool. 1
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
According to Bajpay, Pandey and Shriwas (2012) Social media marketing is the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually centre on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Williams (2015) states that, Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. Lodging
Interactive (2015) opined that, restaurants of various categories adopt social media as an alternative means of marketing tool to mass and traditional medias to connect with their customers, and generate interest in their business. They have begun to move their marketing strategies and resources such as advertising and merchandising to digital and social platforms. Needles (2013) states that; well managed social media sites can create a virtual relationship with existing customers or convince a first-time guest to visit.
According to Odhiambo (2012) in the last couple of years, different kind of social media networking services have emerged and currently there are innumerable social media channels that connect people to each other. The most popular social network sites that are widely used are; Face book, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr. In fact, 2
Facebook, twitter and YouTube are the most common channels companies use in their online marketing for creating brand awareness or just engaging with the customers.
Rouse (2016) states that, ICT is now an umbrella as it makes the world to become a global village through its facilities, devices and applications. Adoption rate and life cycle of established social media sites causes many variance with regards to its usage in various regions of the world, as what is found as popular social media site in China may differ to what is termed as the same term in America and Europe (John and
Seyhmus, 2016).
According to Laura (2014) Restaurants is among the organisations that have great business opportunities that are very difficult to manage with many entrepreneurs, more so if they fail to understand common challenges in the business. But once these challenges are understood the entrepreneurs have high rate of success in the business.
The National Restaurant Association (NRA) (2016) discovered that there were sales of
$782.7b and employment of 14.4m employees in about one million restaurant outlets.
Globally, it is believed that the figure recorded by NRA with regards to U.S. restaurant organizations happened to be among the country’s largest employer of labour, creating job opportunities for 1 in 10 working countrymen.
Great percentage of restaurants all over the world have now channelled their core theme of marketing to customer value, and satisfaction (Dev, Buschman and Bowen, 2010), and advancement in social media technology now resulted to wider links between management and customers. Restaurants in many parts of the world have now realised social media as an effective and good quality management tool for marketing, which 3
makes restaurant organisations to continue their struggle to keep up to date realising consumers rapid adoption of social media. (Chan and Guillet-Denizci, 2011).
In Africa, restaurant business is among the largest economic sectors as it contributed to almost half of the continent’s output in 2015, and many of the African nations are now practicing services-oriented economies (Rouse, 2016). Development in restaurant business has been very efficient in Africa. The restaurant service in Africa is a good source of revenue and jobs opportunities to many countries. In some countries like
South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria almost two third of the employment opportunities are in service sectors as food industry as indicated by Rouse, (2016). In South Africa for instance, food and related organisations revenue generation in 2016 moved upward to
1.4 percent compared with January 2015. Both food and bar sales contributed positive annual growth rates of 1.0 percent and 6.4 percent respectively (Laura, 2014).
According to Africa Business (2015) following 142 new hotel development projects in
Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) in 2014, Ethiopia is ranked among the top 10 largest markets for international restaurant chain developments. North Africa has the largest restaurant development pipeline with a lion share of 41.4% while West Africa with 34.1% closely follows. Nigeria ranks the highest in terms of the number of restaurantss with almost
40%, larger than Morocco which is a favourite of celebrities (Laura, 2014). According to Forster (2015) South Africa has the lowest proportion of developments with just
6.1%. Egypt has fewer hotels but larger properties close to double the average restaurant sizes in Nigeria and Morocco (Africa Business, 2015). However, this has been significantly deteriorating due to the social troubles which scared away investors from
North Africa. This has dampened investment in existing projects and curtailed the 4
number of new deals. Nevertheless, the destinations remained to be one of the most popular African destinations for international travellers in 2013 (Laura, 2014).
In Nigeria, hospitality industry has a lot to offer to the economy as it contributed 1.7% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2015 and the figure rises to 4.8% in 2016, and provided employment to 651,000 in 2015 (1.6% of the total employment) and 661,000 in 2016 (1.6 of the total employment also) (Dutta, 2017). Hospitality and related food organisations are among the contributors to the economy, with an estimated yearly contribution of 200b and providing job to over 500,000 employees in different restaurant outfits across the nation in 2013 (Ekwujuru, 2013). According to Dutta
(2017) Because of its largest economy from many sectors such as oil and gas, agriculture, hospitality and tourism and many others; Nigeria is among the countries with an attractive market for international hotel and restaurants brands. Nigeria is expected to be the fastest-growing country over the next five years (Ekwujuru, 2013).
Despite impediments restricting visitors from visiting the country, many new hotels and restaurants are expected to be built and commissioned within the next five years. The domestic economy in the country is rapidly improving which also lead to faster growth in guest nights and spending in both hotels and restaurants (Adeola and Ezenwafor,
2016). Based on a forecast, it is expected that, the number of available rooms in Nigeria will rise from 9,700 in 2017 to 12,600 in 2022, which will lead to 5.4 percent compound annual increase, this also makes the country to still be the largest in term of expansion of these hospitality products than any country at the time ((Dutta, 2017).
The hospitality industry in Nigeria is one of the industries that boost the country’s economy to be out of recession (Ekwujuru, 2013). The main drivers of hospitality 5
development in Nigeria are restaurants, hotels, business travel, people visiting friends and relatives, meetings and conferences, festivals, cultural events including music and dances and other food outlets (Adeola and Ezenwafor, 2016).Nigerian Hospitality industry’s contribution to the growth of the economy cannot be over emphasize, as through restaurants development, the industry has provided a lot of contributions employment opportunities, infrastructure and help the country’s economy from over dependence on oil sector. (Anim, 2015).
Customer relationship is of utmost importance to restaurant business as the restaurant business heavily relies on human interaction and connection (Rouse, 2016). Although customer relationship management is one of the contributing factors of any restaurant business, most of the restaurants are not fully adopting it (Dev, Buschman and Bowen,
2010). Most restaurants nowadays transact their business with their customers through multiple channels of social media. These channels may include the restaurant website, social network sites, emails and other web-based mediums (Infosys, 2018). Customers review is one of the aspects of business success, and in many restaurants customers experience about their products and services is always posted via the restaurant’s social media sites (Nambisan, 2002). Customers are given opportunity by companies to comment through social media positively or negatively to the product or service the company renders (Bronner & de Hoog 2010). The comments which help customers in getting good products and services from a particular restaurant are made through electronic word of mouth and help customers much in their purchasing decision (Pan
& Chiou 2011).
6
Customer relationship is obtained through social media channels. These channels allow restaurants to obtain important feedback from their customers and gather more information about their clientele (Rouse, 2016). Using a Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) solution for restaurants puts these treasures trove of data to better use. It is not so difficult for restaurant proprietors to put themselves into customers’ shoes because chances are, and they have sat in the customers’ seat themselves.
Sometimes all is needed is to improve customer relationships through identifying and satisfying their expectations, needs and wants (Odhiambo, 2012). A CRM is able to effectively gather information and produce qualitative reports, and provide the restaurant with advanced analysis tools, all under one channel (Nambisan, 2002).
Personalised reports lead to a more personalised experience for your customers, which will lead to having a returned customer. This having a returned customer is is the top priority for any restaurant and other hospitality business. With valuable information such as guest name, address or mobile number, average spending, frequency of visit and meal preferences at the restaurant’s disposal, the restaurant employee is able to better satisfy the needs of the customers (Forster, 2015). Implementing a CRM solution for the restaurant will also readily serve the organisation with all the relevant information about each customer so the restaurant can better track and handle customer complaints (Laura, 2014).
Sigala (2011) states that, because of its critical benefits for business performance, coupled with lack of knowledge of tackling many challenges of restaurant business by many managers, restaurants are experiencing a lot of difficulties to maintain relationships for longer period with their customers on social media and to enrich these with value-added services and community-building. Washinkoon (2015) states that, the 7
biggest problem in achieving online marketing goal is lack of skilled employees, improper use of internet slangs and acronyms, ignoring comments and knee-jack reaction to new technology.
Needles and Garry (2013) states that although many restaurants are using social media, many restaurateurs lack well-defined social media goals, both in terms of the purpose of the restaurants’ social media activities and the target of their social media messages.
Although restaurant operators are generally supportive of the use of social media, many are not certain that social media met one or more of three specific goals, namely, increasing customer and brand loyalty, bringing in new customers, and boosting revenues (Washinkoon, 2015).
While there seems to be agreement that social media marketing is crucial to success, its use is still evolving and can be unclear at times. In trying to bridge these gaps, the present study will assess social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customer’s relationship in Katsina state, Nigeria.
1.2 Problem Statement The hospitality industry tends to be very customer-centric and also one that prides itself by reaching out to its guests and providing a personalized experience. In traditional marketing, our lives are saturated by print media, radio and television (Lodging
Interactive, 2015). The downside of traditional marketing is the high cost and it is a one-way communication. Social media encourages customer engagement, and promotes two-way traffic. It allows for a faster response and a low cost investment than is typically achieved with traditional marketing.
8
Even though there is an increase usage of social media by restaurant managers for their marketing processes (Leung, Lee and Law, 2012) and it is contributing a lot to their business development, restaurants are experiencing a lot of difficulties to maintain relationships for longer period with their customers on social media (Sigala, 2011) coupled with lack of skilled employees, hash jacking, improper use of internet slangs and acronyms, ignoring comments and knee-jack reaction to new technology.
However, by disseminating a lot of information on social media managers of restaurants may feel that they revealed their marketing secret to their competitors which makes its acceptability doubtful to many restaurant organisations (Leung, Lee and Law, 2012).
Customers review is one of the aspects of business success, and customers review with regards to company’s products and services which happened to be of great value to both the customers and the companies are always available via social media (Nambisan,
2002). Customers are given opportunity by companies to comment online positively or negatively to the product or service the company renders (Bronner & de Hoog 2010).
The comments which help customers in getting good products and services from a particular restaurant are made through electronic word of mouth and help customers much in their purchasing decision (Pan and Chiou 2011).
Views and comments by customers about business dictate rise and fall of the business which is the major reason why it is essential for a business to develop good relationship with its customers (Sigala, 2012). Effective communication with customers coupled with tackling their suggestions, views and complaints and regarding them as opportunities for improvement is what is generally termed as customer relationship
(Pan and Crotts, 2012). One of the approaches that help business to grow and develop 9
is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). It provides opportunities for customers to give their comments and suggestion for the progress of the business which in return allowed organisations to know if their customers are satisfied. For business to be on its best status there is need for the business to satisfy its customers. Then use of CRM will always be an advantage for business to overcome competitive problems (Liana, 2014).
According to Needles and Garry (2013) Although many restaurants are using social media, but many restaurateurs lack well-defined social media goals, both in terms of the purpose of the restaurants’ social media activities and the target of their social media messages. This make its acceptability difficult to many restaurants on maintaining good customers’ relationship. As such researches suggest that there are limited studies on social media marketing acceptability by restaurants in maintaining long term relationship with customers in Nigeria, not to mention katsina state. To this end the present study will embark on finding out social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customers’ relationship.
1.3 Purpose of the Study The study aimed to establish the role of social media marketing acceptability on restaurant customers’ relationship in katsina state, Nigeria.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1.3.1 The General Objective The general objective of this study is to investigate social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customer’s relationships in katsina state, Nigeria.
1.3.2 The Specific Objectives Based on the purpose of this study, the following objectives are designed to be achieved. 10
i. To determine the social network sites used by restaurants in creating brand
awareness in katsina state;
ii. To explore the social media consumption in restaurant marketing in creating
customer purchase intention in Katsina State, Nigeria;
iii. To identify the level of Social Media Experience of Restaurant Marketers in
Creating Satisfaction in Katsina State;
iv. To assess employee roles in social media marketing on creating brand
awareness using word of mouth in katsina state;
v. To investigate how regular posts/updates on social media sites help in
creating customer relationship;
1.4 Hypotheses of the Study i. Ho1: There is no association between the Social Network Sites used by
Restaurants and their customers’ relationship; ii. Ho2: There is no association between the Social Media Consumption and
Customers’ Relationship
iii. HO3: There is no association between the Social Media Experience and
Customers’ Relationship iv. Ho4: There is no association between Employee Roles in Social Media and
Customers’ Relationship. v. HO5: There is no association between regular post/update on social media sites and customers’ relationship
1.5 Significance of the Study
Several researches exploring usage of social media in marketing hospitality business in general and restaurant as its sector in particular have been conducted by several 11
researchers ( Lundberg, 2011; Chin and Tsai, 2013; Liana, 2014; Farsani, Sadeghi,
Shafiei, and Sichani, 2015). The studies that focused on restaurants are few and relate mostly with the issues relating to guest needs, satisfaction, service quality and innovation, motivation of personnel and many other factors. Most studies when it comes to marketing are relating generally to hotel most especially those studies carried out in northern Nigeria, and majority focused on Word of Mouth (WOM) form of restaurant marketing. This study is then designed to find out the acceptability of restaurants social media marketing to customer’s relationship in katsina state.
The study will therefore be of significance to hotels, restaurants and other sectors of hospitality industry as they can refer to the findings in some of their related activities.
The findings of this study will also be of importance to both staff and students of hospitality profession as they can use it as a source of literature for different purposes.
Proprietors of restaurant industry is another category that will benefit from the findings of the study with regards to knowing the risk and benefits of using social media in their marketing activities most especially on creating intimate customers relationship.
The study will also be of significance to both students and lecturers of hospitality management, as it will help them to add something to knowledge in many ways.
Solutions to negative perceptions of social media usage by both employees and customers were provided here in.
1.6 Delimitation of the Study Despite diverse sectors attached to the hospitality industry, the study only focused on restaurants. This is regardless of whether chain group restaurants, casual service restaurant, outdoor restaurants, full service restaurants, or takeaway type of restaurant. 12
This is necessary as other studies carried out in the study area concentrated more on hotels especially when the study is on social media marketing.
The study identified the type of social media available in the study area, the ones presently on use by the restaurants and their acceptability as well as their contributions in creating customers relationship with the business. The roles of employees as well as the customers based on their different contributions toward the success of the business were all examined.
1.7 Limitation of the Study The major limitation to this study is obtaining customers details from these restaurants as majority of the restaurants are not using any records system with regards to guests’ particulars unless they are attached to hotels. To this respect a request has to be put in place to all the target restaurants ahead of time, if need be the introductory letter obtained from the University will be taken to the various restaurants. However, since the study area is Katsina State of Nigeria, the findings can be used to all the restaurants in the three zones that make up the state.
1.8 Assumptions of the Study For clear guides to this study, these assumptions are of utmost importance: i. The employees and proprietors of the restaurants to be used for the study have
knowledge about social media marketing. ii. Some restaurants are using very few of the social media sites in marketing their
businesses while majority are not using any. iii. Some restaurants have the perception that the risks and capital involved in using
social media is more than the benefits derived from it. iv. The information obtained from the selected restaurants will represent others. 13
1.9 Conceptual Framework
INDEPENDENT VARIABLES INTERVENING VARIABLES DEPENDENT VARIABLE
Social Media Consumption *Tools in use *Regular Posts/Updates
*Frequency of usage Info-graphics, promotion video, stunning photos *Customers Motivation Social Media Experience *Personal Engagement Effective communication, *Social-Interactive Engagement satisfying their needs,
immediate responses.
Employee Roles in Social Customer Relationship Media *Creating Brand Awareness *Creators *Conversationalists *Purchase Intention *Critics *Collectors *Joiners *Creating Satisfaction *Spectators *In-actives *Word of Mouth
Figure 1.1 Social Media Marketing Factors on Restaurant Customer Relationship Source:- (Adapted and Modified from (Camilla, 2010)
1.9.1 Conceptual Framework of the Study Fig 1.1 above indicated the conceptual framework of the study and it clearly explained the relationship that exists between the independent variable (social media marketing acceptability) and the dependent variables (customer’s relationship). By understanding social media consumption and its factors (tools in use, frequency of usage) the full range of social media marketing acceptability and how it influence customers’ relationship can be effectively managed.(Mangold and Faulds, 2009). The framework posits that social media marketing has direct influence on restaurant and their customers’ relationship. Social Exchange Theory was adopted here, as the restaurants are lacking 14
many resources to make social media marketing acceptable which are available to others. The theory is of the view that when there is scarcity of any resource people get involve in exchange with what they have in order to possess what they are lacking from others (Homans, 1961). It shows that social media consumption, social media experience and customer’s roles in social media are all antecedents to product awareness, word of mouth, purchase intention and satisfaction with social media
(Predictors of customer relationship) (Camilla, 2010). When all the necessary social media consumption factors, social media experience factors and employee role factors are obtained by the restaurants, the next is how to utilize it to be meaningful for social media marketing; as such Psychological Ownership Theory was adopted here. The theory states that, information communicated by friends and relatives is construed to be more credible, honest, and trustworthy than that generated from marketers, since the communicators are not compensated for the referral Ashtryan and Oh, 2008). It further explains that regular posting/updates as well as customer’s motivation mediates the two variables relationships. As the social media marketing factors and the mediators are all obtained, what remains is the relationship between the restaurants and their customers.
At this point social penetration theory was adopted to explain how relationship develops between individuals. The theory stated that as relationship develop, interpersonal communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper more intimate ones (Keller, 2009).
1.10 Study Variables The study was based on themes that revolved around social media marketing acceptability; restaurants, and the customers’ relationship. 15
1.10.1 Independent Variables The independent variables were social media marketing acceptability among restaurants, included the social media consumption which was measured based on tools in use and frequency of usage; social media experience measured based on personal engagement and social interactive engagement; employee role on social media which was measured based on creators, conversationalist, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and in-actives.
1.10.2 Intervening Variables The intervening variables related to the social media acceptability. This included regular post/update which was measured using info-graphics, promotion video and stunning photos; customers’ motivation which was measured using effective communication, satisfying customers’ needs and immediate response to their posts.
1.10.3 Dependent Variables The dependent variable was customers’ relationship. It was measured to test the level of its relationship with the independent variables. Customer relationship dimension included creating brand awareness, purchase intention, creating satisfaction and word of mouth. The dependent variable was measured against the independent variables which were social media consumption, social media experience and employee role on social media. The intervening variable (regular post/update) was used to measure the moderating effect between the dependent variable customer relationship and social media marketing acceptability. Social media marketing acceptability dimensions included brand awareness by customer through the social media, making his purchase intention, creating satisfaction with the medium and showing his full acceptability to the restaurant when in direct visit to the organisation. 16
1.11 Organization of Study This Thesis flows on the following structure. Chapter 1 gives a general introduction, describes the problem statement, the objectives and questions of the research, relevance of this research and the outline of the study. Chapter 2 deals with the empirical and theoretical framework on social media marketing, customer relationship, and the general context of regular post /update. Chapter 3 deals with the research methodology employed during data collection, area of the study, fieldwork, sampling and its techniques, as well as data analysis procedures; and logistical considerations. Chapter
4 deals with findings, results and interpretation, and discussions of findings. Chapter 5 captures with the summary of results, conclusions and recommendations. Finally this thesis presents the references and appendices.
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction Research is carried out in order to add something to knowledge or provide solutions to problems in different areas. Therefore in doing a new study, the researcher has to look at other works that have been done in the area on which the work is based upon (Osa- odeh and Aluta, 2011). This chapter is set to review the findings of several work already carried out by other researchers in this related problem of study. It discusses social media marketing acceptability and its application among restaurant on customers’ relationship. It further discusses social media consumption, social media experience and employee role on social media to restaurants marketing and how they are used for creating relationship with customers. The chapter, however, focused much attention with research findings related to restaurants social media marketing acceptability toward guests’ relationship.
The chapter specifically focuses on details about the restaurant organizations which shade light generally about the organisation and its divisions. Further, it focused about the variables of the study, where social media and marketing were discussed as well as how social media is applied to restaurant marketing in creating guest relationship.
Discussion about the theories related to the study follows, and the chapter was concluded with a summary of the research gaps.
2.1 Social Media Marketing and Customer Relationship
2.1.1 Concept of Social Media Marketing
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As today’s business relied solely on sharing information and generation of content, many social media platforms are developed to ease the process in an online context
(Chen, Xu, and Whinston, 2011). Social Media sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook,
YouTube and Twitter helps a lot in facilitating many marketing activities and different people employed different social media tools to communicate online with other users.
These tools may include online forums and communities, rating and reviews, and recommendations. In fact, individuals are attracted online to exchange information and receive social support (Ridings and Gefen 2004).
Customers review is one of the aspects of business success and customers review with regards to company’s products and services which happened to be of great value to both the customers and the companies are always available via social media (Nambisan,
2002). Customers are given opportunity by companies to comment online positively or negatively to the product or service the company renders (Bronner and de Hoog 2010).
The comments which help customers in getting good products and services from a particular restaurant are made through electronic word of mouth and help customers much in their purchasing decision (Pan and Chiou 2011).
According to Divya and Bulomin (2014), Social media is of utmost importance as it normally sells the business words out and provides the opportunity to organisations to increase their relationship with their customers. According to Chan and Gillet (2011)
Customers who uses Facebook , Twitter, LinkedIn and other social network sites are people who may likely have done business with the organization in one way or the other and once they are satisfied may likely sell the organisation’s products and services to 19
family and friends. Social media have the advantage of strengthening relationships between customers and businesses through its connections.
Elton and Azeta (2016) are of the view that many companies now used the internet for different purposes as introducing, advertising and even trading their new products and services. Many companies across the world nowadays take the advantage of the internet to sell their products and services to either individual or group customers or even to other companies. Companies with effective and efficient internet facilities in different parts of the world are valued by their customers as a “store open 24 hours a day.” E- commerce enables companies to have with relatively low-cost more customers. The importance and viability of the social media make it very imperative to be adopted by restaurants that strive to better serve their customers. Based on the attributes above, the present study will focus attention on social media marketing and its acceptability among restaurants on customers’ relationship in katsina state, Nigeria.
2.1.2 Customer Relationship According to Sigala (2012) Customer relations are acts and processes by which a business improves and develops, creates, establishes, and maintains relationships with its respective customers. Action of customers about certain business dictates rise and fall of the business which is the major reason why it is essential for a business to develop a good relationship with its customers. Effective communication with customers coupled with tackling their suggestions, views and complaints and regarding them as opportunities for improvement is what is generally termed as customer relationship
(Pan and Crotts, 2012). There are assumptions by many scholars according to Sigala
(2012) that, uplifting your customers to the centre of your marketing activities which 20
among others includes pricing and quality of your product as well as product design is one of the greatest factors of creating positive customer relationship.
In today’s global world, for many restaurants to be above their competitors, to be recognized and establish a good reputation in the industry, they adopted customer relationship as one of their major strategy. As customers are the main reason why the business is functioning, customer relationship is therefore, way on how customers are interact, managed, and dealt with in order to have returned ones (Liana, 2014).
Infosys (2018) measured customer relationship using variables such as customer expectation, perceptions, emotions, customer history, belief and communication. They found that there were increase in customer retention, increase in orders per customer per year, increase in average spending per visit, increase in multi product sales, increase in week day’s sales, increase in patronage of fast visit customers, and increase patronage of new customers through referral by existing customers. For Software as a
Service (SaaS) companies variables such as churn rates, closure rates, product usage, retention percentage and recurring revenue were used to measure their customer relationship, and it was identified that these variables offer great insight into customer loyalty and brand awareness.
The findings of Padmavathy and Sivakumar (2016) on the influence of customer relationship revealed five dimensions for customer relationship management effectiveness, namely; organizational commitment, customer experience, process‐ driven approach, reliability and technology‐orientation. Three among the five factors namely; Organizational commitment, process‐driven approach and reliability were 21
found to have positive effect on customer satisfaction. The Reliability factor on the other hand was identified to have a significant relationship with customer patronage on company product and both customer satisfaction and loyalty‐influenced cross‐buying by customers.
According to Prachi (2018) Customers are identified to be the backbone and most important part of any business that is profit oriented. Satisfied customers on the hand patronises company’s products and will also refer and influences other customers to buy. Companies normally measure customer satisfaction on their products in order to maintain long term relationship with them. He adopted Market survey as a tool to measure customer relationship, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. His findings revealed that the tool is important on increasing Customer Loyalty,
Satisfaction, Customer Behaviour, Response, Service, Customer Compensation and
Customer Needs. This tool furnishes the above related information not only with accuracy but also with their future aspects which is a very important asset for business perspectives.
According to Bone (1995) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is centered toward providing good customer service, and help business with high customers turnover in order to have high return on the investment. Some of the characteristics of
CRM that constitute the needs of varying customers are: it is a system that the business with various strategies on how the products can be promoted; it also monitors the analysis of the customers by sales using data technology. Technology has shown a tremendous advantage through its functions on various businesses progress. It helps
CRM to become easy and simple for the customers’ satisfaction. Management for 22
greater opportunity is essential to help managing the great demand and growth of the customers’ needs to monitor the progress of the company. The company is able to relate the previous history of sales to the present for them to know if they progress or remain the same.
Develop and improves their relationship to their clients. It is important that companies should have established a good relationship with the customers that can greatly affect their business status and also for promoting their kind of business whether through word-of-mouth or social media. Word-of-Mouth is a factor used to determine the position of a customer to organizations’ products or services. In hospitality industry one of the important component of marketing strategy whether social or mass media is the positive word-of-mouth from the customers (Bowen and Shoemaker, 2003; Oh, 2002).
According to Bone (1995) Word-of-Mouth is the type of inter-personal communications in which the participants are not part of the marketing sources.WOM is defined as interpersonal communications in which none of the participants are marketing sources (Bone, 1995). This is where a particular restaurant customer shares his positive experience about the restaurant with his friends, family, neighbors, and relatives with a full intention of influencing them to patronise.
Sell processing is easier and faster. It is important for the company to sell their product easier and faster. CRM would help them to get information about the needs of the customers. By this, they would be able to know what to offer that would help them solve the needs of the clients. CRM supports the business. It makes the business stay strong and progressive because it makes the relationship to the customers firm. 23
Customers are able to build trust on the company because they have given the chance to be entertained by supporting their needs (Bowen and Shoemaker, 2003; Oh, 2002).
According to Bone (1995) Customer Relationship Management is just one of the many approaches in making a certain business progressive. CRM makes the customers feel that they are also free to give their comments and suggestion for the betterment of the company and for them to know if they satisfy the needs of the customers in a good way.
Satisfying the customers would also be one of the many reasons why their business is always on its best status. Then use of CRM will always be an inevitable strategy to stand out of the competition.
2.1.3 Brand Awareness
Various studies explained the importance of brand awareness (Prachi, 2018), as well as the importance of brand awareness in the perception of brand loyalty (Bone, 1995).
Divya and Bulomin (2014) defines brand awareness as the level of acceptance of particular product in the customer’s mind. There are other scholars who stated that it means level at which a product name is known, which is not concerned with brand class but based on perceptual frequency (Pan and Chiou 2011). Needles and Garry (2013) are of the view that brand awareness consisted of brand recognition and brand recall, among which the brand recognition serves as the first step for brand communication, that is, a business builds a brand name that it associate with and remind people of the features of the products of the business, in order to spread and share this knowledge.
Therefore, brand awareness plays important role in the occurrence of communication process (Washinkoon, 2015). Without brand awareness, a company might not have a means of effective communication to its respective customers. When customers are lacking a product knowledge and familiarity, they may likely buy in the absence of 24
popular brand. This is because consumers are always trying to minimize risk of buying substandard products.
According to Hoyer and Brown (2015) in any business, building a brand to attract new customers and maintain their loyalty is one of the concrete marketing strategies. The restaurant organisation is no exceptional. Because of the importance of customer loyalty, marketing managers and executives devote a lot of time and resources to building brand awareness and creating ongoing, interconnected campaigns. These marketing efforts usually include both print materials such as menus, brochures and tariffs; and digital collateral/social media that target former guests while also sourcing new clientele. However, the restaurant industry has a unique set of challenges that must be overcome if success is at all the target. Understanding the unique features of marketing in the industry can help proprietors get ahead of their competitors and stand still in the competitive market (Prachi, 2018). If a product is not known to customers, it will be difficult for them to patronise it (Zaltman, 2014), and this is the strength of brand awareness. Marketers of hospitality products and services make sure information on the products such as hotels and destinations is up-to-date and very easy to access.
They do this through various means of mass, traditional and social medias or through consultation to noncompeting hospitality services in the same market (Yoo, Donthu and
Lee, 2015).
One of the indicators of customers’ knowledge about a company’s product or service is brand awareness. It also indicates the level of acceptance of a brand in the consumers’ minds and how easily that knowledge can be retrieved from memory (Zaltman, 2014).
It is the probability that consumers will easily recognize the existence and availability 25
of a company’s product or service in the market (Yoo, Dolthy and Lee, 2015). B rand awareness is divided into two types, namely ‘aided awareness’ and ‘top of the mind awareness’ (Hoyer and Brown, 2015). Where a customer is provided with list of different product names, and he/she was able to identify/recognize the particular brand, this is termed as Aided awareness. But where the name of a brand is automatically recollected because the consumer very promptly associates the brand with the product category, it is termed as top of the mind awareness (Divya and Bulomin, 2015). Beside the differences that exist, all the types of brand awareness are important in their application. Moreover, brand awareness provides consumers the opportunity to testify that they have come across a particular product, and this is termed as brand recognition.
It also provides consumers the ability to immediately identify a particular brand when given the product category, category need or some other similar cue such as brand logos
(Huang and Sarigollu, 2012).
Brand awareness help consumers in their decision-making regarding purchase of a particular product in many ways. For example, consumers may use brand awareness as a nominal anchor in their purchase decisions (Hoyer and Brown, 2015). When consumers know a particular brand of product, they tend to include that name in their personal consideration set (MacDonald and Sharp, 2000). It aids a consumer to understand which product or service category a particular brand belongs to and what products and services are sold under the brand name (De Chernatony and Segal-Horn
2003). This suggests that a well-known brand by consumers is likely to perform better in the marketplace than a lesser-known brand that is not marketed well or is newly produced (Yoo, Donthu and Lee 2000). Brand awareness therefore has the effect of increasing brand market performance (Huang and Sarigöllü 2012). These insights 26
demonstrate that brand awareness is also an important contributor to the purchase decisions of consumers and it help in the company and their customers’ relationship.
2.1.4 Purchase Intention
Individual’s perception about the performance of a particular product or service when coupled with his/her expectation is termed as customer satisfaction (Vila and Ampuero,
2014). The concept of customer satisfaction is a function of customer expectations.
Where customer experience about the product or service falls below his/her expectations (e.g. lack of skilled employee in a first class restaurant, a limited beverage list at an expensive restaurant, lack of conducive environment or cold chicken served at a KFC) will be dissatisfied (Underwood, Klein, and Burke, 2001). However, in a situation where customer’s experiences match his/her expectations, then he/she will be satisfied; but where customer’s expectations exceeds (e.g. by small samples of delicious food “from the Chef” served between courses at an expensive restaurant, or a well-designed play area for children at a McDonald’s outlet) will be very satisfied or delighted (Vila and Ampuero, 2014). Besides, the degree of satisfaction provided by the goods or services of a firm as measured by the number of repeated customers (Leon and Leslie, 2006). As for many mature companies, high quality service is a cornerstone to its success and to gain competitive advantage. Intense competition and high quality expectation from consumer have forced restaurant industry to transform from a product- centric approach to a customer-centric approach (Pan and Crott, 2014).
Intention to repurchase a particular product by consumers depends on their satisfaction about the product in their previous purchase. "Knowledge of the customer's preference about a product, how his/her needs and wants can be known and how to provide solution 27
to it better and faster than competitors, becomes an important duty to perform by restaurant employees (Leon and Leslie, 2006). Future purchase intention to a product by customer is evaluated based on the experience obtained from previous transaction with relationship benefits being a proxy for expectations of future benefits (Chu,
Kuang, and Chung, 2000),
The tendencies of repurchase intention are usually obtained from surveys of current customers assessing their tendency to purchase the same brand, same product/service, from the same company. Cronin, Brady and Hult (2000) has treated “behavioral intentions” and “repurchase intention” and as synonymous constructs. Leon and Leslie
(2006) defined “future behavioral intentions” as the future propensity of a customer to continue or to stay with their service provider, while some researchers have used the term “customer retention” to describe the phenomena with this definition. Repurchase intention is the person’s judgment about purchasing a product again after the previous purchase in the same company and for the same product (Chu, Kuang, and Chung,
2000), The purpose why customers decide to choose the same company and purchase the same product/service is on the basis of their past purchasing experiences.
Repurchase intention involves personal judgment of individual about the same company that satisfies his/her needs and an evaluation of present service situation
(Robledo, 2012). Fornell (2007) suggested that customers repurchase intention is essentially the most important concept of in marketing. It is the core concept of customer loyalty which is generally considered to be one of the best measurements of customer constancy and it is one of the ways to examine buyer loyalty behaviour.
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Customer's purchase intention as opined by Kotler and Keller (2012) is the willingness to buy products from a particular company. Online purchase intention is the customers’ desire to purchase a product or service through the social media channel (Vila and
Ampuero, 2014). There are many factors that will urge customer purchasing intention especially during product selection and decision making (Fornell, 2007). According to
McDonald and Sharp (2000), customers will make a purchasing decision when they purchase any product or service. After they identify their demand, a customer will start to search for the product or service through person, online, word of mouth and more.
After searching, they will evaluate and choose the product and service based on factors such as price, quality and more before they make purchases. The customer will continue to evaluate the product after they make a purchase for a next purchasing decision (Vila and Ampuero, 2014). According to Kotler and Keller (2014) customer purchasing intention is very important in every industry as it is one of the primary inputs that industry uses to forecast sales and to decide the influence of business decisions on customers’ purchasing behaviour. As purchase intention is not perfect to measure on customer behaviour, to retain customer, company needs to know when is to depend on them and how best to use them (McDonald and Sharp, (2000).The steps of purchasing intentions are translated into purchasing behaviour. The customer behaviour towards on the product will influence their purchasing intention (Pan and Crott, 2012), and restaurant industry also no exception. Restaurant industry has a very highly competitive environment so they need to understand customer purchasing behaviour to increase the customer purchasing intention to minimize the gap between restaurant industry and customer (Cronin, Brady and Hult, 2000).
2.1.5 Customer Satisfaction
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If there is any place where customers are likely to be paying attention to the type of service they receive, it is within the hospitality industry. From restaurants to hotels and everything in between, the job of a hospitality service provider is to maintain customer happiness and satisfaction (Underwood, Klein and Burke, 2001). Employees in the restaurant and other hospitality sectors are to keep their customers at the forefront of their operational plans to hold their business afloat. Serving people is the foremost activity in restaurant and other hospitality sectors, and being expertly served is the reasonable expectation of the guests (Rust and Chung, 2006). How far employees of the restaurant and other hospitality sectors go to create customer satisfaction determines the level of success for restaurant and other hospitality business (McDonald and Sharp,
2000). Customer satisfaction is not just about service when the other elements that round out customers' experience are adequately addressed, customer satisfaction should be high (Sigala, 2012).
According to Kotler and Keller (2014) upgrading your staff's customer service skills is essential, and "Customer service" is a broad term encompassing everything from friendly and professional greetings to being available at any moment to capably assist a customer. It implies serving the customer in a warm and inviting manner. Customer service begins the moment he/she calls your business, either to make a reservation for a particular station in a restaurant, accommodation or to gather information (Sigala,
2012). High quality service means meeting and exceeding your customers' expectations to feel warmly welcomed. There is no industry that relies quite so much on customer satisfaction as restaurant and other hospitality sectors (McDonald and Sharp, 2000).
Keeping guests, patrons, and visitors happy is how services in this sector find their success. Attracting the most people is key, with venues becoming more and more 30
competitive, finding new and exciting ways to keep levels of customer engagement at their highest (Sigala, 2012).
According to Pan and Crott (2012), the main difficulty facing most industries is the ability to continue satisfying their customers while at the same time making huge profits. Competition puts pressure on many restaurant hotel services providers to provide quality services. Moreover, competition enhances many innovations that are focused on satisfying customers. Along these lines, it is important for restaurants to come up with their own unique ways to meet the needs of their customers while at the same time making ample profits (Liana, 2014). As indicated by Infosys (2018), the employees play a major role in ensuring that customer needs are met. A successful employee evaluation project will ensure that the restaurant management streamlines the conduct of employees while serving customers. Therefore, managers should use the feedback from customers to assess the competency of the employees. Moreover, such information could be used to define the elements of an ideal employee (Liana, 2014).
Pan and Crott (2012) proposed another inspecting method that can enhance the quality of services offered by restaurants. The evaluation technique is based on the responsiveness of employees when it comes to handling customer requests. They suggest that measuring the responsiveness of an employee is a good way to monitor the effectiveness of employees in terms of the speed service delivery. In this way, customers will feel that their needs are met in time. Responsiveness can also show the restaurant’s commitment to customer request and willingness to act on issues that may cause dissatisfaction (Liana, 2012). It is worth noting that satisfaction is relative to different customers. As indicated by many researchers, some customers may not appreciate some services as much as others would (Prachi, 2018). Subsequently, 31
cultural differences may prompt the restaurant to customize their services to fit the cultural practices of a specific customer (Pan and Crott, 2012).
2.3 Theoretical Framework
Referring to customer orientation in the 90s, advancement in technology like the internet has transformed this type of marketing, which lead to a new marketing approach in the 21st century which is based on society, network and information (Achrol and Kotler, 1999). Today, as part of data-driven marketing (Dev et al., 2010), SM is now an umbrella, with a wide coverage and rich insights from the various special interest groups engaged in hospitality and other related field. However, minute hospitality and related businesses uses the opportunities provided by Social Media gadgets to improve their business performance that lead to Psychological Ownership theory and perceived control (Sigala, 2011).
2.3.1 Psychological Ownership theory and perceived control
This study proposes a new framework for identifying customer-company relationship formation and investigates how customers form psychological ownership toward a company/brand. Psychological Ownership theory and perceived control which was cited by Crott, 1999 and Perdue, 1993; was adopted, which states that the information communicated by friends and relatives is construed to be more credible, honest, and trustworthy than that generated from marketers, since the communicators are not compensated for the referral. Growth and development in internet and related technologies have allowed customers to access information about problems and achievements from different angles such as friends and family as well as from other chance guest. 32
Asatryan and Oh (2008) adopted Psychological Ownership Theory in explaining the main reason why former guests are motivated to give feedbacks about their experience during their stay in the organisation. Some guests who are loyal to some organisations create feelings of connections using certain language and terminologies that manifest into a sense of ownership. Building long-term successful customer relationships is becoming increasingly important and challenging in today's competitive marketplace.
The hospitality industry's maturity and increasing global competition, coupled with the spread of innovative products, appear to undermine managers' efforts to maintain lasting company-customer relationships. Nevertheless, the effects of long-term customer relationships on the success of hospitality businesses have been notable.
Long-term customer interactions have been shown to affect the bottom line of hospitality enterprises, as managers have realized that recruiting a new customer costs
5-10 times as much as retaining an existing customer. Other benefits of relationship marketing include lower marketing and transaction costs, increased sales volume per customer, and lower cost and reduced risk of introducing new products by pre-testing on a "core group" of customers (Ashtryan and Oh, 2008). A continuous relationship with a company also implies loyalty and results in better financial performance in that a 2% increase in customer retention has been reported to result in a 10% decrease in overhead costs. It was found by Astryan and Oh (2008) that a 5% increase in customer retention yielded 25 to 125% increase in profits for various industries. Thus, relationship marketing, customer retention, and customer commitment remain important goals to marketers.
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Mattila, (2001) opined that, where these categories of guest who normally sell organisation to the outside world and telling management their short-comings are missing, there may be a desire to control or influence the business indirectly by communicating with its future potential customers. According to Pierce, Kostova, and
Dirks, (2003), the desire by the consumer to control through such communications may result in feelings of efficacy, intrinsic pleasure, and extrinsic satisfaction in providing such advice to others.
2.3.2 Social Exchange Theory
Social Exchange theory as formulated by Homans (1961) states that individuals engage in behaviours they find rewarding and avoid behaviours that have too high a cost. In other words, all social behaviour is based on each actor’s subjective assessment of the cost-benefit of contributing to a social exchange. The Theory is of the view that when there is scarcity of any resource people get involve in exchange with what they have in order to possess what they are lacking from others. The theory explains that when an individual is in need of resources which are in other parties’ possession then he voluntarily provides/supplies rewarding products/services to these parties in order to have what is in their possession, and it is left for them to decide what the return shall be. However, the services rendered by organisation at their initial contact with consumers is influenced by expected return and sometimes bear the risk of rejection of the offer itself and failure to reciprocate and enter into friendly relationship from other.
Do to afore mentioned, social exchange requires trusting other to reciprocate.
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The theory was adopted because of its relevance of finding the categories of products and services that restaurants possessed which will be of value to different types of customers that are patronizing them. These restaurants have the products and services to render (in need of return from the customers), while the customer needs the products and services they in return pays for them to the proprietors of the restaurants.
2.3.3 Social Penetration Theory
This theory was formulated in 1973 by Altman and Taylor to provide understanding of the closeness between individuals, which suggests that as relationship start, communication moves from simple, non-complex levels to extremely more complex ones. This theory shades light on people self-disclosure as the core of relationship development, which is based upon revealing layers about oneself in order to build more intimate relationship. Based on this theory, relationships develop as social penetration happens.
The theory explains how non-intimate relationships progress to intimate relationship because of self-disclosure which at the end postulates personal information can significantly change to evolution relationship. It further explains that, for there to be an increase in depth and breadth of self-disclosure in relationship, there are factors as; perceived reward and cost of the disclosure, span of time used on engaging with relationship colleague, environment and commitment which are in control.
Social Penetration Theory postulates that evaluation and forcast relating to future interaction always exist once there is conversation between two or more individuals
(Altman & Taylor, 1973). A question about satisfaction with the relationship is raised 35
through evaluation such as, is it happier experience? Did unwanted thing that make one party to quit the relationship happen? Where one or both the individuals agreed with former interaction as enjoyable, the benefits of a follow up is agreed to be higher than the cost. This is what leads to the forecast—based on the evaluation (favourable, unfavourable, uncertain) individuals involved in the interaction will decide whether or not future encounters are “worth it”—was the unfavourable perception caused by something that could be prevented in the future, or is it impossible to overcome? Is the uncertainty worth the risk?
Altman and Taylor (1973) opined that where evaluation and forecast are seen as benefiting for a party, they can then agree for the relationship to move further. Where later things change to be the reverse, the theory then suggests that the relationship will either “slow down” (never moving past the stage it is in) or begin to dissolve, leading to depenetration as the costs outweigh the rewards (Altman & Taylor, 1973).
This theory was therefore adopted in this study to explain how relationships are developed between restaurants and their customers and how the factors afore mentioned can be put in place to maintain and increase the breadth and depth of the intimacy of the relationship.
2.4 Social Media Consumption
The importance of Social Media to marketing business nowadays cannot be over emphasized as it has enriched eWOM platforms, despite the role it plays in easing information sharing in different aspects of life due to its various means of connecting 36
customers to businesses (Sigala and Chalkiti, 2012). Today, SM tools have been developed from just simple tools and facilities of a single user to wider online communities and from video-sharing sites (YouTube) to general knowledge-sharing site (Leung et al., 2013). This development in social media sites increases the opportunities for hotels, restaurants and other hospitality sectors to interact and engage with their new and existing customers actively (Sigala, 2012).
Palmer and Lewis (2009) stated that, traditional media is now experiencing a lot of decline in both business and popularity due to the acceptance social media is gaining over the past few years. They pinpointed that some traditional medias are facing lots of down turn in their profit and this led to total closure of some. They found that businesses are moving their advertising to what will help them reach majority of their target customers. Today’s buyers are tech savvy and social media maniacs.
According to Richard (2015) Users normally create a profile via Social Media
Platforms such as WahtsApp, Facebook and LinkedIn, Blogs and Micro-Blogs in order to access list of connections. However, Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, Reddit, Instagram and much more are sites which fall under the umbrella of broad term called social media.
Liana (2014) states that a study was conducted in 2012 by Naylor, Lamberton, and West which their findings indicated that in 2011 about 83% of active 500 organisations adopted some form of online forms of marketing in reaching their target customers. The study findings suggest that customers are increasingly putting more emphasis on social media to research brands. The finding clearly indicated that social media websites were 37
becoming a vital part in many businesses and branding and businesses are advised to implement it in order to better reach consumers.
Fauser, Wiedenhofer, and Lorenz (2011) are of the view that despite communication is the key role of social media networks, not all social media platforms posses all the marketing advantages due to the fact that many platforms are not equally well suited for interaction, discussions, and even for relationships creation. According to
Gummesson (2002) long-term relationship between customers and staff in a particular business is always developed and maintained through interaction normally started by the owners of the business. While Janal (1998) opined that, business owners normally initiated and created their personal online account and their employees lead the discussion based on their positions in the business and on social media marketing.
2.4.1 Tools in Use
According to Steve (2018), nowadays, businesses are shifting their marketing processes from mass to social media as most companies’ products and services have one or more online presence rather than on a boardroom. Social Network platforms including
Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat to mention few, are now mediums of conducting businesses globally, where customer bases are created and products and services are advertised. Presence of businesses on these flat forms created a lot of competitive advantage as it puts pressure on companies to try their possible best to see that they are above their competitors in the market.
In today’s marketing society, marketing personnel in most companies doesn’t have to do it alone in trying to see that their products are at the top in the marketing. There are 38
newly developed applications that are effective and efficient in making online marketing intuitive and lucrative. These applications among others include; SocialDrift,
Buffer, Sendible, Storyheap, Unsplash, Canva, nTuitive.social, Grytics, Yotpo,
Agorapulse, Buzzsumo, Octopost, Quuu, IFTT, Qwaya, Meetedger, TweetDeck,
RivalIQ, Animoto, Socedo, Narrow, Grum, Post planner, Wordswag (Steve, 2018).
According to Agnihotri et al., (2012) Vast number of companies worldwide accepted social media as low cost, faster, viable, effective and efficient marketing tool.
Marketing staff in many organizations who are involved with promoting the company brands and marketing strategies are using social media as a marketing tool due to its prospect to achieving marketing objectives.
2.4.2 Frequency of Usage
According to Brell et al. (2016) Social media has grown above expectation and is no longer in its infancy. Globally, Social media networking is providing consumers’ new, meaningful and powerful ways to interact with each other regarding events, products and services from businesses that matter to them. Lenhart (2009) Consumers are now spending much of their time on social media networks than mass media categories.
According to Jennifer (2010) in most parts of the world people of different age and gender spent roughly 20 percent of their total time online using personal computer and
30 percent of total time online via a mobile. For example, in the United States, hours used by individuals on social media using personal computers and mobile devices increased 37 percent from 88 billion minutes in July, 2011 to 121 billion minutes in
July, 2012.
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Brell et al. (2016) opined that, the recent increase and adoption of mobile devices and connectivity worldwide helped fuel the continued growth of social media. However, personal desktop and laptop computers remain as the predominant device for social media access. The time spent by consumers with social media on mobile applications and the mobile web has now increased 63 percent from 2011 to 2012. There are many social media networks which consumers are using in interacting and communicating with each other and the sites are adding social features, or integrations. Jennifer (2010) is of the view that, while Facebook and Twitter continue to be among the most popular social networks, WhatsApp has proved as one of the featuring stars in social media for
2012, based on time spent of any social network across personal computers, mobile web and applications.
Jennifer (2010) states that ten countries across the World were sampled in measuring the global average time spent per person on social networking sites, and it was identified that, is now nearly five and a half hours per month (February 2010 data), with
WhatsApp accounting for the highest time spent. While ranking the countries based on time spent, Italy tops the table with social network time per person just less than six and a half hours per month (6:27:53), and Australia came second (6:02:34). The United
States was ranked third with the average person spending just over six hours (6:02:34) on social media networks (jennifer, 2010).
According to Murray and James (2011) Facebook and WhatsApp are the major social network sites adopted by many people in most countries worldwide and accounts for nearly six hours (5:52:00) and (5:56:00) respectively per person with the average user logging in more than 19 and 20 times respectively per month. This indicated that the 40
time spent on Facebook and WhatsApp is almost five hours longer than the time spent on Myspace (0:59:33) (Liana, 2014).
However, the present study will pay attention on identifying the present network sites restaurants in the study area are using and advice on the advanced forms that are currently on use in globally.
2.5 Social Media Experience
Sarah (2016) stated that criticism was one of the factors that are very difficult to bear in business but once over come helps business to become better and stronger. Now, unhappy and happy customers’ complaints and criticism are increasingly being channeled to get on board through the social media platforms, such as Facebook and
Twitter so that the complaints are controlled and prevented from going viral. According to Ravi (2015) where an organization is responding quickly and appropriately to customer’s complaints and comment, it has a good chance of having customer’s retention and loyalty. The research findings of Ravi (2015) indicated that satisfied customers of up to 71% advertise the organization’s products to others in contrast to
19% customers who don’t get a response as it is believed that an organization satisfy all their respective customers through social media. According to Richard (2015)
Restaurant proprietors as operators of profit oriented organizations need to improve in their services so as to attract, engage, retain, obtain feedback from and relate to customers and the whole cannot come to reality without understanding consumers.
According to Hose (2017) Consumers are the backbone of any business success and meeting consumers’ needs is one of the major targets of any business strategy. Realising 41
customers’ advantages by a company at all stages of its marketing process helps the company to provide customer satisfaction which in turn help the company to have return customers for continues patronage.
Customers in the service industry often co-create services rendered by service companies (Bowen, 1990; Mills, Chase, & Marguiles, 1986; Lengnick-Hall, 1996).
Customer participation in the company’s activity is viewed as "the extent to which the customers take part in creating and delivering the service" (Dabholkar, 1990,).
Lengnick-Hall (1996) suggested that "co-production enables customers to shape the service encounter," reflecting influence of the customer over the delivery process of the services. According to Bitner, Faranda, Hubbert, and Zeithaml (1997) Depending on the nature of service rendered by a hotel, restaurant or other hospitality sector, level of customer participation and interaction with tangible and intangible attributes of service delivery varies. Customers’ participation to service of a particular company is needed in three stages; low level, as enjoying just the movies played in the restaurant television, moderate level as placing order in a restaurant, and high level as helping the company in advertisement to achieve result.
These three participation stages are further categorised by Claycomb, Lengnick-Hall, and Inks (2001) into three dimensions; attendance, where the customer presence is needed at the point of service as in a particular station in a restaurant; information provision, where the customer provides the restaurant or customer with an information that will benefit them either to improve or in their service or that will help the customer in his purchase intention; and co-production, where customer became family to the company to the extent of helping the company in its service delivery. According to
Oliver (1997) Many organisations now understand that customer participation is 42
contributing positively to the organizations’ service quality and customer satisfaction, reduces cost and increases efficiency of the organisation in the eyes of its customers and competitors.
2.5.1 Personal Engagement with Social Media
An engagement is any meaningful communication, conversation or interaction with your product from a follower or social media user (Richard, 2015). Generally, they come in the form of likes, comments or shares. The word “engagement” in the world of social media marketing, comprises of many things, but few marketers of brands and products know how to achieve it. Engagement is not easy to develop as there are instances where marketers may engage to pursue the low-effort game of tweeting,
‘gramming, feeding Facebook, and Linkedin-ing updates about products, services and educational content, but see little result (Hose, 2017).
According to Sarah (2016) Level of your personal engagement coupled with the frequency and rate of how your followers are actively contributing to your social media presence is the main predictor of social media marketing process for your organization.
Your personal social media engagement counts tell you the rate of involvement of your followers/customers at your hand rather than your actual follower counts, which could represent an ambivalent audience. Both the two is sign indicating you are doing things right and an increased likelihood of profitable activity among your followers, including visiting your site and buying products from your organization.
When you are using different social media flat forms either for yourself for your establishment, you should put it at the back of your mind that the best rate varies by a platform (Richard, 2015). It is advisable to commit yourself to posting semi-frequently 43
on every platform you use; as frequent update on your flat form is a good indicator that you are active (Hose, 2017). Posting several times a day to few times a week entices more engagement and also gives followers/customers more opportunities and prompts to engage you with. According to Ravi (2015) where your personal engagement with social media reaches certain level and you want more engagement from customers and other individuals because of a new product, you will need to make sure you write and post to your various social media flat forms in a personal and approachable voice as well.
According to Jayson (2018), In the process of maintaining a good relationship and increasing your followers, you try to pay attention to other accounts such as that of your competitors and identify high engaging followers that are conversationists on their profiles and follow them. There is the tendency that they will appreciate your content, therefore, follow and engage with you (Alfred, 2017). As it is hard to get engagements during the early stages of development for a new account, you may ask your friends, family and co-workers for early support. So it is advisable to consider enlisting the help of the people you already know to get your first rounds of likes, shares, and comments
(Jayson, 2018).
Alfred (2017) is of the view that personal engagement with social media these days gave room for more and more brands to interact with consumers through the online social media flat forms. Products and services from industries, therefore feel the pressure of the ever-expanding requirement to interact with customers through digital interface and the new technologies where social media happened to be the base for such engagement. While Nathan (2018) opined that social media is a powerful and popular 44
tool for many industries as it enables direct communication between customers and brands as such serves as a two-way channel between the two parties and it continues to grow every day. Despite great number of followers/customers through personal engagement with social media, it is of utmost importance to shy away from a robotic posting on your flat forms that may dissuade or stop consumers from furthering conversation (Jayson, 2018).
2.5.2 Social-Interactive Engagement with Social Media
According to Nathan (2018) social media is admired by marketers being it an easy tool to work with. This is because almost all social media platforms come with helpful dashboards that lay out all the information you need in one place. Social interactive engagement is an ongoing conversation between marketers and their customers. And you cannot be a good conversationalist if you aren’t paying attention to what your customers are most excited to talk about (Eric, 2018). According to Andrew (2014)
Despite engaging customers through social media as intimidating to businesses, it is still as one of the fore front step in creating sales, maintaining loyal customers, and brand ambassadors as such is a pillar to your organization’s business strategy. Nathan
(2018) opined that, social-interactive engagement measures the extent to which a consumer has a meaningful product experience from an organization when exposed to an online advertising, as consumer engagement is when a product and a consumer connect. Social interactive engagement is therefore the live, one-on-one interactions that allow consumers to create connections with products in which through the medium consumers will continue to seek and demand one-on-one, shareable interaction with a product. 45
According to Margherita and Alessandra (2014) Social Interactive Engagement allowed traditional retail and online products seek new ways to build a platform to enable customers to connect with one another and encourage consumer engagement.
Thus, personal engagement is deeply influenced by the individual qualities of the user, whereas social-interactive engagement is both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, as the value users can get from using the Web site depends more on the social use they make of it, rather than on their peculiarities or state of mind. Jayson (2018) is of the view that if personal engagement is intrinsically motivated and reflects experiences, it is reasonable to assume that people experiencing this kind of engagement will be more likely to passively watch videos/programs on the site, or read content published from other users (passive usage), whereas people experiencing social-interactive engagement will be more likely to actively participate, sharing viewing experiences with other people as well as getting input and tips from the community (active us).
Social-interactive engagement allowed business owners and marketers think about attracting new customers to the business, and focused on building concrete relationship either through regular content marketing or by having conversations with customers who are already familiar with the brand (Eric, 2018). Straightforward and effective, this type of strategy has helped many businesses obtain new customers into their marketing campaigns. Customer service is evolving to match the rapid growth and development of new communication media, and today’s most popular social media platforms are the perfect opportunity to capitalize on that trend through social interactive engagement.
When today’s customers of businesses try to get in touch with a customer service representative, they found it easy as one of the most beautiful elements of social media is its immediacy (Andrew, 2014). 46
Social media engagement is an effective and popular method of strengthening interaction and affinity between a brand and its consumer (Jayson, 2018). Prolonged social media engagement will help build brand loyalty and may ultimately result in customers championing the product or service. For business owners with a desire to gain brand awareness, it is imperative to develop social media campaign that address the variety of customers that may interact with their product or service. That being said, the ability to comprehend the methods behind social media engagement is of vital importance. Trust and credibility are built upon sustained interactions and engagement with one’s customers (Nathan, 2018).
However, ways and manners restaurants responds to customer’s social media information as well as the way good relationship is maintained between restaurants and their customers remains uncovered and is of interest to the present study.
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2.6 Employee Role in Social Media
According to Washinkoon (2015) Owning a website or blog has its responsibilities as you cannot just upload and forget it. Regular website maintenance, control and management are must if the company wants its site to be successful which is among the sole responsibilities of the staff. Regular visitors are looking for what is new, so the staff responsible is to provide the site with new and exciting information, products or features (Agnihotri, Kothandaraman, Kashyap and Singh, 2012).
According to Holmes (2017) Word-of-mouth messages from friends and colleagues are widely seen as more relevant and trustworthy than social media blasts from corporate accounts. As a result, content shared by employees, by one recent measure, gets eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels, and is re-shared 25 times more frequently. Even more impressive, leads developed through employee social marketing convert seven times more frequently than other leads. Employee advocacy is not new but social media has made it significantly easier to enlist your full staff as a marketing resource. Applying the right strategy and a little technology to tap into employees’ existing networks can radically increase the reach of your social media messaging (de Vries, Gensler &c Leeflang 2012).
According to Lin (2014), by engaging all of your employees, from diverse wait staff to different specialty chefs, you will tap into a wide spectrum of specific networks. Each employee can communicate about the brand uniquely in conjunction with his or her own role, resulting in authentic, personalized content to relevant audiences. Content shared by employees receive eight times the engagement of content on branded 48
channels. Chen, Fay and Wang, (2011) states that getting your employees to advocate on behalf of your brand communicates transparency and authenticity, resulting in twofold benefits of a more trusted brand image and ultimately more conversions. Lin
(2014) that, when restaurants want to strategies there marketing processes, their employees should not be left behind and each should be engaged at his appropriate level to ensure they are committed about improving the restaurant’s marketing strategy.
Sarah (2014) stated that, happy and satisfied employees in their organizations tend to be more productive and efficient, as such works harder and contributes more toward their organizational success.
According to Palmer and Lewis (2009), the challenge facing brands is how to monitor what is going on, seeking to control the communication environment within the network, in an effort to make sure that their brand message and image are not violated.
In recognition of this management challenge, there are already a wide range of social media monitoring tools in the market designed to help in safeguarding online reputation. For example the popular web based monitoring tool called Crowd
ControlHQ. This piece of technology is able to keep the company safe by monitoring activities of the social network sphere, and it also gives vital statistics in real time.
Therefore using such social network tools, the company believes that the social media inevitably takes place in a transparent and open way and that the brand is also protected from any risks (Christine, 2012).
Lu and Hsiao (2010) are of the view that men and women use social network services differently and in different frequencies. However, many research findings have found that women use social media for different purposes more than men. Yellow Social 49
Media Report (2014) states that, there is variation in the frequency of updating social media profiles between large, medium and small businesses, where it remains greater for large businesses, as they normally update their profiles on daily basis, which is in contrast to many small and medium businesses which use to carry out this same task mostly on weekly basis.
The Pew Research Center (2010) found that males in the U.S. are more likely to use
WhatsApp than females. In 2013, 76% of men used WhatsApp, while only 66% of women use WhatsApp. Young men are also checking their profiles more often than young women. Approximately 33% of young men check their social networking sites several times a day compared to 24% of young women.
According to Kissmetrics (2017) Ongoing analytics is necessary for keeping up with the overall pulse of general conversation about your brand and company. Once your brand tracking is set up, you can just let it run and checking regularly to see how everything is going. Campaign-focused metrics, on the other hand, help you understand the impact of targeted marketing initiatives and will vary from campaign to campaign depending on your goals for each (Ali 2011; Ballantine & Stephenson, 2011).
2.6.1 Creators in Social Media
Creators in social media are those responsible for creating content to their various organizations and creating content is probably the most time-consuming aspect of social media management and requires the wide set of skill (Lissette, 2016). This is why in most businesses you find more than one content creator. Content includes things such as arts for self expression, speech, writing, distribution and 50
publications/marketing. In general, they are some things that are to be expressed through some medium which can be mass or social media. Typical forms of content creation include; video content, blog posts, info graphics, online commentary, editing and distribution of digital media and maintenance of social media accounts (Maggie,
2018).
2.6.2 Conversationalist (Engagers) in Social Media
According to Carolyn (2017) it is said a conversation takes place where two or more people discussed about a particular issue. The conversation is said to be successful when there is a balance between the people about the issue discussed. According to
Carolyn (2018) Connecting a little bit with another person through social media flat form in learning something about him, sharing something you have in common with him, exchanging ideas, respectful counterpoint, encouraging or presenting a supporting argument is what is termed as social media conversation.
According to Liz (2009) In social media conversation is normally created by individuals via typing using the keyboards of their machines Do to the fact that individual comments that stand alone are regarded as remarks, not all social media inputs are regarded as conversations. Conversation according to Carolyn (2017) is categorized into four based on their major subject.
a. Conversations about subjective ideas, which often serve to extend
understanding and awareness.
b. Conversations about oneself, which sometimes indicate attention-seeking
behavior.
c. Conversations about objective facts, which may serve to consolidate a widely-
held view. 51
d. Conversations about other people (usually absent.) which may be critical,
competitive, or supportive. This includes gossip.
2.6.3 Critics in Social Media
According to Stephanie (2016) consumers who share negative feedback on social media can become your greatest advocates if you address their complaint genuinely or by showing that your brand cares for everyone individually. It’s a perfect opportunity to turn a negative into a positive, and create a life-long loyal customer in the process.
Critics respond to content posted by other users. They post reviews and ratings of products and services and also leave comments on forums and blogs.
David (2017) opined that social media was a wonderful tool to connect with loyal fans and potential customers directly and organically. It’s also a perfect opportunity for consumers to air their grievances, in both positive and negative ways. When the latter happens, it is important for brands to have a plan in place to separate the trolls from the real-life consumer issues, and standard operating procedure to act upon in each situation.
According to Jayson, (2016) It doesn’t matter how careful you are, how much good you do for your customers, and how solid your reputation is otherwise; eventually, you’re going to encounter some criticism on social media. It might be a customer who’s unhappy with a product they ordered, someone nitpicking one of your recent announcements or just a troll trying to get the better of you. Liana (2014) stated that the critic is a person on social media who posts on others pages, responds to comments and the like. 52
2.6.4 Collectors in Social Media
George (2010) Opined that one way some devoted followers of a subject can keep up to date is to use RSS feeds and social bookmarking tools. This ensures they get the latest information. These followers are known as collectors. Around 10 to 20 percent of all users online are collectors. These are people who read online information, list to podcasts, and watch videos but do not participate. The collector according to Liana
(2014) is person on social media that serves as an organizer as he collects content for himself and does little sharing.
2.6.5 Joiners in Social Media
According to George (2010) Joiners are people who have a profile on different social networking sites and visit them with some regularity. According to Liana (2014) joiners are those who join social network websites like Facebook and Twitter and maintain multiple profiles.
2.6.6 Spectators in Social Media
This is the category most people probably fall into. Spectators are those who read blogs and online forums, view user-generated videos such as YouTube, listen to podcasts and frequently search for user ratings and reviews (Von Brockdorff, 2010). Liana (2014) stated that spectator is a person on social media sites, yet doesn’t comment, or post.
2.6.7 In-actives in Social Media
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In-actives are those who are online but in no way participate in any form of social media. However this group is becoming rarer as most websites are now integrating elements of social media into their website (Roesler, 2013). George (2010) is of the view that, these are the people who are not engaged in any of these social technologies as such they neither post, comment, nor criticize. Liana (2014) Stated that in-active is a person on social media who hasn’t logged into their account in number of months.
Most of the studies earlier conducted placed more emphasis on how proprietors assigned the duty of controlling their websites to either themselves or ICT engineers rather than training their employees to carry out the task. The present study will therefore, focus on identifying the roles employees involvement will play in maintaining a good relationship with customers through good utilization of social media marketing tools.
2.7 Regular Online Update/post and Customers Motivation on Customer’s Relationship
There are no many points in having a website if no one visits it, and this is where the introduction of news content and blog features can attract attention from potential customers as well as all the important search engines (Wu, Chen and Chung, 2010).
Whether your website was created last week or last year, it is absolutely essential to keep the content fresh, accurate, and up-to-date. Updating your website content can take it from being a simple presence online, to being a major tool that will help grow your brand or business (Amplify, 2014). The more frequently the public discusses a company in a positive way on the internet or via social media, the higher will be the 54
internet profile of that business. Info-graphics, Promotion Videos, or even stunning photographs will also direct customers to a website and are often well worth the investment (Liang & Turban, 2011).
According to Chris (2015) If you are using social media marketing to promote your blog, you know that one of the most critical success factors is the content you post on your social media pages. Many times the problem that destroys your effort is lack of
content. Having a website that is updated on a regular basis will also give you fuel for your social media promotions (Bjorn and Donna (2016). Websites are meant to serve users and giving users fresh content makes them happier. A happy user will most probably come back, convert, register, buy or recommend your website to other people (Richard, 2016). Lorri (2016) Opined that, social media utilises sites like
Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, Yelp, Foursquare, StumbleUpon, and Instagram.
These sites piece together online conversations and images and help build an online
identity for businesses. According to Wendy (2010), Fortune Global 100 Social
Media Study 2010, a minimum of one source of social media flat form such as
Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and Instagram is adopted by 79 percent of the top 500 Global Companies.
Burson-Marsteller (2010) compiled a report and state that there are some international companies that acknowledge the value of engaging in social media. Within the cluster of social media platforms, WhatsApp is the preferred media tool among Fortune Global
100 companies, with two-thirds (65%) having a presence on the social network.
With at least one-half are reaching audience through Facebook (54%) and YouTube
(50%). One–third maintains corporate blogs. Some of the very same organizations also 55
see the value in the frequency and sustained engagement. The vast majority with active
WhatsApp accounts (82%) have tweeted in the past week and at a high volume of an average of twenty-seven tweets each. Fifty-nine percent have posted on their
Facebook fan pages, sixty-eight posted YouTube videos and thirty-six updated their
blogsite.
Abigail and Garry (2013) Effective and efficient social media site can help organisation in maintaining its relationship with existing customers and allowed the new one to have confidence with the restaurant. In addition, a restaurant can manage its online reputation by actively participating in social media. Today, as part of data-driven marketing (Dev et al., 2010), SM is now an umbrella, with a wide coverage and rich insights from the various special interest groups engaged in hospitality and other related field.
Considering the fact that majority of the researches conducted on the effects of regular posting and updating of websites focused their attentions on contents leaving their employee expertise unattached. The present study will therefore pay attention on how displaying employee’s expertise on social media will attract customers to the restaurants and how good relationship with them will be maintained.
2.8 Summary of the research Gaps
Studies carried out by researchers with regards to restaurant focused much attention on employees, and how management felt about their employee retention and employees’ ability to take initiative. Attention was also given to the areas of management experience, restaurant sanitation, customer service, employee satisfaction and social 56
media marketing but all with full attention about restaurants attached to hotels alone in order to describe their role in the operation of a successful business. But in most of these studies little attention was paid to social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customers’ relationship, the forms of the social network sites, the social media consumption, the social media experience, ways and manner employees responds to customers, roles of employees in maintaining relationships with customers as well as how displaying employees expertise on social media will help in maintaining restaurants’ and their customers’ relationship.
Table 2.1 Summary of the Research Gaps
Objective Key Literature Gap
1 Social Network Sites used by Neglect of Social Media Restaurants. marketing goal. 2 Social Media Consumption by Neglect of negative comments Restaurants. from Customers. 3 Social Media Experience by Lack of current technological Restaurants. tools/facilities 4 Employee Roles on Social Media Neglect in the attitudes of actives, spectators and critic staff/guest 5 Regular Post/Update on Social Media Absence of social media marketing goals. Sites
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction This chapter highlights and describes the main methods and processes adopted in gathering data that was used for the analysis in this study which was later used to come up with the general conclusion. The chapter explained different sub-headings as research design, description of the study area, target population, sampling techniques 57
and procedure, sample size, describes the research instruments for the study and gives the pilot study for the research instruments that includes validity and reliability of the instruments. The chapter went further to explain data collection technique, method of data analysis, and lastly logistics and ethical consideration.
3.1 Research Philosophy
This present study is based on concepts regarding hospitality management in general and restaurants in particular on their aspects of marketing, how they used social media marketing acceptability is rated among restaurants on marketing their products and services, as well as how they create and maintain relationship with their guests through social media marketing. The study is also based on theories which were used to test how relationship is developed from shallow non-intimate to deep more intimate.
The study uses survey strategy which lead to the use of both questionnaire and interview in collecting data from the respondents and the data collected was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. This is because pragmatism combines both positivism and interpretivism, as it is a modified philosophical assumption adapted with the view that research question is the most important determinant in research philosophy (Collins and Hussey, 2014). As the study adapted pragmatism, cross- sectional design was used as it is positivism which depends on quantifiable data for a specific point in time that leads them to make inferences (Bryman and Bell, 2007). As the study has a philosophical assumption of collection and analysis of data, mixed method was used as it is one of the choices in research that guide the direction of the collection and analysis of data and the mixture of quantitative and qualitative data in a 58
single study or series of studies. However, the theories used in the study were adopted and tested for its relationship with the concepts. This is why a deductive approach of philosophical assumption was used as it is the approach that is aimed at testing theory not generating a new one.
Table 3.1 Summary of research Philosophy
Techniques and Time Choice Strategy Approach Philosophy procedure Horizon Questionnaire and Cross- Mixed Survey Deductive Pragmatism Interview. sectional Method Both descriptive and inferential statistics.
3.2 Research Design
Cross-sectional descriptive survey research was adopted in conducting this study. This is because this type of research design has three features which differentiate it from others; it lacks time range, a reliance on existing differences rather than change following intervention; and random selection, the representatives are selected based on the differences which exist between them (Jibril and Nwanmuo, 2000). According to
Association of Educational Communication and Technology (AECT), (2001) cross sectional survey is the type of research design that involves gathering data that describe events and then organizes, tabulate, depicts, and describe the data collection. On the other hand cross-sectional design was used as it is positivism which depends on quantifiable data for a specific point in time that leads them to make inferences (Bryman and Bell, 2007). However, cross sectional studies are capable of using data from a large number of subjects, and unlike observational studies, is not geographically bound (Jibril and Nwanmuo, 2000) 59
Cross-sectional study is chosen as it provides a clear picture of the result and the features related to it, at a given point in time. Not like an experimental design, where the researcher has total control to produce and measure change or to create differences, cross-sectional designs is based on observing and drawing inferences from existing differences between the people or object that the research is based on (AECT, 2001).
3.3 Area of the Study
This research was carried out in Katsina State popularly known as the “Home of
Hospitality” which was carved out of Kaduna state on September 23rd, 1987 by the then
Military Head of State General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. The state has a total land area of 24,192km square and population of 5,792,578 (according to 2006 population census) and it constituted three zones namely; Katsina, Funtua and Daura. It is bounded in the south by Kaduna State, in the west by Sokoto State, in the east by Kano state, and in the north by the Niger Republic. The major language spoken in the state is Hausa with little Fulani. It has a total number of 34 local government areas and the major occupation of the people is agriculture and business. The state lies along the local of
12o5’ N 7o36’ E and has tourism potentials as the 300 years old Gobarau minaret, 10th century Kusugu well, Emirs of Katsina and Daura palaces, 11th century Katsina city walls of 7 gates, Durbi Takusheyi tombs, Jibia resort, and Sallah celebrations (Katsina-
Wikipedia, 2010).
The state was chosen for the study because it possessed many restaurants that are saturated with mass and traditional media form of marketing. The state possesses 60
different categories of both man-made and natural tourist centers which include 600 years Gobarau Minaret, the emirs of Katsina and Daura palaces, the Durdi Takusheyi
Tombs, Dan Marna and Dan Takun Tombs, Kusugu well, the seven gates of Katsina, the old Katsina Training College, the Ganuwa walls and many others. It also possesses many hospitality sectors such as hotels and restaurants that cater for the needs of different categories of guest. The state has good infrastructures ranging from good roads for easy access to all the hospitality and tourism centers, good drainages and landscape most especially in the major city centers, electricity supply due to an added advantage of having both solar and wind sources of electricity. It is a prominent state in the North from which the findings of the study can be extended to some other state in the North-
Western region because of their similarities in term of culture, norms and ethnicity.
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Figure 3.1 Map of Nigeria showing Location of Katsina state
3.4 Target Population
The 98 restaurants using social media as one of their marketing tool based on their website and email addresses on their records with state’s Hotels and Tourism Board, and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), were obtained from the board as the total restaurants for the study. These restaurants are located in the three zones of the study area. The 98 restaurants have a total of 110 management staff and 1145 operational staff as obtained and totaled from the various restaurants’ records (See appendix E). A total of 1546 customers were sourced from the restaurants through direct contact during visits at specified times within the study time frame (See Appendix E). This is without special consideration to the category of restaurant and with no special emphasis on the age, gender or race. The staffs were selected in the restaurants during their various duty periods. The major reason for this target population is that, they can only be selected from the restaurants in the study area.
Table 3.2 Summary of the Target Population
State Zone Total Total Population of the Respondent
Restaurant Mgt Staff Oper. Staff Guest
Katsina 65
82 854 1109
Katsina 62
Funtua 30 24 258 357
Daura 03 04 31 80
TOTAL 03 98 110 1145 1546
TOTAL POPULATION 2801 63
3.4.1 Restaurant Managers The first target population comprised of the restaurant managers from 98 registered restaurants with the State’s Hotels and Tourism Board and the Federal Inland Revenue
Service; (see Appendix D). The respondents (general managers) of the restaurants were deemed appropriate to represent the restaurant proprietors since they are the ones who undertake the daily running of the as well as participate in other initiatives aimed at enhancing the marketing activities of the restaurants. More often than not, it is the managers who have direct contact with other operational staff responsible for the marketing and in some instances have direct contact with the customers. The managers were found fit to participate in this study since they have a good knowledge of their customers and staff needs and demand regarding what to bring about their mutual relationship. These managers had information about their customers’ choices based on the type of marketing as well as the restaurant brands. Their views on what the restaurant should do to enhance the relationship with their customers were found to be very vital for this study.
3.4.2 Restaurant Customers The second groups of the respondents were customers to the restaurants in the three zones of the Katsina State, Nigeria. Customers play vital role in enhancing the restaurant products through patronising them at various times. Their needs, demands and feelings are therefore taken very important by the restaurants to provide solutions to them in order to have returned customers. These customers’ needs and demands and their influence on the social media marketing were found important to gain more insights into the social media marketing by restaurants on their relationship with the customers. Their views on what the restaurants should do to enhance the social media 64
marketing in order to maintain long term relationship and have returned customers were also deemed as crucial.
3.4.3 Restaurant Staff The third target group comprised the operational staff of the restaurants in the study area. This group of respondents was also purposively sampled based on their expertise in enhancing the general daily operation of the restaurant activities in their various capacities. These included the waiters, cashiers, and cooks in the various selected restaurants. This was based on their availability on duty and recommendation from their various managers These restaurant staff were deemed appropriate for purposes of the study since they had a general overview of the marketing issues of the restaurants and the type of customers they have as well as the level of their relationship with them.
3.5 Sampling Techniques
Simple random sampling design was adopted in selecting all the registered restaurants within the three zones (Katsina 65, Funtua 30 and Daura 3) of the study area with a total of 98 restaurants as obtained from the State’s Hotels and Tourism Board (See
Appendix D). This is to give all an equal chance of being selected. From the total restaurants systematic sampling method was used in selecting 60% (39 restaurants) from Katsina, 30% (9 restaurants) from Funtua and 10% (1 restaurant) from Daura zones respectively. This was done by selecting restaurants directly from the list by jumping 3 restaurants and selecting the forth respectively (compare Appendix D and
E).
Cluster sampling method was adopted in dividing the staff of the selected restaurants into two clusters viz (the management and operational staff) where purposive sampling 65
method was used in selecting the management staff (110) (See Appendix E), which provide opportunity for precise representative, saves time and choose suitable respondents. Stratified sampling according to Jibril and Nwanmuo (2000) is used where the researcher is trying to draw a conclusion from the different sub-groups or strata for the study. However, Simple random sampling in operational staff (1145) (See
Appendix E), Proportionate random sampling was used in sampling the guest (1546)
(See Appendix E). These guests possess different characteristics as some are politicians, some are civil servant, some business men some are students, while some are military/para-military. Proportionate sampling method is used in research where the population of the study is large and composed of different sub-groups that are diverse in number and characteristics. The rate of the participant from the sub-groups is then determined by their percentage relative to the total population (Jibril and Nwanmuo,
2000).
The whole reason behind this sampling is based on Babbie (2014) who stated that, when the population is large it is necessary to select a representative of that population. This is why a total population of 2801 is used for the study.
3.6 Sample Size
For this purpose, the formular for sample size of less than 10,000 populations implemented by Fisher, Laing, Stoeckel and Townsend, (1998) was adopted.
n = n 1+ n N Where n = Z2pq d2
Therefore, n = (1.96)2 (0.5) (0.5) = 384 66
0.052
Thus; the sample size now is calculated below:
nf = 384 1+ 384 = 481 2801
The formular was adopted in sampling 51 management staffs, 183 operational staffs and 247 guests which gave a total of 481 respondents regarded as the sample size for the study, (see table 3.1). However, managers of the restaurants were selected for the purpose of the interview.
Table 3.2 Sampling Techniques and Sample Size
Total Population and Sampling Sample Size Technique
S/N State Total Sampling Name of Total Grand Population Technique Samples Total groups Selected 1 Restaurants Systematic Total 0.52*98 =49 49 sampling Restaurants 98 Sampled
2 Management Purposive Total 0.46*110 =51 Staff Sampling Management Staff 481 Katsina 110 Sampled
3 Operational Simple Total 0.16*1145=183 Staff Random Operational Sampling Staff Sample 1145
4 Guest Proportionate Total Guest 0.16*1546 =247 Random Sampled 1546 Sampling
TOTAL 2801
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3.7 Research Instrument
In order to successfully achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher concurrently used qualitative and quantitative research methods. The major reason behind this is the cultural and ethnic nature of the study area, timelines for the research as well as availability of the respondents. Based on the mixed method approach applied, qualitative data was collected through structured interview guided by interview schedule using open-ended type of questions, while the quantitative data was collected through a structured questionnaire. According to Kothari (2004) using these two instruments together in collecting data enabled the researcher to triangulate the result obtained which sought to fish out any discrepancies that would have arisen where each is used independently.
3.7.1. Questionnaire for Guest and Staff
Two questionnaires were developed, one for the guest (with a total of 247) and the other for operational staff (with a total of 183) and used as instruments for the study. The structured questionnaire for restaurant staff and guest (Appendix H and I) was used to collect data from restaurant staff and guest with regard to social media marketing acceptability and restaurant staff and customer relationship in Katsina State, Nigeria.
The structured questionnaire sought information on social media consumption, social media experience, employee role on social media as well as staff/customer relationship.
Because questionnaire is an instrument that is very easy to administer and allowed gathering an efficient and large amount of data at low cost, researches using it as instrument are very popular nowadays (Camella, 2010).
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The questionnaire for both guests and staff were divided into two sub-sections each viz; the socio-economic information of the respondents and the attitudinal questions on their interaction with social media and its usage in the restaurant marketing. In addition, for ease of quantitative data analysis, a five point likert type scale with options (strongly agreed 1, agree 2, Neutral 3, disagreed 4, strongly disagreed 5) were incorporated for the subjects to choose their responses which would then enable the researcher to weigh in on the options selected, alongside closed ended questions. Likert scales which are 5,
7 or 9 point scales are one of the most popular scales used by researchers when they are measuring perceptions, opinions or behaviors of respondents (Oloya, 2011). Likert scale is used in different types of survey designs as for instance in a study where you want to find out how your employees feel about their job in the establishment, how your customers feel about your new product or service, or how a new marketing tool is used between an organisation and its customers to transact business (Jibril and Nwanmuo,
2000).
The two identical questionnaires designed for staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area had similar wordings with the exception of where the name of the target respondent is appeared that is, customer or staff. The identical questions were used for the two different categories of respondents as the study is to find out the rate of the acceptability of the social media marketing between them. The questionnaire was administered to the target respondents personally at their various restaurants. According to Jibril and Nwanmuo (2000) identical questionnaires are used to collect data from two different respondents where there is the fear that, little manipulation in the wordings used in formulating the question, the format at which the questions are arranged or 69
response format can result in differences in the type of response obtained, but can be difficult to separate out from other effects of different modes of administration.
The questionnaires contain forty two (42) responsive questions which were divided into five subheadings namely; demographic characteristics, customer relationship, social media consumption, social media experience, and employee role in social media. The whole questions were stated in English Language.
Table 3.3 Items Distribution to Sub-dimensions
Sub-dimensions Items code
Demographic variables DMV1, DMV2, DMV3, DMV4, DMV5
Customer Relationship CR6, CR7, CR8, CR9, CR10, CR11, CR12, CR13, CR14, CR15, CR16, CR17, CR18
Social Media SMC19, SMC20, SMC21, SMC22, SMC23, SMC24, SMC25 Consumption
Social Media SME26, SME27, SME28, SME29, SME30 Experience
Employee Role in ERSM31, ERSM32, ERSM33, ERSM34, ERSM35, ERSM36, Social Media ERSM37, ERSM38, ERSM39, ERSM40, ERSM41, ERSM42
Key: DMV: Demographic Variable CR: Customer Relationship SMC: Social Media Consumption SME: Social Media Experience ERSM: Employee Roles in Social Media
The first section of the questionnaire comprises of five questions based on demographic variables of the respondents. Two questions, one regarding the forms of social media and the second regarding the frequency of its usage were included in this part to identify 70
the type and the rate of social media usage. The second section of the questionnaire comprises of thirteen questions based on customer relationship. The third section of the questionnaire measure customer relationship based on social media consumption, the fourth section dealt with social media experience and the last section was based on employee role in social media.
3.7.2. Interview for Management Staff
The interview schedule (Appendix J) was used to collect data from managerial staff of the restaurants in the study area (Camella, 2010). This interview was recorded using paper and pencil, field note and an audiotape. The structured interview schedule sought information on social media consumption, social media experience, employee role on social media as well as staff/customer relationship in Katsina State, Nigeria.
Interview was conducted with 51 management staffs selected from (10 restaurants in
Katsina, 3 in Funtua and 1 in Daura), which is based on the percentage of their proportions. As the study intended to explore more ideas on the social media marketing acceptability on restaurant customers’ relationship, semi structured interview guides was used to explore information that may not be obtained in the close ended questions from the above selected managerial staff. According to Creswell (2012) in qualitative research; interviews are done when the researcher asks one or two respondents general or open-ended questions and records their answers.
3.8 Pre-testing
To prevent any ambiguous or bias question in the questionnaire, the questionnaire was pre-tested through administering it to 5 guests, 5 operational and 5 management staff 71
of the restaurants within the study area who do not fall in the sample. The guest questionnaire was pre-tested by direct contact with the guest in the various restaurants.
While the sampled operational and management staff of the restaurants were administered with the copies of the questionnaire in their various working places.
According to Creswell (2009) it is necessary to pre-test your survey questionnaire as far as you want to find the strength, weakness and effectiveness relating to your question format, order and wording. For the purpose of this study, the researcher personally administered 15 questionnaires to 15 respondents that comprised guests, operational and managerial staff of the restaurants in the study area who were purposively selected for the task.
The respondents sampled for the pre-test were asked to fill the questionnaire based on their understanding of the questions about the flow, skip pattern, timing, order, and provide a feedback. The questionnaire was finally compared with the supervisor’s comment and observations and then implemented.
3.9 Validity and Reliability
3.9.1 Validity
The degree or extent to which a measuring instrument measures what it is suppose to measure is what is referred to as its validity. However, when a measuring scale or instrument gives the same result for repeated measurement of an attribute is said to be reliable (Jibril and Nwanmuo, 2000). Data quality control for this study was managed through validity and reliability testing and verification of the data collection instruments. 72
For the purpose of this study, a content type of validity was adopted where 5 experts in the field of hospitality (especially in a restaurant) and the 2 supervisors were selected and the instrument was given to them to check if the content represents all the intended objectives of the study. Their corrections were then effected in the instrument before it was administered to the target respondents. According to (Kothari, 2004), content validity and criterion-related validity are necessary. This panel of experts from the industry and the supervisors from academics enhanced the validity of the research instruments through their expert and professional corrections in the instrument.
Through these process concepts to be investigated in the study were improved upon to enhance their content validity and make it suitable to capture respondents opinions; makes it easier, simpler and clearer for their understanding of the concepts under study; and finally the discussion ensured that the collected data led to meanings that could be understood and explored further. These three validity checks, (Saunders, Lewis, &
Thornhill, 2012), ensured that the research instruments used achieved the study objectives of investigating social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customers relationship The researchers‟ own knowledge and intuition through actually looking at the social media marketing and the customers relationship, focusing interest and energy on the subject, and complete absorption in the phenomenon did enhance the validity of the research instrument, (Merriam, 2009).
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3.9.2 Reliability
According to (Kothari, 2004), the researcher should endeavor to standardize conditions and measurement directions in order to improve the stability aspect and the equivalence aspect.
However, with regards to reliability of the instrument, 5 management, 5 operational staff of restaurant and 5 guests were selected; they were then issued with the copies of the questionnaire at two different occasions. The result obtained from them was then correlated using Pearson Product Correlation Coefficient to obtain the reliability of the instrument. Jibril and Nwanmuo (2000) are of the view that the numerical value of the correlation coefficient varies from -1.00 through 0.00 to +1.00. Correlation coefficient running from 0.00 to -1.00 express inverse or negative relationship, while for the values from 0.00 to 1.00 indicates a positive relationship and value of +1.00 indicates perfect relationship. The closer Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient is to 1.0 the greater the internal consistency of the items in the scale. According to Gliem and Gliem (2003) a reliability of a minimum value of 0.70 at =0.05 significance level of confidence is acceptable.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) opined that reliability refers to the extent to which an instrument for data collection or analysis procedures will yield consistent findings when administered at different intervals. Test instruments variables are said to be reliable only when they measures and yield the same results on different occasions; when the observations obtained from one observer give the same result with the observations from others and if there is transparency in how sense is made from the raw data (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009).
The Cronbachs‟s Alpha test (Cronbach, 1951), was used to test the reliability of the two instruments used in the study. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for the 74
social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customers’ relationship in
Katsina State, Nigeria were found to be acceptable. Table 3.3 below shows, the overall reliability of the study variables as 0.678 which satisfied the required level of reliability.
The reliability of the variables on customer relationship was 0.721, the variables on social media consumption was 0.684, while that of social media experience 0.665 and reliability of the variable in employee role in social media 0.642.
Table 3.4 Cronbach’s alpha coefficient
Reliability Statistics Variables Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha N of Items Based on Standardized Items Customer Relationship .721 .721 13 Social Media Consumption .684 .684 07 Social Media Experience .665 .665 05 Employee Role in Social .642 .642 12 Media Overall item scale .678 .678 37 Source: Field Survey, 2017
3.10 Data Collection Procedure
All the categories of restaurants in the study area were identified. Out of the total restaurants 49 were sampled from the three zones of the state and used for the study.
Operational and management staff were then contacted for willingness to participate in the study. Guests were also contacted during their visits to the restaurants to seek for their willingness to participate. Both the sampled staff and guest were issued with the questionnaire designed for the study. The data was collected within 4 months,
November, 2017-March, 2018, 13 weeks in Katsina zone, 3 weeks in Funtua zone and
1 week in Daura zone, based on their proportions, and the remaining 3 weeks were used 75
as interval between each zone. Information pertaining social media marketing acceptability such as; types of social media sites, social media consumption, social media experience, employee role in social media as well as restaurants and their customers’ relationship through social media were all retrieved.
The managers of the restaurants were first contacted through a phone call a week before the data collection to notify them. The operational staff were issued with the questionnaire while on their duty through the assistance of their unit head and they were given ample time to fill the questionnaire, while busy conducting the interview with the restaurant manager. Face-to-face interview with paper and pencil as well as a recording material was conducted with the managerial staff of the restaurant. Each interview lasted for 20 minutes, and it was guided by the interview schedule guide that was prepared based on the interview questions. Consent and willingness of the guest to participate were first asked on their arrival in the restaurant before they were issued with the questionnaire while on the various restaurant stations. Also information pertaining social media marketing acceptability such as; types of social media sites, social media consumption, social media experience, employee role in social media as well as restaurants and their customers’ relationship through social media were all retrieved.
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3.10.1 Survey Response
Forty nine (49) restaurants were contacted through their managers for participation in the survey and all agreed. Management and operational staff as well as guests were all contacted personally at their places of work and during their visits to the restaurants respectively.
A total of 430 questionnaires were administered and later personally collected from the target respondents, while interview was conducted with the 51 sampled management staff of the restaurants. This represented responses rate of 100%.
3.11 Data Analysis
The qualitative and quantitative data collected was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical methods. According to Creswell (2009) combining your analysis of both qualitative and quantitative information helps you make appropriate decision.
The qualitative data of this study was analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages and through verbatim report, Chi-square, comparison of means and regression analysis, while thematic analysis approach was adopted in the analyses of the interview conducted with managerial staff of the restaurants. Types of social network sites used on creating brand awareness was also analysed using frequency and percentages. Social media consumption on creating customers purchase intention was analysed using Chi-square. However, social media experience of restaurant marketers in creating satisfaction, employee role on social media in creating brand awareness using word of mouth, as well as regular post/update on creating customer relationship were all analysed using descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Coefficient. 77
Multiple Regression Analysis was used to identify the ranking levels of the predictor variables. Finally, the regression model was tested using t-statistical tool. The summary of the data analysis were as in table 3.10.1.
Table 3.5 Summary of Data Analysis
S/N OBJECTIVES METHOD OF ANALYSIS 1 To determine the social network sites used Frequency and percentages by restaurants on creating brand awareness in katsina state.
2 To explore the social media consumption in Descriptive Statistics restaurant marketing on creating customer purchase intention in Katsina State Chi square
3 To identify the social media experience of Descriptive Statistics restaurant marketers on creating satisfaction in Katsina State Pearson product moment correlation 4. To find out employee roles in social media Descriptive Statistics on creating brand awareness using word of mouth in katsina state. Pearson product moment correlation 5. To investigate how regular posts/updates on Descriptive Statistics social media sites help in creating customer relationship. Pearson product moment correlation 6. Hypotheses 1-5 *Chi-Square
7. Qualitative Data Descriptive Statistics Verbatim Report
3.12 Logistical and ethical Considerations
For the logistical and ethical purpose of this study, written requests were sent to all the organizations as well as the guests through direct contact seeking for their consents to be part of the study. To fully authenticate this, a written letter collected from Kenyatta
University together with a research permit letter that was collected from the state’s
Hotels and Tourism Board were attached to the request. All other articles used as a source for secondary data were acknowledged through references. 78
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CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Introduction The data collected from the respondents was analyzed, presented and discussed in this chapter of the study based on the research objectives. The chapter also highlights and discusses the results, and findings based on the analysis done on the data collected from respondents. This study focuses on the acceptability of a restaurant social media marketing on customers’ relationship in Katsina State, Nigeria. The discussions on the result were based on the objectives outlined to be achieved in Chapter 1, and also attempts were all made to provide answers to the research hypotheses. For clear understanding of the findings, the chapter was divided into two parts: Demographic characteristics of the respondents and analysis of the research objectives based on quantitative and qualitative findings.
4.2 Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents
This segment of the study dealt with results of the demographic variables of the respondents surveyed. The results obtained were analysed as shown in Figure 4.1 – 4.5.
4.2.1 Age of the respondents
The age category identified with highest percentage in this study is the category that is very active in majority of day-to-day activities. Previous studies established that the young adults tended to change jobs for greener pastures than the older employee. The
Young adult were classified as aged between 21 to 40 and older age 41 and above. In addition, the young adult were more sensitive to satisfaction variables, which include attractive salary, nature of work, and job supervision Pepra-mensah (2010). 80
Age of the respondents
Age of the Respondents 160 140 120 100
80 Guest 60 Management Staff 40 Operational Staff
20 FREQUENCY 0 15-30 31-45 46-60 61 above YEARS
Figure 4.1. Age of the Respondents
Figure 4.1 presents the demographic variable of the restaurant guest, management and operational staff with reference to age groups. Four categories were identified for the respondents’ ages ranging from 15 years to above 61 years. The result shows that percentage of respondents’ aged 15-30 years are (n=62, n=15, n=56), respondents aged
31-45 years are (n=146, n=31, n=111), 46-60 years are (n=27, n=3, n=12), while who are more than or equal 61 years (n=9, n=2, n=4) for guest, management and operational staff respectively. Data on age distribution indicated that, age category 31-45 have the highest frequency of 146, 31, and 111 for guest, management and operational staff respectively. Age is an important variable when dealing with social media as a marketing tool. This is because each age group is using social media differently at different intervals. The Restaurant can segment their social media market based on age group but with specific emphasis on the segment that uses social media more.
According to Abigail and Garry (2013) based on a study done in the United States by 81
Pingdom, it was found that the average user age of Facebook is 40.5 years, while
Twitter’s average is 37.3 years. Those restaurants not using social media give comparatively more weight to the young (0-12) and older (60+) age ranges, perhaps related to the usage of social media in those age groups.
This corresponds with the finding of Pepra-mensah (2010) who found 61.3% as the highest age distribution aged between 21-30years. The finding is also similar to Pew
Research Center (2010) Age groups can be classified into five generations: Millennials
(ages 18-33), Gen X (ages 34-45), Baby Boomers (Ages 46-64), Silent Generation (65-
73), and G.I. Generation (ages 74 and older). Each generation has unique characteristics and qualities about social media consuming habits. Millennials top the group as adopters of social media. According to the Pew Research Center (2010), part of the characteristics of the Millennials is that they are confident, self-expressive, upbeat, connected and open to change.
4.2.2 Gender of the Respondents
According to Granovetter (2005) One of the areas where social media has had a profound impact is on gender relations, especially in highly conservative societies where this has enabled young women and men to establish sustained and direct contact with each other. In some cases, a crucial element of this is the use of fake accounts.
Many research findings indicated that while female normally log on to social media to connect with people, men use social media most for the purpose of seeking information.
Portes (1998) states that, men normally create social media account to form new relationship, while women normally focused more attention on sustaining the existing 82
ones. Choices of social media sites between men and women vary depending on what they want to talk about on the social media. Also while female preferences are usually visual platforms, men are more on text-oriented ones. Indeed, Pinterest, Facebook and
Instagram have a larger female user base, while online discussion forums such as Reddit or Digg count more male users (Donckels and Lambrecht, 1995).
Gender of the Respondents
Gender of the Respondents 250
200
150
Guest 100 Management Staff
50 Operational Staff FREQUENCY 0 Male Female Gender
Figure 4.2 Gender of the Respondents
Figure 4.2 indicated the gender of the respondent both restaurant guest, management and operational staff. In gender variable, this research found that majority of the respondents were male, (n=206, n=47, n=172) and (n=41, n=4, n=11) were female respectively. Based on the previous studies, men are more likely to use social network sites such as Facebook or Twitter more than women (Lenhart, 2009); it was found that men were not only more likely to have used SNSs than women but they were also more likely to have used many different services, including facebook, twitter, 2go, Myspace 83
and instagram, these differences persisted in several models and researches (Thelwall,
Wilkinson and Uppal, 2010).
This finding corroborated many findings from many studies. Syed-Ahmad and Morphy
(2010) stated that historically, men was found more fond of using social media than women in which in 2010, the gender differences gap was up to 15%. In the United State it was found that 80% of online men use social media which is a little higher than the
73% of women who say they do so (Sigala, 2012). Rouse (2015) opined that although there is now comparable number of men and women using social media there are still some gender differences on some social media flat forms such as Facebook, Pinterest,
WhatsApp and Instagram. For example women are found fond of using Pinterest,
Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, while men are found interested in social media flat forms such as Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn and Slashdot. However, the finding contradicted Liana (2014) that when it comes to business men use social media more than women, whereas for sharing person information women use social media more than men, expressing more about their personal affairs. Women are more vocal, expressive and willing to share. In other words, women are biologically wired for social networking. When looking at the gender of social media users in Germany, it shows that slightly more women use social media on several occasions per day and slightly more men use social media on a weekly basis (Lenhart, 2009).
4.2.3 Monthly income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for 84
households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interest payments, rents, and other forms of earnings received in a given period of time. In most parts of the World companies and government workers receive their incentives known as salary on a monthly basis.
Income of the respondents Monthly Income of the Respondents 250
200
150
100 Guest Management Staff 50
Operational Staff FREQUENCY 0 Lessthan 18,000-25,000 26,000-30,000 Above 31,000 18,000 Monthly Income
Figure 4.3 Monthly Income of the Respondents
Figure 4.3 shows the distribution of respondents by monthly income which was ranged between less than N18, 000 to greater than N30, 000. It was indicated that there were no respondent earning a monthly income of less than or equal N18, 000. However, respondents earning a monthly income of N18, 000-N25, 000 are (n=3, n=0, n=65), those earning between N26, 000-N30, 000 are (n=21, n=0, n=92), while those earning greater than N31, 000 are (n=223, n=51, n=26) for guest, management and operational staff respectively.
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The findings of this study based on the respondents monthly earning indicates that majority of them are earning more than N31, 000 on monthly basis. This clearly indicated that they have the capability of eating out, even if it is ones or twice a month due to their standard of living, and quality of life which according to Holmes (2017) are normally referred to in many countries, when measuring the economic and social well-being of their populace. According to Olga (2018) people who had lived in poverty performed worse than those who had never been poor on tests of verbal memory, processing speed, and executive functioning. People who had lower-paying jobs might have had worse access to health care and healthy food. They might live in more polluted neighborhoods or have lives that are less intellectually stimulating (Max, 2015). This research found 223, 51, and 26 guest, management and operational staff earning more than N31, 000 as their monthly income respectively. This shows that they are capable of obtaining social media tools as well as visiting restaurants as part of their eating out activity.
4.2.4 Types of Social Media Used
As interpersonal relationships are some of the strongest predictors of well-being, communication through social media can be used to develop already existing relationships, but also to avoid feelings of loneliness. Social Media has fostered the development of a large number of new activities and services that are meant to facilitate new kinds of social interactions that were not previously possible.
Types of social media used
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Types of SM used by the Respondents 140
120
100
80 Guest 60 Management Staff 40 Operational Staff
20 FREQUENCY 0 Facebook Instagram Twitter WhatsApp Types of Social Media
Figure 4.4 Types of Social Media used
Figure 4.4 Contains another important demographic variable which dealt with the types of social media the respondents used. It was shown that ((n=97, n=21, n=64), of the respondents were found using Facebook, (n=18, n=4, n=16) are using Instagram, (n=16, n=2, n=12)) are using Twitter and (n=116, n=24, n=91)) are using WhatsApp among the restaurant guest, management and operational staff respectively. Social media is a good indicator when talking about social media marketing acceptability on customer relationship as it is the intermediary between the two. Without effective social network sites, it will be difficult for the restaurants to reach their target customers, and the reverse is the case with the customers to their restaurants. Social media sites are good indication that there are high chances of social media consumption as a good result is obtained when each social media site is used based on its purpose.
This finding was supported by Liana (2014) based on the results of a survey on the frequency of social media usage in Germany in February 2015, by social media site. 87
The survey was conducted panel-based and gathered data from 589 social media users in Germany. It was found, that 22.9 percent of responding WhatsApp users stated that they accessed WhatsApp on average once per day. WhatsApp users showed the highest proportion of social media users who access social media several times per day, with
50.7 percent of respondents who use WhatsApp doing so. Of Instagram users 34.7 percent access Instagram several times per day and 33.7 percent of people who use lokalisten.de use it less than once a month. The findings also corroborate Murray and
James (2011) that, WhatsApp remains the most widely used social media platform by a relatively healthy margin: some 68% of U.S. adults are now WhatsApp users. Other than the video-sharing platform Facebook, none of the other social media sites are used by more than 40% of Americans (Hilde, 2018). The findings were also supported by
Sanni (2009) who conducted survey based on Nigerian Social Network Penetration and found WhatsApp with 41%, Facebook 41%, Instagram 25% and You Tube 25% among others.
The findings of Burson-Marsteller (2010) also supported this finding that there are some international companies that acknowledge the value of engaging in social media. Within the cluster of social media platforms, WhatsApp is the preferred media tool among Fortune Global 100 companies, with two-thirds (65%) having a presence on the social network. With at least one-half are reaching audience through Facebook (54%) and YouTube (50%). One–third maintains corporate blogs.
Some of the very same organizations also see the value in the frequency and sustained engagement. The vast majority with active WhatsApp accounts (82%) have tweeted in the past week and at a high volume of an average of twenty-seven tweets each. Fifty- 88
nine percent have posted on their Facebook fan pages, sixty-eight posted YouTube videos and thirty-six updated their blogsite.
However, the findings contradict Christine (2012) who opined that, Facebook has become the most powerful tool for marketing today as in April 2011, the company launched a new service for marketers and interested creative agencies which is a form of online platform (Portal) that allowed marketers and creative design agencies to build brand promotions on Facebook. Facebook is now a direct competitor of Google in online advertising and this new service has made it possible for companies such as
Financial Times and ABC News to create dynamic commercial graphics or advertisement.
4.2.5 Frequency of Using Social Media
Frequency of posting and updates on your social media site shows leads and potential customers that you’re actively in business. Many people go to log-on social media simply to research companies and look for thought leadership -- and if your social media site is not frequently updated customers may feel your site is incomplete and inactive, they may go with a competitor who is more prominent on the platform. This is also applicable to customers who do not log-on to their social media sites frequently.
Frequency of using social media 89
Frequency of using SM by the Respondents 250
200
150 Guest 100 Management Staff 50 Operational Staff
FREQUENCY 0 Daily Weekly Fortnightly Monthly Frequency of usage
Figure 4.5 Frequency of using Social Media
Figure 4.5 shows the nature of which social media sites are used by respondents. The findings reveal that (n=211, n=46, n=142)) are using social network sites on a daily basis, while (n=21, n=5, n=33) are using it on weekly basis, (n=9, n=0, n=5) fortnightly and (n=6, n=0, n=3) on monthly basis among the guest, management and operational staff respectively. Social media networking is providing consumers’ new, meaningful and powerful ways to interact with each other regarding events, products and services from businesses that matter to them. But for social media marketing to be effective and acceptable between restaurants and their customers, the social network sites most be frequently used. In-active social media sites are burden to both restaurants and the customers as information is not sent or received as needed.
This finding is supported by many literature which among others Pan and Chiou (2011) who opined that a figure of about 65% of all adults in the USA have reported that they use social media at different times during a month with nearly 90% of those aged 18 to 90
29 most likely to use social media at any time. Rouse (2016) states that while not everyone embraces social media sites, the number of those who avoid them is reducing.
In fact, they found that about 7 in 10 individuals across all age groups use social media.
Sarah (2016) states that different age group uses social media differently; for example,
In North America, young adults and teenagers aged 16-24 spend the most time online via a mobile, more than any other age group, spending nearly 200 minutes per day on a mobile device. Teen and Millennial age groups now spend almost as much time on mobile devices as they do on a PC/laptop/tablet. It is similar to the findings of Jennifer
(2010) that ten countries across the World were sampled in measuring the global average time spent per person on social networking sites, and it was identified that, is now nearly five and half hours per month (February 2010 data), with WhatsApp accounting for the highest time spent. While ranking the countries based on time spent,
Italy tops the table with social network time per person just less than six and a half hours per month (6:27:53), and Australia came second (6:02:34). The United States was ranked third with the average person spending just over six hours (6:02:34) on social media networks (jennifer, 2010).
4.3 Descriptive statistics Descriptive statistics are brief descriptive coefficients that summarize a given data set, which can be either a representation of the entire population or a sample of it. It is broken down into Measures of central tendency which include mean, median and mode; and measures of variability include the standard deviation or variance, the minimum and maximum variables, and the kurtosis and skewness (Jibril and Nwanmuo, 2000). It is used in this study to obtain frequencies, percentages and to determine the mean and standard deviation. 91
The ratings of the likert scale used in this analysis were based on a scale of one to five.
: Strongly agree (1-1.5), Agree (1.6-2.5), not sure (2.6-3.5) disagree (3.6-4.5), and strongly disagree (4.6-5). The ratings were summarized as (1-2.5) agree and (2.6 – 5) disagree for interpretation purposes.
4.3.1 Customers Relationship
This is the dependent variable for the study which depends on the social media marketing (independent variable). Thirteen statements based on employees’ and customers perceptions on how social media marketing can be used as a tool for marketing in the restaurants of Katsina State, Nigeria, to create customer relationship.
Descriptive statistics of the statements is as presented in Table 4.1.
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Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics for Social Media Marketing and Customer Relation
Parameters N Mean Std. Deviation Right selection of social media enhances restaurant customer relationship 430 2.34 1.390 Acceptability of modern social media by customers of restaurant modern social media facilities 430 2.57 1.421 Restaurant relied on social media to enhance their relationship with customers 430 4.14 .759 Restaurant uses both mass and social media to enhance their relationship with customers 430 2.00 .942 Customers feedback shows their satisfaction 430 3.02 1.311 Target customers are best reached using social media 430 2.40 1.247 Usage of mobile handsets, laptops and computers in accessing social media sites 430 1.63 .515 Advertisement, public relation and promotion are part of the restaurant form of marketing 430 2.53 1.363 Customers obtained through social media are higher 430 2.44 1.341 Is easier to tackle customers complaints through social 430 3.62 1.226 media There is effective cost control when dealing with customers through social media 430 2.33 1.277 Customers feedback shows they are happier when dealing with restaurants online 430 2.48 1.322 Social media marketing can be rated highly acceptable based on customers' relationship 430 2.09 1.043 Valid N (listwise) 430 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
The factors that influence the dependent variable of this study were discussed in Table
4.1 above. It was indicated from the results obtained from 187 operational staff and 243 guests of restaurants in katsina state, Nigeria, that, about 77% (Mean score ranges from
1.63 to 2.57) of each item agreed or strongly agreed that all the social media marketing 93
factors influenced its acceptability by restaurant staff/guest in the study area as their marketing tool.
From Table 4.1 the factors of customers’ relationship on a restaurant social media marketing were presented. Means scores and standard deviations on the items relating to the restaurant staff and customers’ views on the social media usage as means of marketing tool by restaurants were identified. From the table; the mean score of the customers’ and staff relationship on social media usage as a means of marketing range from 1.63-4.14. Considering the criterion earlier stated that, from 1-2.5 will be considered agreed and 2.6-5.0 to be considered disagree, this study found that, with a mean score (MS) of 2.4 and standard deviation (SD) of 1.39 both staff and guests of the restaurants are satisfied that right selection of social media enhances restaurant customer relationship. This clearly indicated that for restaurant to successfully use social media as its marketing tool, it has to make a right choice based on the available social media sites available in the locality where it is located. Likewise, they agree with restaurants modern social media facilities with mean score (MS) 2.57 and standard deviation (SD) 1.42; restaurants uses both mass and social media with mean score (MS)
2.00 and standard deviation (SD) 0.94. This is an indication that, for social media to be accepted as a marketing tool and even increase the restaurant customer relationship, it must possess modern social media marketing facilities that will allow easy passing of information to and fro.
This finding shows that target customers are best reached using social media with mean score (MS) 2.40 and standard deviation (SD) 1.25; using laptops and mobile handsets with mean score (MS) 1.6 and standard deviation (SD) 0.51. Based on this finding of the study, the restaurants agreed that social media is a good marketing tool as customers 94
are best reached through it. This is an indication that where restaurant failed to adopt social media as its marketing tool, it is bound to lose customers who are saturated of using it. It was identified based on this finding that, if social media is to be accepted as marketing tool for restaurant, the restaurant most posses’ modern technological tools to ease access to servers. The respondents also agree with advertisement, public relation and promotion as part of the restaurant marketing strategy on social media with mean score (MS) 2.53 and standard deviation (SD) 1.36; customers are higher through social media with a mean score (MS) 2.44 and standard deviation (SD) 1.34. Where restaurant accepted social media as a marketing tool, it will help the restaurant in carrying out its marketing strategies at ease and the outcome will be higher turnover of customers to the restaurant.
The staff also agreed with effective cost control with a mean score (MS) 2.33 and standard deviation (SD) 1.27; customers feedback with mean score (MS) 2.48 and standard deviation (SD) 1,32; and social media marketing is rated highly acceptable with mean score (MS) 2.09 and standard deviation (SD) 1.04. Part of the implication for a restaurant adopting social media as its marketing tool is that, it will help in effective cost control as all the transactions between customers and the restaurant can be seen at a glance. This can serve as one of their social media marketing goal. Another implication is that the restaurant will always have a customer feedback that will help the restaurant in improving to the positive feedback and take corrective measures to the negative ones, so as to tackle the problems of neglecting negative comments from customers.
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4.4 Objective 1
The purpose of objective one was to determine the type of Social Network Sites the restaurants in the study area are using in marketing their products and services.
4.4.1 Determination of Social Network Sites used by Restaurants in Creating Brand Awareness
This section was set to determine the categories of social network site the restaurants in the study area are using to create brand awareness in order to maintain good customer relationship. This was carried out using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages as presented in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2 Types of Social Media Sites used by Staff and Guests
Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Facebook 160 37.20 37.20 Instagram 20 4.7 47.7 Twitter 20 4.7 52.3 WhatsApp 185 43.0 100.0 More than One 45 10.40 Total 430 100.0 Source: Field Survey, 2017
Table 4.2 presents the summary of the frequency and percentages of the social network sites the restaurants are using. The findings indicated that with 47.7 percent (n=205),
WhatsApp has the highest percentage of usage by both staff and guest among the social network sites used, followed by Facebook with 43 percent (n=185), Instagram and
Twitter with 4.7 percents (n=20) respectively. As the study was sought to determine the views of different respondents on the categories of social network sites, the restaurants in the study area are using, interview was conducted with sampled restaurant managers.
Findings from the research indicated that there was generally diverse and shared view 96
among the respondents with regards to the subject. Majority of the restaurant managers said that they are using both WhatsApp and Facebook social network sites, while some indicated others. For example:
When it comes to social media marketing of our products and services,
we have no other social media site that is better than Facebook. So it is
our priority…. (RM 1).
Our restaurant relied solely on Facebook in marketing our products and
service since it was opened and we are still maintaining it because we
are satisfied with the turn over it is generating to us. We are everyday
seeing new faces of customers…. (RM 4).
Beside Facebook some restaurants in the study area are using Whatsapp
in marketing their products and services:
Because of the nature of our business and the categories of customers
we have in our restaurant, we found WhatsApp as a suitable social
network site for marketing our products and services….(RM 2).
Despite using more than one social media site in marketing our products
and services, we found WhatsApp as the major contributor to our guests
turn over. This is because majority of our customers are transacting with
the restaurant through WhatsApp……(RM 3).
One fact that was evident was the ease of using other social media sites by both customers and restaurants in transacting business between them: 97
We are using more than one social media site in our restaurant because we want our guests to be satisfied. But sincerely maintaining more than one social media site is not easy for a business like our own. But we are happy that we are managing them successfully…..(RM6).
It is noteworthy that low usage of other social media sites beside Facebook and
WhatsApp was also commonly mentioned by some restaurant managers. There were some respondents who made specific references to cases of low usage of other social media sites in the area than Facebook and WhatsApp. They were keen to point out that:
Our customers don’t normally respond through other social media sites like
how they do through Facebook and WhatsApp. This is why we are less using
them…(RM 7).
Another Manager respondent added:
We have Instagram and Twitter accounts but rarely use them because we don’t use to have customers through them…(RM 5).
While another one pointed out that:
Other social media sites beside Facebook and WhatsApp have no use to our
restaurant since they are not generating customers…so why do you think we should keep using them as our marketing tool? We want something that will bring customers so that we can generate revenue…..(RM 3).
Nonetheless, there was a general consensus among restaurant managers that social media is a good tool for marketing restaurant products and services as it generate more customers to the restaurants than other forms of marketing aspect. 98
This qualitative finding justified the quantitative findings and corroborates with Murray and James (2011) that:
“WhatsApp remains the most widely used social media platform by a
relatively healthy margin: some 68% of U.S. adults are now WhatsApp
users. It is also similar to the findings of Sanni (2009) who conducted
survey based on Nigerian Social Network Penetration and found
WhatsApp with 41%, Facebook 41%, Instagram 25% and You Tube
25% among others.”
As satisfied customers that will always return and to some extent even advertise the restaurant to the outside world, are the major customers the restaurants are looking for, there is therefore the need for the restaurants to do everything possible to satisfy these customers. Part of the ways of satisfying these customers is through possessing social media sites that are active and effective. Where a restaurant posses a social media site or multiple social media sites, it has the tendency to penetrate in the race as it has a competitive advantage over its competitors. Restaurant that does not possess a social media site is missing a lot in regard to the century’s digital marketing opportunities. It is the social media profile that will allow a restaurant to market its products social media, and have followers that will be contributing with reviews based on what the restaurant markets’ through its social media sites.
This finding was supported by Sanni (2009) who conducted survey based on Nigerian
Social Network Penetration and found WhatsApp with 41%, Facebook 41%, Instagram
25% and You Tube 25% among others. It was also supported by Liana (2014) who found that WhatsApp users showed the highest proportion of social media users who 99
access social media several times per day, with 50.7 percent of respondents who use
WhatsApp doing so. Of Instagram users 34.7 percent access Instagram several times per day and 33.7 percent of people who use lokalisten.de use it less than once a month.
Similarly, Pew Research Center (2010) found that males in the U.S. are more likely to use WhatsApp than females. In 2013, 76% of men used WhatsApp, while only 66% of women use WhatsApp. Young men are also checking their profiles more often than young women. Approximately 33% of young men check their social networking sites several times a day compared to 24% of young women.
4.4.2 Hypothesis 1 There is no Association between the Social Network Sites used by Restaurants and their Customers’ Relationship
Chi-square test was conducted to identify the association between the social network sites used by the restaurants in the study area and their customers’ relationship.
According to Jibril and Nwanmuo (2000) Chi-square is used when there is need to test for statistical significance, it is used primarily to find out whether or not, there is significant level of association or relationship between two variables. The use of Chi- square in a hypothesis testing is applicable where data can be represented in the form of a contingency table (Osuala, 1982). Commonly Chi-square statistical tool is adopted in research where there is need for tests of independence and bivariate table or otherwise known as cross tabulation is used. Cross tabulation has the tendency of presenting distributions of two categories of variable simultaneously. The categories of variable used in the study will then appear as intersects in the cells of the table. The main purpose of using chi-square for testing independence is to assess if at all there is 100
an association between the two variables; that is comparing the observed and expected
(Ben, 2018).
Table 4,3 Chi-Square Tests of Association Between Social Network Sites used by Restaurants and their Customers’ relationship
Asymptotic Significance (2- Value df sided) Pearson Chi-Square 3.931a 4 .015 Likelihood Ratio 5.366 4 .012 Linear-by-Linear Association .046 1 .130 N of Valid Cases 183 a. 5 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 39.
Table 4.3 shows the value of the chi square statistic is 3.931, the footnote for this statistics pertains to the expected count cell and count assumption that is expected count are greater than 5. Since the P value (0.015) is less than alpha value of 0.05 the null hypotheses hence, is not accepted. It was concluded that there is enough evidence to suggest an association between the types of social media used and customer relations.
Based on the chi square table 4.3 above association was found between staff social media sites used and customer relationships (X2) =3.931, P value = 0.015. Based on this association, there is clear evidence that when restaurant posses’ good social media network sites, it has the chances of creating good relationship with its customers. This is because where the customer always finds the restaurant and expresses his needs or views without any difficulty, there is the full tendency that he will continue to patronise the restaurant.
4.5 Objective 2
4.5.1 Identification of Social Media Consumption among Restaurant Marketers
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The main purpose of this objective was to identify how social media consumption influence restaurant marketing in creating customer relationship in Katsina State,
Nigeria. This was done using a descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation as presented in Table 4.4.
Table 4.4 Social Media Consumption among Staff and Customers For Staff For Customers Std. Std. Attitudinal Statements N Mean Deviation N Mean Deviation Effectiveness and functionality of 183 2.42 1.336 247 2.13 1.398 restaurant social media Categories of social network sites 183 2.37 1.392 247 2.21 1.422 possessed by restaurant Establishment used both mobile handset 183 2.55 1.357 247 2.55 1.270 and desktop systems Posting of comments and observations 183 3.50 1.244 247 3.54 1.258 Frequency of customers posts and 183 2.03 1.174 247 1.63 .492 feedback Dealing with customers comment 183 2.29 1.148 247 1.70 .483 Incorporation of comments to new 183 1.85 .783 247 1.72 .509 updates Valid N (listwise) 183 247 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.4 identified the extent of social media consumption among staff to restaurant marketing. The means scores, ranges and standard deviations on all the items relating to the respondent’s perception of social media consumption were all presented in the table. The table reveals that social media consumption for restaurant marketing had an overall mean score range from 1.85 (SD 0.78) to 3.50 (SD 1.24). Based on the criterion that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagree.
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The study found that staff of the restaurants in the study area were not satisfied with the way and manner comments and observations are posted through social media between staff and guests of the restaurants with mean scores (MS) 3.50 and standard Deviation
(SD) 1.24. While the results indicate that staff are satisfied that the restaurants possess effective and functional social media sites MS 2.42 (SD 1.34), categories of social network sites possessed by the restaurants MS 2.37 (SD 1.39), restaurants uses both mobile handsets and computer desktops MS 2.55 (SD 1.36), frequency of customers posts and feedback MS 2.03 (SD 1.17), Dealing with customers comments MS 2.29
(SD 1.15), and incorporation of comments to new update MS 1.85 (SD 0.78).
The finding of this study with regard to social media consumption is a clear indication that social media consumption is a good indicator for successful social media marketing. Based on this finding it is evident that the restaurants are making effort in their social media marketing as they possessed effective and functional social media that is accepted by both their employees and their customers. It was also indicated that they possessed good social media technological tools which are frequently being used, which is a proved that customers will not be suffering when interacting with the restaurants. The technological tools obtained by the restaurants are effectively being used for receiving customers’ comments which are incorporated into the restaurant’s immediate new update. This makes the customers happy and happy customers always returned.
These finding is similar to that of Nambisan (2002) that Customers review is one of the aspects of business success and customers review with regards to company’s products and services which happened to be of great value to both the customers and the company are always available via social media. In addition, Pan and Chiou, (2011) 103
states that comments which help customers in getting good products and services from a particular restaurant are made through electronic word of mouth and help customers much in their purchasing decision.
Similarly, the finding was supported by Abigail and Garry (2013) Effective and efficient social media site can help organization in maintaining its relationship with existing customers and allowed the new one to have confidence with the restaurant.
The guests of the restaurants in the study area overall perception in social media consumption and how it influences restaurant marketing have mean score range (MS
1.63) and standard deviation (SD 0.49) to (MS 3.54) SD (1.258). Based on the Criterion agreed upon that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagreed. The study found that guests of the restaurants were strongly agreed with all the statements regarding social media consumption factors with regard to restaurant social media marketing except posting of comments and observation with mean score 3.54 and standard deviation 1.26.
However, the study found that the guests of the restaurants are satisfied that the restaurants possess effective and functional social media sites MS 2.42 (SD 1.34), categories of social network sites possessed by the restaurants MS 2.37 (SD 1.39), restaurants uses both mobile handsets and computer desktops MS 2.55 (SD 1.36), frequency of customers posts and feedback MS 2.03 (SD 1.17), Dealing with customers comments MS 2.29 (SD 1.15), and incorporation of comments to new update MS 1.85
(SD 0.78).
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Qualitative interviews of key informants among the managerial staff and quantitative survey results yielded to justification of social media marketing acceptability among restaurants on customers relationship. Important responses captures during the interview with Interviewee 37 is as follows:
“…Social media is very important to our business as it allowed us to share what
we have to our respective customers through our social network sites and within
a little time our customers will be responding. One thing i observe is that, before
we use to suffer a lot in sourcing our customers, but thing are easy for us now
as we are every day seeing new faces and when asked logically. They use to say
is their friend or relative who introduced the restaurant to them. This is why we
are very happy with social media marketing and both our staff and customers
accepted it.”
(Interviewee 37, 2017).
It is therefore of utmost importance for restaurants management to provide adequate tools for social media marketing and increase in their frequency of posts and updates so as to keep their customers up to date about their products and services. The following is the summary of the responses obtained:
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Table 4.5 Importance of Restaurant Social Media Sites in Facilitating its Business
S/N Responses Frequency Percentages 1 Very Important/Highly 37 72.54 Acceptable 2 Less Important/Less 12 23.53 acceptable 3 Not Important/Not 2 3.92 Acceptable TOTAL 51 100 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.5 indicated the responses obtained from the managerial staff while they were interviewed to indicate how important and acceptable social media sites are in facilitating their business. Majority of the respondents 37 representing 72.54 per cent of the total respondents rated social media very important and highly acceptable in facilitating their businesses, while 12 and 2 respondents representing 23.53 and 3.92 percents rated it less important/less acceptable and not important/not acceptable respectively. This finding corroborate with the findings of Chan and Guillet (2011) that, hotels and restaurants in many parts of the world have now realized social media as an effective and good quality management tool for marketing, which makes restaurant organizations to continue their struggle to keep up to date realizing consumers rapid adoption of social media.
The finding is similar to the views of staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area in which for staff about 77% (Mean score ranges from 1.63 to 2.57) of each item agreed or strongly agreed that all the social media marketing factors influenced its acceptability by restaurants in the study area on their customers relationship. While for guests about
77 percent (mean score ranges from 1.63 to 2.57) of each item were agreed or strongly 106
agreed that social media if properly utilized is a good tool for marketing by restaurants in the study area.
For social media marketing acceptability among restaurants as a marketing tool, this finding is supported by Elton and Azeta (2016) who are of the view that, many companies now used internet for different purposes as introducing, advertising and even trading their new products and services. Many companies across the world nowadays take the advantage of internet to sell their products and services to either individual or group customers or even to other companies. Companies with effective and efficient internet facilities in different parts of the world are valued by their customers as a “store open 24 hours a day”. E-commerce enables companies to have with relatively low-cost more customers. The importance and viability of the social media make it very imperative to be adopted by restaurants that strive to better serve their customers. The finding of Elton and Azeta (2016) is similar to the views of staff and guests of the study area in this study that social media marketing is rated highly acceptable with mean score
(MS) 2.09 and standard deviation (SD) 1.04.
This finding corroborate with Christine (2012) that, Online marketing has a plethora of strengths; the speed of accessing the information is very first and extremely cost effective, besides that internet has no geographical boundaries. In addition to cost effectiveness, the marketer likewise has the opportunity to research new suppliers at a fraction of previous search costs. In other words all the marketing research conducted through internet is very cost effective. It was also supported by Sarah (2014) that, criticism is one of the factors that are very difficult to bear in business but once over come helps business to become better and stronger. Now, unhappy and happy 107
customers’ complaints and criticism are increasingly being channeled to get on board through the social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter so as that the complaints are controlled and prevented from going viral. Similarly, Sanni (2009) opined that, customers are the heart of your restaurant as they provide your restaurant with the revenue needed to the business booming and held in many ways to grow your audience.
4.5.2 Relationship between Social Media Consumption and Customer Relation for Staff
This section analyses results obtained from 183 staff of the restaurants in the study area.
It investigated the staff’s perception of the social media consumption and its influence on the customer relationship. The findings show that there is positive association between staff perception of the social media consumption and restaurant customer’s relationship. Findings from the staff responses showed that they usually considered majority of the social media consumption factors very well for it to be used as a marketing tool for the products and services of the restaurants as presented in Table 4.7.
A Pearson Product Moment Correlation was run to determine the relationship between staff of the restaurant perception on social media consumption and customer relationship. The data showed no violation of homoscedasticity, linearity, or normality.
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Table 4.6 Correlation analysis between Social Media Consumption and Customer Relationship for Staff
Social Media Customer relation Consumption Customer Relation Pearson 1 .523 Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .040 N 183 183 Social Media Pearson .523 1 Consumption Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .040 N 183 183 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.6 is the correlation result between staff social media consumption and customer relationship. The finding shows that there was a weak, positive correlation between social media consumption and customer relationship in restaurants, which was statistically significant (r = .523, n = 183, p< 0.05) implying that, calculated sig. (2- tailed) is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval. This finding indicates that the more the restaurants provide necessary tools for social media and provided enabling environment for its usage by staff the more it will be proved effective and positive for use as a marketing tool. Sigala (2012) suggest that successful relationship between business and its customers requires commitment as interactions between the business and the customer ought to be an ongoing process, on continuous discrete basis with a view of seeing a customer as a relationship partner.
Table 4.7 Correlation analysis between Social Media Consumption and Customer Relationship for Guest
Customer Social Media Relation Consumption Customer Relation Pearson 1 .545 Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .042 109
N 247 247 Social Media Pearson .545 1 Consumption Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .042 N 247 247 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.7 present the correlation analysis for guests of the restaurants in the study area.
The finding shows a weak positive correlation between social media consumption and customer relationship, which was statistically significant (r = .545, n = 247, p> 0.05) implying that, calculated sig. (2-tail) value (0.42) is less than the critical value 0.05 at
95 percent confidence interval. The finding from the guests of the restaurants indicates a strong relationship between social media consumption and customer relationship.
This finding from guests of the restaurants indicates when all the necessary tools are provided, there is strong tendency for the guest to utilize the restaurant’s social media sites as such be transacting their businesses with the restaurants online.
As seen from the analysis, the most important factors for the staff and guest of the restaurants were similar. Both the staff and guest of the restaurants disagree with the view that, comments and observations about the restaurants’ information should not be posted to the social media sites. This is because the restaurants believed revealing all their information online will give their competitors an advantage of knowing a lot of their secrets. While guests believed their secrets are not secured. This is supported by the findings of Leung, Lee and Law (2012) that, by disseminating a lot of information on social media restaurant businesses may feel that they revealed their competitive advantage to their competitors which makes its acceptability doubtful to many restaurant organisations. 110
4.5.3 Hypothesis 2 There is no Association between the Social Media Consumption and Customers’ Relationship
Chi-square test was also conducted to identify the association between the social media consumption and customers’ relationship. Chi-square according to Oloyo (2011) is a non-parametric test of significance developed for data that have been measured on ordinal or nominal scales. The test is concerned with the test of significance of proportions. Actually it compares observed frequencies of occurrence of two or more groups with their corresponding theoretical frequencies.
Table 4.8 Correlation analysis between Social Media Consumption and Customer Relationship for Guest
Asymptotic Significance (2- Value df sided) Pearson Chi-Square 17.733a 8 .023 Likelihood Ratio 13.199 8 .105 Linear-by-Linear Association 1.722 1 .189 N of Valid Cases 183 a. 6 cells (40.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .07. Source: Field Survey, 2017.
The value of the chi square statistic is 17.733, the footnote for this statistics pertains to the expected count cell and count assumption, that is expected count are greater than 5.
Since the P value (0.023) is less than alpha value of 0.05, the null hypotheses is therefore not accepted hence, we conclude that there is enough evidence to suggest an association between the social media consumption and customers relationships. Based on the chi square table 4.8 above association was found between staff social media consumption and customer relationships (X2 (8) =17.733, P value = 0.023. This association is a prove that if a restaurant posses all the social media consumption factors such as tools and frequency of its usage, its social media marketing will highly be 111
accepted, as such increase the restaurant customers relationship. This finding is similar to that of Elton and Azeta (2016) that, many companies across the world nowadays take the advantage of the social media marketing to sell their products and services to either individual or group customers or even to other companies. Restaurants with effective and efficient social media marketing facilities in different parts of the world are valued by their customers as a “store open 24 hours a day.” E-commerce enables companies to have with relatively low-cost more customers. The importance and viability of the social media make it very imperative to be adopted by restaurants that strive to better serve their customers.
4.6 Objective 3
4.6.1 Identification of the Level of Social Media Experience of Restaurant marketers The purpose of this objective was to identify the rate of social media experience by staff of the restaurants in katsina state and how it influences creation of satisfaction.
Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation was run for that purpose as presented in Table 4.10.
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Table 4.9 Social Media Experience of Restaurant Staff and Customers For Staff For Customers
Std. Std. Attitudinal Statements N Mean Deviation N Mean Deviation Time of using Social Network Sites 183 1.86 .678 247 2.47 1.175 Part of the time of using social 183 3.48 1.262 247 3.88 1.051 network site How social network site is utilized 183 1.80 .817 247 1.80 .515 How restaurant employees interact 183 2.40 1.418 247 1.68 .467 with customers Contribution of employees to 183 2.51 1.207 247 1.61 .488 restaurant marketing Valid N (listwise) 183 247 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.9 presents the result of the descriptive statistics with an overall mean score and standard deviation range from MS 1.80 (SD 0.82) to MS 3.48 (SD 1.26). Based on the criterion agreed upon that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagree. The finding shows staff of the restaurants in the study disagreed with part of the time of using social media with a MS 3.48 and standard deviation (SD 1.26).
However, they agree with the time of using the social media sites with a MS 1.86, SD
0.68; how social network sites are utilized MS 1.80, SD 0.82, how restaurant employees interact with customers MS 2.40, SD 1.42, and contribution of employees to restaurant marketing MS 2.51, SD 1.21.
This study finding indicated that there is need for restaurant to practice and maintains its social media experience factors if it needs its social media marketing to be accepted and even improve customers’ relationship by creating their satisfaction. There is need for the restaurants to practice social media personal engagement on how to utilize their 113
social media sites and the time they are to be used. Also when restaurant maintains and practice their social-interactive engagement such as how their employees interact with the customers through social media, it will make customers to feel satisfied which will improve their relationship with the restaurant and accept its social media marketing strategy.
This finding was supported by Chris (2015) if you are using social media marketing to promote your blog you know that one of the most critical success factors to create customer satisfaction is the content you post on your social media pages. The finding is also similar to Liang & Turban, (2011) that, the more frequently the public discusses a company in a positive way on the internet or via social media, the higher will be the internet profile of that business and creating customer satisfaction is the final result.
Info-graphics, Promotion Videos, or even stunning photographs will also direct customers to a website and are often well worth the investment. Similar findings from
Ravi (2015) also supported this finding that, where an organisation is responding quickly and appropriately to customer’s complaints and comment, it has a good chance of having customer’s retention and loyalty because they created their customers’ satisfaction.
The descriptive statistics of guest view pertaining to social media experience is also presented in Table 4.10, with mean score and standard deviation range between MS
1.61, SD 0.49 to MS 3.88, SD 1.05. Based on the criterion that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagreed. The study found that the guests of the restaurants in the study area were strongly agreed with all the statements regarding the social media experience factors with regard to restaurant marketing except part of the time of using 114
the social media sites with MS 3.88, SD 1.05. The finding shows the guest strongly agreed with the time of using the social network sites MS 2.47, SD 1.18, how social network sites are utilized MS 1.80, SD 0.52, How restaurant employees interact with customers MS 1.68, SD 0.47, and contribution of employees to restaurant marketing
MS 1.61, SD 0.49.
The finding indicated that customers are happy and satisfied when restaurant utilizes good social media sites and use it frequently as well as how employees interact with them through the social media. Restaurant that adopted these qualities have the higher capability of having its social media marketing accepted by its customers. This is because when customers get what they want, when they want it, they will be satisfied as such improve their relationship with the restaurant.
The analysis from the qualitative data indicated that for social media to be accepted as a marketing tool for restaurants, the social network sites have to be managed and controlled by qualified and trusted personnel. From Interviewee 29, the study found out the following:
“… There are complaints from some of our customers that their privacy with
regard to what they post, comment or suggest through our social network sites are
not secured, that is why they sometimes remain silent about some issues. This is
why we tried our best to see that our social media sites are controlled and managed
by employing knowledgeable personnel on the subject and the personnel normally
created password for the sites that is known to only authorized people.
(Interviewee, 29, 2017). 115
The above interview shows that for the restaurants’ social media sites to fully be accepted as a marketing tool, the privacy of those accessing it should be secured which the interviewee indicated that they have implemented that through employing knowledgeable personnel and creating password known to authorised people.
These findings are in line with Washinkoon (2015) who noted that, Regular website maintenance, control and management are must if the company wants its site to be successful which is among the sole responsibilities of the staff as the biggest problem in achieving online marketing goal is lack of skilled employees, hash jacking, improper use of internet slangs and acronyms, ignoring comments and knee-jack reaction to new technology.”
This finding is also supported by the qualitative finding of this study as both staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area agree with how social network sites are managed, controlled and utilized with mean scores 1.80, and standard deviations 0.82 respectively.
Table 4.10 Management and Control of the Social Media Site used by the Restaurants
S/N Responses Frequency Percentages 1 Through engagement of 28 54.90 knowledgeable personnel in ICT 2 Creating password 51 100 known only to authorized personnel TOTAL Source: Field Survey, 2017. 116
Table 4.10 shows the interview responses of managerial staff when asked on “how is your social media site managed and controlled” it was indicated that 28 representing
54.90 per cent indicated it is managed and controlled through engaging knowledgeable
ICT personnel, while all the respondents 51 representing 100 per cent indicated they normally controlled their websites through creating password that is known to only authorized personnel.
Customers are afraid of leaking their identity which is why some do not post any review or feedback even if they are not satisfied. In a situation where they know their identity is secured, they normally post their feedback, review, complain and suggestions through the social media which normally gave them satisfaction as such increase their relationship with the restaurant. The restaurants in their own side are afraid of leaking their competitive advantage or allowing negative posts to go viral, as such devoted a lot of effort in taking control measures to see that both their identity as well their customers identities are secured. This normally makes both their staff and customers happy which increases their relationship.
This finding was supported by the research findings of Ravi (2015) which indicated that satisfied customers of up to 71% advertise the organization’s products to others in contrast to 19% customers who do not get a response, as it is believed that an organization satisfy all their respective customers through social media. Agnihotri,
Kothandaraman, Kashyap and Singh, (2012) posits that, regular visitors are looking for what is new, so the staff responsible is to provide the site with new and exciting information, products or features.
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4.6.2 Relationship between Social Media Experience and Customer Relation on Creating Satisfaction for Staff and Guest
This section analyses results obtained from 183 staff of the restaurants in the study area.
It investigated the staff’s perception of the social media experience and its influence on the customer relationship. The findings show that there is positive association between staff perception of the social media experience and restaurant customer’s relationship.
Findings from the staff responses showed that they usually consider majority of the social media experience factors such as personal and social interactive engagements very well which if fully utilized makes social media acceptable tool for marketing products and services of the restaurants; as such they create satisfaction to their customers as presented in Table 4.11.
A Pearson product-moment correlation was run to determine the relationship between staff of the restaurant perception on social media experience and customer relationship.
Table 4.11 Correlation Analysis between Social Media Experience and Customer Relationship for Staff
Customer Social Media Relationship Experience Customer Relationship Pearson 1 .528 Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .036 N 183 183 Social Media Pearson .528 1 Experience Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .036 N 183 183 Source: Field Survey, 2017. 118
Table 4.11 shows the result of the correlation between restaurant staff social media experience and customer relationship. The finding shows that there was a strong, positive correlation between social media experience and customer relationship in restaurants, which was statistically significant (r = .528, n = 183, p< .005) implying that, calculated sig. (2-tailed) is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval. This finding indicates that the more restaurants staff engages themselves in social media marketing the more their relationship with customers will increase and that will increase their customers’ satisfaction. The finding was supported by Chris
(2015) that, if you are using social media marketing to promote your blog in order to create customers’ satisfaction, you know that one of the most critical success factors is the content you post on your social media pages, as many times the problem that destroys your effort is lack of content. It also corroborates with Bjorn and Donna (2016) that, having a website that is updated on a regular basis will also give you fuel for your social media promotions.
Correlation analysis between social media experience and customers’ relationship for restaurant guests are presented in Table 4.14.
Table 4.12 Correlation analysis between Social Media Experience and Customer Relationship for Guest
Customer Social Media Relationship Experience Customer Relationship Pearson 1 .551 Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .026 N 247 247 Social Media Pearson .551 1 Experience Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .026 N 247 247 119
Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.12 present the correlation analysis for 247 guests of the restaurants in the study area. The finding shows a strong positive correlation between social media experience and customer relationship, which was statistically significant (r = .551, n = 247, p>
0.05) implying that, calculated sig. (2-tail) value is less than the critical value 0.05 at
95 percent confidence interval. The finding from the guests of the restaurants indicates a strong relationship between social media experience and customer relationship. This finding from guests of the restaurants indicates when guests are engaged in social media through personal and social interactive ways, they will engage themselves in patronizing the restaurant products and services through social media which will make it as an acceptable tool for marketing.
However, both staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area agreed that, once personal and social interactive factors of using social media are fully maintained among them, social media will prove to be an effective and acceptable tool for marketing of restaurants’ products and services.
4.6.3 Hypothesis 3 There is no Association between the Social Media Experience and Customers’ Relationship
In order to further test the hypothesis that social media experience is not significantly associated with restaurant customer relationship. Table 4.12 indicates sig. (2-tailed) p- value of 0.026. A p - value of 0.026 indicate that there is association between social media experience and customer relationship on creating their satisfaction. Therefore, the null hypothesis which state that, there is no association between the social media experience and customer relationship is not accepted (p-value less than 0.05). Thus, 120
there is sufficient evidence to accept the alternate hypothesis which state that there is association between social media experience and restaurant customer relationship. This is an indication that for restaurant social media marketing to be fully accepted as a means of creating customers’ satisfaction, they have to provide the necessary needs of social media experience factors which are personal engagement and social-interactive engagement.
4.7 Objective 4
4.7.1 Determination of Employee Role on Social Media in Creating Brand Awareness using Word-of-Mouth
The purpose of objective four was to find out the employee roles in social media in creating brand awareness using word of mouth. Table 4.13 shows a summary of the frequency, means, and standard deviations of restaurant staff perception of their roles in social media marketing and their level of agreement with statements. Twelve statements related to employee roles on social media marketing were transformed and recomputed to represent total staff of the restaurants in the study area.
4.7.2 The Roles of Restaurant Employee in Social Media Marketing
This part aimed to find out the roles played by restaurant employees on social media marketing to influence customer relationship. Table 4.8 finds out the roles of restaurant employees in social media marketing in relation to customers relationship. It presents the means scores and standard deviations on all the items relating to the respondent’s perception of the employee roles in restaurant social media marketing.
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Table 4.13 Employee Roles on Social Media Marketing For Staff For Customers
Std. Std. Attitudinal Statements N Mean Deviation N Mean Deviation How posts and regular updates are made 183 2.40 1.371 247 2.02 1.397 How restaurant products and services 183 2.56 .822 247 2.11 1.076 are marketed How employees interact and discuss 183 2.43 .588 247 2.46 .515 with guest Frequency of posting restaurant's new 183 2.03 .991 247 2.04 1.098 information The restaurant products and services 183 4.33 0.80 247 3.09 1.444 should not be posted online Attitude of employees toward response 183 2.20 .976 247 2.06 .977 to customers Dealing with restaurant information 183 4.23 .779 247 2.36 .678 Marketing of restaurant information to 183 2.23 .846 247 2.14 .909 family and friends Dealing with restaurant's posts through 183 2.54 1.051 247 2.36 .481 social media Attitude of new customer to the 183 4.30 .826 247 4.29 .453 restaurant's network site Attitude of spectator customers to 183 4.22 .762 247 4.49 .501 restaurant network site Attitude of inactive customers to 183 4.44 .633 247 4.45 .507 restaurant social network site Valid N (listwise) 183 247 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
From Table 4.13, agreement and the overall influence of the organizational practices have a mean score range from 2.03 – 4.23. Based on the criterion set that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagree. The study found that employees of the restaurants were not satisfied with “dealing with restaurant information” with mean scores (MS) 4.23 and standard Deviation (SD) 0.78.
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The study also found that employees were not satisfied with the restaurant “products and services should not be posted online” MS 4.33 (SD 0.80), “attitudes of a new customer to the restaurant network site” MS 4.30 (SD 0.83), “attitude of spectator customers to restaurant network site” MS 4.22 (SD 0.76), and “attitude of inactive customer to restaurant network site” MS 4.44 (SD 0.63). The result, however, indicates that restaurant employees were satisfied with “how post and regular updates are made”
MS 2.40 (SD 1.37), how restaurant products and services are marketed MS 2.56 (SD
0.82), how employees interact and discuss with guest MS 2.43 (SD 0.58), frequency of posting restaurant new information MS 2.03 (SD 0.99), “attitude of employees toward response to customers” MS 2.20 (SD 0.98), “Marketing of restaurant information to family and friends” MS 2.23 (SD 0.85), and “dealing with restaurant’s posts through social media” MS 2.54 (SD 1.05).
This study finding implies that for the restaurants to succeed in their social media marketing, employees are to be given full chance to play their roles which include; creating, conversation, critics and other positive roles. This is because creator employees create through regular posts/update which customers will be reacting upon.
Conversationists among the staff are those that normally provide solutions to guests’ problems and advice where necessary. Where customers are satisfied with the information provided to them through the social media sites and how their problems are solved, they will feel comfortable with the restaurant and that will improve their relationship with the restaurant. But the restaurant should device a means of tackling the problems of spectator customers, in-active customers and new customers. This is because they do not comment or post through the social network site, so even if they 123
are not satisfied the restaurant may not know and they can share the bad experience with the outside world.
The table also presents the means scores and standard deviations on all the items relating to the customers roles on social media marketing. The overall influences of the customers’ roles have a mean score range from 2.02 – 4.49. Based on the criterion set that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagree. Thus, restaurant guests were satisfied with the statement “how posts and regular updates are made” (MS) 2.02 standard deviation (SD) 1.39. The results also indicate that restaurant guests were agreed with “how restaurant products and services are marketed” MS 2.11 (SD 1.08),
“How employees interact and discuss with guest” MS 2.46 (SD 0.52) “frequency of posting new restaurant information” MS 2.04 (SD1.09), “Attitude of employees toward response to customers” MS 2.06 (SD 0.97), “Dealing with restaurant information” MS
2.36 (SD 0.68), “Marketing of restaurant information to family and friends” MS 2.14
(SD 0.91), and “Dealing with restaurant posts through social media” MS 2.36 (SD
0.48).
While the results indicate that, restaurant guests in the study area disagreed that “the restaurant products and services should not be marketed online” MS 3.09 (SD 1.44),
“Attitude of new employees to restaurant social network site” MS 4.29, (SD 0.45),
“Attitude of spectator employees to restaurant social network site” MS 4.49, (SD 0.50), and “Attitude of inactive employees to restaurant social network sites” MS 4.45, (SD
0.51). Perceptions of roles played by both staff and employees of the restaurants in the study area were not different except for “dealing with restaurant information.”
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This finding indicated that if the restaurants are to take corrective measures of the posting all their products through the social media, as well as take necessary actions on the attitudes of their new employees, in-active employees and spectator employees, their social media marketing will 100% be accepted. This is because their customers are satisfied with all other factors such as how post/updated are regularly made, how restaurant employees interact with them, and the way restaurant products are marketed online.
The analysis from the qualitative data shows that incorporation of staff in the marketing of the restaurants’ products and services is of utmost importance as it increases customers’ relationship. From Interviewee 49, the study found out the following:
“… You see we respect our staff a lot as they are contributing a lot to the success of our business. Even most of our guest patronise the restaurant through our staff social media site. This is why we tried to make sure we provide them with enabling environment to interact with guest face to face when they patronise the restaurant. We also allowed them to access the restaurant server by giving each of them the password once they are in their place of work so that they can use their personal social media site to interact with the customers. We thank God for our staff as when we were using radio, television and newspapers to advise, we normally run at break-even, but now thanks to social media and our staff incorporation in the marketing process. I want to advise my colleagues to always have respect for their staff as what i observe with our customers, they are very happy and have respect and regard with the staff that normally attend to them either when they come or through social media, and i observe the staff 125
normally gives the guest all necessary information they require about their unit. I am very happy with my staff.” (Interviewee, 49, 2017).
The above interview shows the importance of incorporation of your employees into the marketing processes of your restaurant and how intimate relationship is developed through the process. The interview highlights on the employee role in social media marketing and how it uplift their relationship with customers from non-intimate to intimate.
These findings are in line with Chen, Fay and Wang, (2011) who noted that, Getting your employees to advocate on behalf of your brand communicates transparency and authenticity, resulting in twofold benefits of a more trusted brand image and ultimately more conversations.
The finding to this study on how employees are incorporated into the restaurant’s marketing is supported by the quantitative findings of this study in which with MS 2.43
(SD 0.58), and MS 2.46 (SD 0.52), both staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area strongly agree with how staff and guests are incorporated into the restaurant marketing processes.
The result of the interview with the managerial staff of the restaurants in the study area is presented in the table below:
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Table 4.14 Incorporation of Employees in Marketing the Restaurants products and Services S/N Responses Frequency Percentages 1 Providing them with 32 62.75 opportunity to market the products and services using their websites. 2 Allowing them to 43 84.31 directly interact with customers using social media 3 Providing them with free 12 23.53 network for social media interaction with customers. TOTAL 51 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.14 presents the interview result conducted with managerial staff of restaurants in the study area where they were asked to state” how their employees are incorporated in marketing their products and services.” Majority of restaurant managers indicated multiple responses were 32 of them representing 62.75 percent states that they normally provide their employees the opportunity to market the restaurant’s products and services using their website. Moreover, 43 of the respondents representing 84.31 percent states that they normally allowed their employees to directly interact with customers through social media and 12 of them representing 23.53 percent indicates that they normally provide their employees with free network for them to interact with the customers through social media. This indicated that the restaurants had various ways of incorporating their employees in their marketing processes. This finding is supported by Lin (2014), who opined that, by engaging all of your employees, from diverse wait staff to different specialty chefs, you will tap into a wide spectrum of specific networks.
Each employee can communicate about the brand uniquely in conjunction with his or her own role, resulting in authentic, personalized content to relevant audiences. Content 127
shared by employees receive eight times the engagement of content on branded channels.”
The interview result about how employees’ incorporation into the marketing process improves customers’ relationship is presented in the table below:
Table 4.15 Improving Customer’s Relationship through Employees Incorporation into the Marketing
S/N Responses Frequency Percentages 1 Through disseminating 48 94.12 information of their unit to the customers 2 Through their direct 34 66.67 contact with the customers 3 Customers are more 41 80.39 familiar with employees who normally attend to them TOTAL Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.15 above presents the interview results with managerial staff of restaurants in the study area with regards to “how incorporation of their employees in the marketing processes improves customer’s relationship.” Majority of them shows states multiple views as 48 representing 94.12 per cent stated that, employees’ incorporation into the marketing processes through disseminating information of their various units to the customers through social media improves customers’ relationship. 34 of the managerial staff representing 66.67 percent states that, employees incorporation into the marketing processes through allowing them to have direct contact with customers improves the restaurant customers relationship, while 41 representing 80.39 per cent of the total respondents stated that, its observed that customers are more familiar with employees who normally attend to them as such employees incorporation into the marketing 128
processes improves the restaurant customers relationship as they knows the need and want of the customers they normally attend to. This finding was supported by Lin
(2014) that:
“When restaurants want to strategies there marketing processes, their
employees should not be left behind and each should be engage at his
appropriate level to ensure they are committed about improving the
restaurant’s marketing strategy. The finding was also supported by Sarah
(2014) that, happy and satisfied employees in their organizations tend to be
more productive and efficient, as such works harder and contributes more
toward their organizational success.”
The quantitative findings of this study also supported this findings as with MS 2.20 (SD
0.98), and MS 2.06 (SD 0.97), both staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area strongly agreed with the statement that employees incorporation into restaurant marketing processes improves customer relationship.
The implication of this finding is that where restaurants are targeting a social media marketing strategy, their staff should not be left unconsidered as their contribution to its success is high. This is because customers are different; some of the customers are only familiar with the staff that normally attends to them whenever they are in the restaurant or marketing through social media. So once the staff is not there they will not feel comfortable to interact with others. However, incorporating employees into the marketing aspect will definitely tackle the problem and the customers will feel satisfied and continue their patronage to the restaurant. In most restaurants the operational staff are in direct contact with the guest, so the guest know them more than the managerial and other categories of staff. Incorporating these categories of staff will make the guests 129
who are familiar with them to feel satisfy, as such increase the level of the relationship.
Staff in a particular section/unit knows their place more than those in other unit, so they are in the best position to providing necessary information to guests in case of enquiry.
So when customers are provided with answers to their questions as soon as possible, that will make them feel happy. A happy customer is the returned customer and can advertise the restaurant to friends, family and relatives.
The results are similar to Washinkoon (2015) Owning a website or blog has its responsibilities as you cannot just upload and forget it. Regular website maintenance is a must if the company wants its site to be successful which is among the sole responsibilities of the staff. It was also supported by Agnihotri, Kothandaraman,
Kashyap and Singh, (2012) that, regular visitors are looking for what is new, so the staff responsible is to provide the site with new and exciting information, products or features. This finding also corroborate with Lin (2014), who states that, by engaging all of your employees, from diverse wait staff to different specialty chefs, you will tap into a wide spectrum of specific networks. Each employee can communicate about the brand uniquely in conjunction with his or her own role, resulting in authentic, personalized content to relevant audiences. Content shared by employees receive eight times the engagement of content on branded channels. Restaurant managers understand that successful lasting customer relationships are key factors in successful long-term operations. Knowing what drives successful customer relationships is important for the restaurant management, because loyal customers normally purchase more, pay higher prices, and offer word-of-mouth recommendations to others.
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4.7.3 Relationship between Employee Roles on Social Media and Customer Relation for Staff and Guest
Research objective four was developed to identify the relationship between employee roles in social media and customer relationship among restaurants in Katsina State,
Nigeria. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to identify the relationship between employees of the restaurants perception of social media as a marketing tool and customers’ relationship. The results of the test are shown in Table 4.16.
Table 4.16 Correlation Analysis Between Employee Roles on Social Media and Customers’ Relationship
Customer Employee Roles Relationship in Social Media Customer Pearson 1 .519 Relationship Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .048 N 183 183 Employee Roles in Pearson .519 1 Social Media Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .048 N 183 183
Table 4.16 shows that there was a weak positive correlation between employees roles in the social media and customer relationship, which was statistically significant (r =
.519, n = 183, p< 0.05). sig. (2-tail) value is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval.
This finding indicates that restaurant employees need to change their attitude toward interaction with guests through social media, and they should change from being spectators, in-actives to creators and conversationalists so as to be interacting with 131
guests and make social media an effective and acceptable tool for marketing by restaurants. Nambisan (2002) observed that, customers review is one of the aspects of business success and customers review with regards to company’s products and services which happened to be of great value to both the customers and the company is always available via social media. Similarly, Pan and Chiou 2011) observed that, the comments which help customers in getting good products and services from a particular restaurant are made through electronic word of mouth and help customers much in their purchasing decision.
The correlation analysis between restaurant guests’ roles in social media and restaurant employees’ relationship is presented in Table 4.17.
Table 4.17 Correlation Analysis Between Customers Roles in Social Media and Employees Relationship
Customer Guest Roles in Social Relationship Media Customer Relationship Pearson 1 .500 Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .016 N 247 247 Guest Roles in Social Pearson .500 1 media Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .016 N 247 247 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.17 presents the correlation analysis for guests of the restaurants in the study area. The finding shows a weak positive correlation between guests roles on social media and employees relationship, which was statistically significant (r = .500, n = 247, p< 0.05). sig. (2-tail) value is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval. This finding indicates that the more guests are motivated by the restaurants by 132
providing necessary facilities that will make their social media sites enjoyable, the more it will be accepted as a marketing medium by the guests.#
This finding was supported by Elton and Azeta (2006) that, companies with effective and efficient internet facilities in different parts of the world are valued by their customers as a “store open 24 hours a day”. E-commerce enables companies to have with relatively low-cost more customers. The importance and viability of the social media makes it very imperative to be adopted by restaurants that strive to better serve their customers.
4.7.3 Hypothesis 4 There is no Association between the Employee Roles in Social Media and Customers’ Relationship
In order to further test the hypothesis that social media experience is not significantly associated with restaurant customer relationship. Table 4.17 indicates sig. (2-tailed) p- value of 0.519. A p - value of 0.519 indicate that there is association between employee roles in social media and customer relationship. Therefore, the null hypothesis which state that, there is no association between the employee roles in social media and customer relationship is not accepted (p-value less than 0.05). Thus, there is sufficient evidence to accept the alternate hypothesis which state that there is association between employee roles in social media and restaurant customer relationship.
4.8 Objective 5
4.8.1 Determination of how Post/Update Mediate Social Media Marketing and Customer Relationship
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This objective was set to investigate how regular post/updates through social media sites influences restaurant customer relationship in creating awareness. This was carried out using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages as presented in Table 4.18.
The table shows a summary of the frequency and percentages of the staff and guests views on regular posts/updates factors on improving their relationship.
Table 4.18 Staff and Customers Views on Regular Post/Update in Increasing Customer Relationship
Std. Parameters N Mean Deviation Customers feedback shows their satisfaction 430 2.43 1.311 Usage of mobile handsets, laptops and computers in accessing social media sites 430 1.63 .515 Advertisement, public relation and promotion are part of the restaurant form of marketing 430 2.49 1.363
Posting of comments and observations 430 1.94 1.252 Dealing with customers comment 430 1.96 .881 How posts and regular updates are made 430 1.42 1.417 How employees interact and discuss with guest 430 2.32 .547 Dealing with restaurant's posts through social media 430 2.37 .789 Dealing with restaurant information 430 2.21 2.146 Valid N (listwise) 430 Source: Field survey, 2017.
From Table 4.18, agreement and the overall influence of the organizational practices have a mean score range from 1.42 –2.49. Based on the criterion set that, 1-2.5 will be considered as agreed and 2.6 – 5 disagree. The study found that restaurant employees and customers were satisfied and agreed with all the statements which are “customers’ feedback shows their satisfaction” MS 2.43 (SD 1.31), usage of mobile handsets, 134
laptops and desktop computers in accessing social media sites MS 1.63 (SD 0.52), how employees interact and discuss with guest MS 2.32 (SD 0.55), “Dealing with restaurant post through social media MS 2.37 (SD 0.79), “Advertisement, public relation and promotion as part of the restaurant marketing strategies” MS 2.49 (SD 1.36), “Posting of comments and observations” MS 1.94 (SD 1.25), and “How posts and regular updates are made” MS 1.42 (SD 1.42), “Dealing with customers comment” MS 1.96
(SD 0.88), and “Dealing with restaurant information” MS 2.21 (SD 2.15).
This study finding implies that for the restaurants to succeed in their social media marketing to create a relationship between their employees and customers, all the factors for regular posts and updates have to be considered. This is because where there is barrier of communication between the staff and customers of the restaurant, a lot of the social media marketing goals will not be achieved, and regular posts and update factors have provided solutions to all these problems. It is believed that the success in your social media marketing partly depends on what you post in your content and lack of good content brings about a lot of problems to the social media marketing. Both staff and guests of the restaurants agreed that, customers’ feedback through social media site even if it is negative partly shows their satisfaction. For the guest who does not complain always leave the restaurant in a problem, as he will not return. But where the guest complained the restaurant can take corrective measures or improve where the comment is positive.
This finding corroborate with Amplify, (2014) that updating your website content can take it from being a simple presence online, to being a major tool that will help grow your brand or business. The finding is also similar to Chris (2015) who is of the view 135
that if you are using social media marketing to promote your blog, you know that one of the most critical success factors is the content you post on your social media pages.
Many times the problem that destroys your effort is lack of content. The finding is also supported by Bjorn and Donna (2016) that having a website that is updated on a regular basis will also give you fuel for your social media promotions.
As the study was sought to investigate how regular post/update influences restaurant staff and customers relationship, interview was conducted with sampled restaurant managers. Findings from the research indicated that there were generally similar and diverse views among the respondents with regards to the subject. The majority of the restaurant managers said that regular post/update determines how acceptable your social media marketing campaign will be. For example:
We see that without posting through our social media site our customers
will think we have nothing. This is why we post even ahead of time what
we are to prepare for the day …. (RM 7).
We always update our social media site with new and fresh contents and
our customers are always happy. You immediately see them responding
to what we post. …. (RM 10).
Beside restaurants use it to receive feedback from their customers:
We normally post to ask our guests who have departed about their
journey to their various destinations and ask about their experience in
our restaurant. ….(RM 14). 136
In this our restaurant we use to ask our guest for their observation about
our products and services and ask them to tell us they they want us to
improve ……(RM 23).
One fact that was evident was the frequency of regular post/update by restaurants through their social media sites:
We use to post frequently everyday through our social media sites. What we do
is, we post breakfast then wait for one and half hour before we logout.
When lunch is ready we post and again, so also dinner …..(RM 29).
Some key informant made specific references to interact with customers through their social media sites. They point out that:
There are some of our staff who are employed for the sole purpose of social
media marketing. Their only duty everyday is to monitor the social media site,
update it with good contents about the restaurants product and respond to
customers’ need and demand …(RM 36).
Another Key informant added:
I am the one responsible for monitoring the social media site and I normally update it regularly with new posts. I also always respond to guest requests or complaints immediately …(RM 42).
While another one pointed out that:
We understand the importance of regularly updating our social network site because of the way our customers are showing their interest. We are seeing an 137
increased turnover every day. This is why we employed additional professional personnel for the control and monitoring of the social media site. …..(RM 47).
However, there was a general consensus among restaurant managers that regular post/update in social media flatforms is a good factor that influences restaurant staff and customers relationship.
Table 4.19 How Social Media Sites are updated with Regular Posts, Comments and Suggestions
S/N Responses Frequency Percentages 1 Daily 45 88.24 2 Weekly 4 7.84 3 Fortnightly 1 1.96 4 Monthly 1 1.96 5 Others 0 0 TOTAL 51 100 Source: Field survey, 2017. Table 4.19 above presents the interview results with managerial staff of restaurants in the study area with regards to “how social media sites are updated with regular posts, comments and suggestions.” It was indicated based on the findings that majority of the respondents 45 representing 88.24 percent of the total are of the view that, they normally updates their social media sites on daily basis. Out of the total key informants,
4 representing 7.84 percent are updating their own social media sites on weekly basis.
While 1 and 1 respondents representing 1.96 percent of the total are updating their own
Fortnightly and monthly respectively. This clearly indicated that the restaurants know the impact of regular post/update to social media sites; this is why they are practicing it frequently. The finding indicated that the restaurants updating their social network sites on weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis are not using their social media sites for marketing purposes. There is also the tendency that the segments of their customers are not the categories using social media frequently. 138
This finding corroborate with the findings of Jayson, (2016) It doesn’t matter how
careful you are, how much good you do for your customers, and how solid your
reputation is otherwise; eventually, you’re going to encounter some criticism on social
media. It might be a customer who’s unhappy with a product they ordered, someone
nitpicking one of your recent announcements or just a troll trying to get the better of
you. Proper solution to this is regular post/update on your social media site, so that
responds immediately to whatever positive or negative so that guest will not feel
neglected, and assumed you are less concern about his need or problem. It is also similar
to the findings of Hose (2017), Despite great number of followers/customers through
personal engagement with social media, it is of utmost importance to shy away from
robotic posting on your flat forms that may dissuade or stop consumers from furthering
conversation.
4.8.2 Relationship between Regular post/update of Social Media sites and Customer Relation for Staff and Guest
Research objective five was developed to investigate the relationship between regular
post/update in social media sites on customer relationship among restaurants staff and
customers in Katsina State, Nigeria. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to
investigate the relationship between regular post/update in social media sites and how
it influences customers’ relationship. The results of the test are shown in Table 4.20.
Table 4.20 Correlation Analysis Between Regular post/update on Social Media Sites and Customers’ Relationship
Customer Relationship Regular posts/updates 139
Customer Pearson 1 .552 Relationship Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .057 N 430 430 Regular Pearson .552 1 posts/updates Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) .057 N 430 430 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.20 shows that there was a weak positive correlation between regular post/update on social media sites and its influence on restaurant staff and customer relationship, which was statistically significant (r = .552, n = 430, p< 0.05). sig. (2-tail) value is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval. This finding implies that regular post/update on social media sites is good factor that restaurant staff and customer relationship. Based on this for a restaurant to achieve its social media marketing goal, it has to make sure that it has good contents in its post which should be in line with its social media marketing plans.
This finding corroborate with Abigail and Garry (2013) Effective and efficient social media site can help organisation in maintaining its relationship with existing customers and allowed the new one to have confidence with the restaurant. In addition, a restaurant can manage its online reputation by actively participating in social media through regular posts and updates of good contents through their social network sites. The finding is also similar to Richard (2016) who is of the view that websites are meant to serve users and giving users fresh content makes them happier. A happy user will most probably come back, convert, register, buy or recommend your website to other people. 140
4.9 Ranking of the Study Predictor Variables
In exploration of the social media marketing acceptability predictor variables influencing restaurant customer relationship, regression analysis was used for both staff and guests of the restaurants in the study area.
4.9.1 Descriptive analysis of the Social Media Marketing Variables
Social media marketing predictor variables were ranked according to their contribution to customer relationship based on their mean as shown in the table below.
Table 4.21 Analysis of Ranking on Social Media Marketing Predictor Variables Base on Mean Score
Social Media Predictor Variables N Mean Rankings Std. Deviation 'Frequency of usage' 430 4.45 1.564 'Creators' 430 4.44 1.547 `Tools in use` 430 4.43 1,455 `Social Media Consumption` 430 4.39 High 1.566 'Employee Roles in Social Media' 430 4.37 1.265 `Personal Engagement! 430 4.17 1.344 `Social Media Experience` 430 4.02 1.222 'Social-Interactive engagement' 430 3.53 1.372 'Conversationalists' 430 2.92 Medium 1.243 `Critics` 430 2.81 1.452 'Spectators' 430 2.78 1.374 'Collectors' 430 1.80 1.298 'In-actives` 430 1.75 Low 1.992 `Joiners` 430 1.62 1.543 Valid N (listwise) 430 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.21 shows the value of social media marketing variables by means scores and standard deviation. The result indicates that ‘Frequency of usage’ with mean score (MS)
4.45, ‘Creators’ (MS 4.44), ‘Tools in use’ (MS 4.43), ‘Social Media Consumption’ (MS
4.39) and ‘Employee roles in Social Media’ (MS 4.37) are the first five highest rankings 141
of the fourteen social media marketing variables. ‘Personal Engagement’ (MS 4.17),
‘Social Media Experience’ (MS 4. 02), ‘Social Interactive Engagement’ (MS 3.53),
‘Conversationalists’ (MS 2. 92) and ‘Critics’ (MS 2.81) were at the middle level of the variable rankings. The social media marketing variables that had lower rankings are
‘Spectators’ (MS 2.78), ‘Collectors’ (MS 1.80), ‘In-actives’ (MS 1.75) and ‘Joiners’
(MS 1.62).
In the interviews this is what Interview ‘15’ indicated.
“…In our restaurant we respect customers and regard them as kings. We know, if
they did not patronize us we will stop operation. Because of this both managerial
and operational staff relate well with customers to find out what they want. Once
we found what they want, we then try to incorporate it into our operation. If it is an
advice, we table it among us and discuss, then we agree on a better solution. You
see, we always try our best to post and update our social media sites sometimes
daily and sometimes weekly. Even if we found some views or complaints or
suggestions from our customers, we post and update more than once a day.”
(Interviewee 15).
The qualitative finding was supported by Richard (2016) who states that, websites are meant to serve users and giving users fresh content makes them happier. A happy user will most probably come back, convert, register, buy or recommend your website to other people.”
Interview results with restaurant managers in the study area regarding “the strategies they used in responding to customer’s views, comments and suggestions” is contained in Table 4.22 below. 142
Table 4.22 Strategies of Responding to Customer’s Views, Comments and Suggestions through Social Media
S/N Responses Frequency Percentages 1 Responding to 41 80.39 customer’s feedback as soon as possible 2 Regular Posts 32 62.75 3 Regular Update 29 56.86 4 Including customer’s 51 100 views and suggestions in their activities TOTAL Source: Field Survey, 2017.
Table 4.22 contains the interview results with managers of restaurants in the study area when they were asked on the strategies they use for responding to customers’ views, comments and suggestions through social media. Majority of the respondents have various views on this issue, as 41 of them representing 80.39 per cent indicated that, they normally respond to customers’ feedback as soon as received. 32 of the managerial staff representing 62.75 per cent of the total respondents states that they make regular posts concerning the restaurants products and services to their social media sites as part of their strategies. 29 of the respondents representing 56.86 percent indicated they normally make regular update to their social media sites, while all the respondents states that they include customers’ views, comments and suggestions in all their marketing activities.
This clearly indicated that different restaurants in the study are using different marketing strategies in order to maintain good relationship with their customers. This finding was supported by many literatures as Chris (2015) who opined that, if you are using social media marketing to promote your blog, you know that one of the most critical success factors is the content you post on your social media pages. Bjorn and
Donna (2016) that, many times the problem that destroys your effort is lack of content. 143
Having a website that is updated on a regular basis will also give you fuel for your social media promotions. While Richard (2016) states that, websites are meant to serve users and giving users fresh content makes them happier. A happy user will most probably come back, convert, register, buy or recommend your website to other people.
This finding is supported by the quantitative findings of this study as both staff and guests strongly agreed with the way the restaurants are dealing with customers comments MS 2.29 (SD 1.15). They also agreed with how comments are incorporated into new update MS 1.85 (SD 0.78), and MS 1.85 (SD 0.78), as well as how post and regular updates are made” MS 2.40 (SD 1.37), (MS) 2.02 (SD) 1.39, respectively.
4.9.2 Multiple regression analysis An extension of Linear Regression is termed as the Multiple Regression Analysis and is a technique that is used when predicting unknown value of a variable from the known value of two or more predictor independent variables. Predictor variable were investigated with customer relationship using multiple regression analysis where, all the independent variables were used in this analysis to predict the value of the dependent variable from the independent variables. The coefficient of determination
(R2) indicates the proportion of variance in Y accounted for by the combined simultaneous influence of the independent variables (Polit and Hungler, 1995). Table
4.23 shows the result of regression analysis on all the variables on social media consumption, social media experience and employee roles in social media.
Table 4.23 Model Summary for Multiple Regressions
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square R Square Change F Change Sig. F Change 1 .622a .499 .463 .499 26.299 .000 Source: Field Survey, 2017.
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Table 4.26 indicates the R square which gives the extent or percentage the independent variables can explain the variation in the dependent variable. In this study, independent variables (Social Media Consumption: Tools in use, frequency of usage; social media experience: personal engagement, social-interactive engagement; Employee Roles in
Social Media: creators, conversationalist, collectors, critics, joiners, in-actives, and spectators) accounted for 49.90% of the variations in dependent variable (customer relationship). However, it still leaves 51.10% (100% - 49.90%) unaccounted in this study.
In order to test the capability of each independent variable on how it predicts the dependent variable, regression analysis was run and the result is as in Table 4.24 below:
Table 4.24 Regression analysis for the Social Media Marketing Predictor Variables
Unstandardized Coefficients Model B Std. Error t-value Sig. 1 (Constant) -.996 .804 -1.238 .216 Social Media Consumption -.010 .039 -.255 .049 Tools in use -.009 .041 -.225 .022 Frequency of usage -.070 .043 -1.629 .044 Social Media Experience .603 .044 13.821 .000 Personal Engagement .060 .082 .736 .042 Social Interactive Engagement .129 .039 3.311 .001 Employee Role in Social Media .095 .100 .947 .044 Creators -.025 .062 -.398 .021 Conversationalist .093 .096 .961 .037 Critics .314 .085 3.686 .000 Collectors .133 .096 9.322 .622 Joiners .067 .078 -1.788 .755 Spectators .306 .056 .962 .544 In-actives .299 .047 2.066 .892
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a. Dependent Variable: Customer relationship b. Predictors: (Constant), 'Social Media Consumption', 'Tools in use', 'Frequency of usage' , 'Social Media Experience', 'Personal engagement, 'Social Interactive Engagement, 'Employee Role in Social Media', 'Creators','', 'Conversationalist', 'Critics', 'Collectors', 'Joiners', 'Spectators', 'In-actives'
Base on the result in Table 4.24, with a p-value of .049 which is less than the alpha value 0.05, social media consumption is proved to be significant to predict the dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study. The Tool in use is another independent variable that is significant to predict the dependent variable (customer relationship) as its p-value 0.022 is less than the alpha value 0.05. With a p-value of
0.044 which is less than the alpha value 0.05 frequency of usage is also an important variable significant to predict the dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study. The social media experience is also significant to predict the dependent variable
(customer relationship) for this study. This is because p-value for social media experience is 0.0001 which is less than alpha value 0.05. Personal engagement is significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study. This is because p-value for personal engagement is 0.042 which is less than alpha value 0.05.
With p-value .001 which is less than alpha value 0.05, social-interactive engagement is another variable that proved to be significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study.
Employee role in social media is significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship). This is because p-value for employee role is 0.044 which is less than alpha value 0.05. Creator is significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship).
This is because P-value for creator is 0.021 which is less than alpha value 0.05.
Conversationalist is also significant to predict dependent variable (customer 146
relationship). This is because p-value for conversationalist is 0.037 which is less than alpha value 0.05. With a p-value of 0.0001 less than alpha value of 0.05, critic is an independent variable for this study which proved to be significant to predict the dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study.
However, with a P-value 0.622 more than alpha value 0.05 collectors is an independent variable for this study which proved to be not significant to predict the dependent variable (customer relationship) for the study. Joiner is not significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study. This is because p-value for joiners is 0.755 which is more than alpha value 0.05. Spectator is not significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study. This is because p- value for spectators is 0.544 which is more than alpha value 0.05. In-active is also not significant to predict dependent variable (customer relationship) for this study. This is because P-value for in-active is 0.892 which is more than alpha value 0.05.
Based on the above result, for the restaurants to maintain good relationship with their customers through social media, it is imperative that they try to neutralise the behaviours of their collector, joiners, spectator and in-active employees. This is because their actions are of utmost importance to the to the restaurant customer’s relationship.
Collectors normally serves as organizers on social media as they collect contents from groups for their own use and where they are interested in the content, they share it to some other groups. According to Liana (2014) collector is person on social media that serves as an organizer as he collects content for himself and does little share of the content. It is believed that when collectors are motivated, they can become creators, critics or conversationalists. While joiners on the other hand are those that maintains 147
multiple network sites and are visiting them on regular intervals. According to George
(2010) Joiners are people who have a profile on different social networking sites and visit them with some regularity. Where the actions of the joiner employees are neutralized by the restaurants there is the tendency for them to share the content of the restaurants to their various social networks sites since they have multiple followers in their various accounts. This will increase the acceptability rate of restaurant social media as a good marketing tool by their employees and their customers.
However, spectator employees on social media are important to the restaurant social media marketing. This is because majority of people fall under this category when related to online activities. Because of their importance, restaurants have to put more emphasis to see that spectator employees change their online activities to creators or conversationalists since they have time to listen to podcast, online forum, read blogs view user-generated videos and frequently search for user rating and reviews.
According to Liana (2014) spectator is a person on social media sites, yet doesn’t comment, or post. Since this category of people has time for online activities, the restaurants should device a way of neutralizing their activities to be posting and commenting on content. Moreover, the in-active are those category that have no time for social media activities, they neither post nor comment to online content. In-actives are those who are online but in no way participate in any form of social media.
According to Roesler (2013), in-active in social media is becoming rarer as most websites are now integrating elements of social media into their website. According to
Liana (2014) in-active is a person on social media who has not logged into their account in number of months. In this case, for restaurants social media marketing to be fully accepted the actions of in-active employees on social media should be neutralized. 148
What makes them not be posting or commenting should be identified and they should be motivated to change their habit to become creators, critics or conversationalists.
The fourteen independent variables are the factors that determine customer relationship and are represented by the regression equation below:
Y= a + b1X1 + b2X2 + b3X3 + b4X4 …..bnxn
Where,
Y=Customer Relationship
N =Number of variables in the model
X1 = Social Media Consumption
X2 = Tools in use
X3 =Frequency of usage
X4 =Social Media Experience
X5 =Personal Engagement
X6 =Social-interactive Engagement
X7 =Employee Role in Social Media
X8 =Creators
X9 =Conversationalist
X10 =Critics
X1 1= Collectors
X12 =Joiners
X13 =Spectators
X14 =In-actives
Therefore, Customer Relationship (Y) = 0.966 + = 0.010 (Social Media Consumption)
+ =0.009 (Tools in use) + =0.070 (Frequency of usage) + 0.603 (Social Media 149
Experience) + 0.060 (Personal Engagement) + 0.129 (Social-Interactive Engagement)
+ 0.095 (Employee Role in Social Media) – 0.025 (Creators) + 0.093
(Conversationalists) + 0.314 (Critics) – 0.133 (Collectors) + 0.067 (Joiners) – 0.306
(Spectators) – 0.299 (In-actives).
Table 4.27 above shows the means scores, t-values and p-values of social media marketing predictor variables. The lowest and highest mean scores were highlighted.
The results suggest that ‘social media experience’ and ‘critics’ are the highest social media marketing tools ranked first and second predictors of customer relationship with positive correlation P-value (0.0001) and (0.0001) respectively which are both less than alpha value (0.05), the third highest social media marketing predictor of customer relationship was ‘Social-interactive engagement’ with p-value 0.001 less than alpha value 0.05. The fourth social media marketing predictor of customer relationship was
‘creators’ with positive correlation P-value (0.021) which is less than alpha value
(0.05), ‘tools in use’ was ranked fifth social media marketing predictor of customer relationship with positive correlations P-value 0.022 less than alpha value (0.05),
‘conversationalist’ was ranked sixth social media marketing predictor of customer relationship with positive correlation P-value 0.037 less than the alpha value (0.05).
The seventh social media marketing predictor variable was ‘personal engagement’ with positive correlation P-value 0.042 which is less than the alpha value (0.05). The eighth and ninth social media marketing predictor variables of customer relationship were
‘Frequency of usage’ and ‘Employee role in social media’ with positive correlations
0.044 respectively which were both less than alpha value 0.05. The tenth social media marketing predictor variable of customer relationship is ‘social media consumption’ with p-value 0.049 less than alpha value 0.05. 150
All the remaining social media marketing variables (‘collectors’ P. value 0.622, Joiners’
P- value 0.755, ‘Spectators’ P-value 0.544 and ‘In-actives’ P. value 0.892), were found to be not significant social media marketing predictor variables P-values more than the alpha value (0.05).
The findings indicated that staff and guest of restaurants in the study area would appreciate social media as a means of marketing if they were opportune to have good social media experience coupled with enough opportunity to always express their views through critics via social media flat forms. When staff and guests of the restaurants are provided with all the necessary means that will allowed them to be interacting and engaging themselves through social media, they will as well regard social media as a good marketing tool for restaurant product and services. Staff and guests that are allowed to become creators, conversationalist and are opportune to personally engage themselves in social media will definitely use the opportunity to regard social media as a good medium for restaurants to market their products and services. Restaurant staff and guests that are frequently using social media flat forms and are freely allowed to play their roles as well as have good opportunity of social media consumption will have a positive perception of social media flat forms as a good marketing tool for restaurant product and services. As stated in previous research findings Divya and Bulomin
(2014), Social media is of utmost importance as it normally sells the business words out and provides the opportunity to organizations to increase their relationship with their customers.
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The positive regression coefficients (B) illustrate that the factor ‘customer relationship’ positively affected staff and guest’ overall perception on social media marketing. The finding of this study indicated that restaurant staff and guests would appreciate and have knowledge of the restaurant’s products and services, create purchase intention, sale the restaurant’s products and services to friends and families using word of mouth and other means as well as be fully satisfied with the social media flat forms if the restaurant management would provide effective medium for easy interaction through social media, have all the necessary tools as well allowed to be creators, conversationalists and critics through the flat forms.
The finding is similar to that of Ravi (2015) where an organization is responding quickly and appropriately to customer’s complaints and comment, it has a good chance of having customer’s retention and loyalty. Hose (2017) the customer is the foundation of any business success and one of the primary goals of any marketing strategy is to identify and meet the customer’s needs and demands. Considering customer’s importance at all stages of your marketing process helps your company to ensure greater customer satisfaction and increase its long-term goal of repeat business. It also corroborates with Lin (2014), by engaging all of your employees, from diverse wait staff to different specialty chefs, you will tap into a wide spectrum of specific networks.
Each employee can communicate about the brand uniquely in conjunction with his or her own role, resulting in authentic, personalized content to relevant audiences. Content shared by employees receive eight times the engagement of content on branded channels.
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This part has presented the findings of the qualitative research. It has shown that managerial staff of the restaurants in the study area reacted on the types of social media sites they provided to their organizations, it’s importance in facilitating their marketing processes, rate of its acceptability, how it is managed and controlled, frequency of its update, how their employees are incorporated into the marketing processes and their incorporation improves customers relationship as well as the strategies they are using for responding to customers views, comments and suggestions. The views of the managerial staff received from the open ended questions and interview provides clearer image of the acceptability of social media marketing some of which have been identified earlier in quantitative findings. The study will now present the next chapter.
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CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Overview This chapter focuses on the general highlight of the study which incorporates results, the conclusions drawn from the results and findings as well as recommendations which were based on the specific objectives of the study. Based on the findings of the study, conclusions are drawn from which the researcher suggests many recommendations.
Suggestion for further research was included as additional section in this chapter.
5.2 Summary
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the acceptability of social media marketing on customers’ relationship in Katsina State, Nigeria. Katsina as one of the viable states in the northern part of Nigeria rich in many hospitality outlets in which restaurants among, requires a way in which to boost their marketing processes. This need would be achieved by finding out the effective and efficient ways of reaching target customers as fast as possible, and devising ways of satisfying their needs and demands which will develop their relationship with the restaurants they patronise. This would lead each restaurant to shift from the mass media type of marketing to social media category or join the two together for proper operation.
The study also sought to investigate the main types of social media sites as well as those that are highly acceptable when related to social media marketing to customers’ relationship in the study area. Qualitative interviews with managerial staff of the restaurants and quantitative survey of key types of social media sites identified by the study yielded to justification of having as many social media sites as possible restaurant 154
social media marketing despite having WhatsApp and Facebook as the ones majority of the restaurants are using. The study found out that generally there was high frequency of using these social media sites by some restaurants and customers’ and low to others.
This study described the staff and customers’ of restaurants as aged between 31-45 years which are at their active ages, majority of them are male despite little percentage who are women. In some countries, the percentage difference is very low. The study also described the staff and customers’ earning more than N31, 000 as their monthly income, and they are using different types of social media sites with WhatsApp and
Facebook as the major, and majority are using the social media sites on daily basis.
Apparently all the respondents that answered that the restaurants use both mass and social media in marketing their products and services are active respondents on social media who use the social media frequently. It is evident that those staff and customers that responded to the negative that their restaurants did not have social media site are the in-active categories. Most of the restaurants sampled are in operation for more than five years and majority of the staff have been in the operation with them all these while, also majority of the guests have been patronizing restaurants within and outside the state.
The study found out that with a mean score (MS) of 2.40 and standard deviation (SD) of 1.39 both staff and customers of the restaurant strongly agreed that, right selection of social media enhances restaurant staff and customers’ relationship. It was also found that with a mean score (MS) i.63-2.57 of each attitudinal statement restaurant customers 155
agreed or strongly agreed that social media if properly utilized is a good marketing tool for restaurants.
This study also sought to find out the type of social network sites provided by the management to their restaurants in the study area and noted that some of them provide one, some two, and some more than that for effective and efficient running of their marketing activities. This is with the major aim of improving staff and customers’ relationship and boosting their market. With a Chi-square value (3.931), a P value of
(0.015) which is less than alpha level (0.05), it was concluded that there is enough evidence to suggestion association between social network sites used by restaurants and their customers’ relationship.
The results of the study indicated that social media is of utmost importance when dealing with social media marketing to improving customer relationship. With a mean score (MS) 2.42 and standard deviation (SD) 1.34, both staff and customers of the restaurants agreed that the restaurants possess effective and functional social media sites. They are also satisfied with the frequency of using the social media site with a mean score (MS) 2.03, and standard deviation (SD) 1.17. This clearly indicated that tools in use and frequency of usage are the main factors of social media consumption that contributes a lot to restaurant customers’ relationship. The study found that there is strong positive correlation between social media consumption and restaurant customer relationship which was statistically significant (r = .017, n = 183, p< .005) implying that, calculated sig. (2-tailed) is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval. 156
The study results shows that with a mean score (MS, 1.86), standard deviation (SD,
0.68) the staff of the restaurants agreed with the time of using the social media sites, and they interact with customers through social media with mean score (MS, 2.40), standard deviation (SD, 1.42). This is an indication that both personal engagement and social-interactive engagement as the factors for social media experience are maintained.
The study found that, there was a strong, positive correlation between social media experience and customer relationship in restaurants, which was statistically significant
(r = .528, n = 183, p< .005) implying that, calculated sig. (2-tailed) is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval. Thus, the alternative hypothesis, there is association between social media experience and customers’ relationship is accepted.
Since social media marketing cannot take place without staff and customers interacting to each other in order to have intimate relationship, this study investigated the role of employees and customers with regards to social media marketing in maintaining a relationship between them. Among other things, the study investigated how posts and updates are made, how restaurant products and services are marketed through social media, how employees interact with guests in dealing with their comments, complaints and suggestions through social media, the study further identified different categories of staff and guests based on their roles and participation in social media.
This study found out that the major challenges of social media marketing are “Attitude of spectator employees and customers to restaurant social network site” MS 4.49, (SD
0.50), and “Attitude of inactive employees and customers to restaurant social network 157
sites” MS 4.45, (SD 0.51). The study found that, there is a weak positive correlation between guests roles on social media and employees relationship, which was statistically significant (r = .100, n = 247, p< 0.05). sig. (2-tail) value is less than the critical value 0.05 at 95 percent confidence interval.
The R value in the regression model of the study that represented the simple correlation which was 0.662, gave an indication of high degree of correlation between the independent variables (social media marketing) and the dependent variable (customer relationship). The R2 value of 0.499 meant that the total variation in the dependent variable (customer relationship) could be explained by the independent variable (social media marketing), and in this case is still high at 51.10%.
5.3 Conclusions
The study concludes that restaurant social media marketing is accepted by majority of the stakeholders (restaurant proprietors) and majority of the guests that patronises these restaurants. Because of that, the restaurants in the study area are trying from various angles to see that they are above their competitors by providing what is required for social media marketing to be effective and efficient that will make both guest and staff to have interest in adopting it as their marketing tool. The study also concludes that stakeholders enlighten spectator employees and customers as well as in-active employees and customers on the prospects of social media marketing.
Social media is proved to be a good marketing tool for restaurants globally as it increases the competitive advantage of many restaurants. The finding of this thesis 158
reveals WhatsApp as the highest social media site used by restaurants and their customers on marketing their products and services in the study area. It was followed by Facebook as majority of the restaurants and their customers are using multiple social media sites. The hypothesis which stated that “there is no association between social network sites used by restaurant and customer relationship” confirms the finding, since the P value (0.015) is less than alpha value of 0.05 the null hypothesis hence, was not accepted. It was concluded that there is enough evidence to suggest an association between the types of social network sites used and customer relationship. This thesis therefore, concludes that, the restaurants should at the initial stage survey on the type of social network site widely used by customers in their location before they embark on possessing a social media site for their marketing activities. This will enable them have enough followers that will be sharing their content to their accounts.
The objective of social media marketing is to sell the business words out and provides opportunity to organisations to increase their relationship with their customers. Many restaurants now used internet for different purposes as introducing, advertising and even trading their new products and services. Many restaurants across the world nowadays take the advantage of internet to sell their products and services to either individual or group customers or even to other companies. In this study, restaurant proprietors are showing much concern about social media marketing and how it is used in strengthening the relationship with their customers; as such they provide the tools and make sure frequency of using their social media sites is adequate. The finding of this thesis shows that the more negative views of the staff and guest with regards to social media consumption factors are not tackled the more likely employees and guests disregard social media as a good marketing tool. This is because when they found it 159
difficult to link to each other via social media they may feel dissatisfied as such quit its acceptance. The result of the hypothesis for the study which stated that “there is no association between social media consumption and customer relationship” confirms this finding since the P value (0.023) was less than alpha value of 0.05, the null hypotheses was not accepted hence, it was concluded that there is enough evidence to suggest an association between the social media consumption and customer relations.
The study also concludes that social media experience is of utmost importance if at all social media marketing is to be acceptable by both staff and customers. This is because, the study found that the level of your personal engagement coupled with the frequency and rate of how your followers are actively contributing to your social media presence is the main predictor of social media marketing process for your organization. Despite engaging customers through social media as intimidating to businesses, it is still as one of the fore front steps in creating sales, maintaining loyal customers, and brand ambassadors as such is a pillar to your organization’s business strategy. The hypothesis which stated that “There is no association between social media experience and customer relationship” confirms this finding as it was found that (p-value 0f 0.026 is less than alpha value 0.05). Thus, there is sufficient evidence to accept the alternate hypothesis which state that there is association between social media experience and restaurant customer relationship.
The employees’ involvement is equally important if social media marketing is to be successful. It was found that, word-of-mouth messages from friends and colleagues are widely seen as more relevant and trustworthy than social media blasts from corporate 160
accounts. As a result, content shared by employees, by one recent measure, gets eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels, and is re-shared 25 times more frequently. This study found that, collector, spectator, joiner and in-active employees are important to social media marketing but proper attention is not paid by restaurants to their contributions toward successful social media marketing. This study therefore, concludes that the actions of these categories of staff and guest should be neutralized by motivating them to become creators or conversationalists. Based on other empirical studies such as Chris (2015), the conceptual framework of the thesis presented in chapter one proposed that certain social media marketing factor such as social media consumption factors, social media experience factors and employee role factors determine restaurant staff and guest decision to accept or reject social media as a good marketing tool by restaurant based on their views either positive or negative.
This study finding and hypotheses confirmed that, social media consumption and social media experience coupled with employee role influenced restaurant customer relationship.
Regular post/update are important to any social media site if at all it is meant to be acceptable as a good social media marketing tool. This study finding shows that all the indicators of regular post/update were agreed or strongly agreed by the respondents. It is therefore imperative for the restaurants in the study area to maintain their status of updating social media sites used for marketing with new content. This will enable their staff and customers to have up to date information about the products and services the restaurants are selling.
161
However, on the predictor variables the thesis identified that frequency of usage, creators, tools in use and social media consumption to be the higher predictors of customer relationship, while collector, spectator, joiner and in-active employees as the lower predictors. Based on this finding, the thesis concluded that the restaurants should maintain the status of their creator employees to continue updating their social media sites with relevant content by using the tools provided by the restaurants. Moreover, the actions of their collector, spectator, joiner and in-active employees should be neutralized through motivation for them to become creators and conversationalist. This will enable them to fully participate in the social media marketing activities of the restaurant which will make it acceptable by the employees and the customers.
This thesis finally highlights the common measures of customer relationship within restaurant business. The findings of this study highlight the challenges of lack of having good marketing strategies by restaurants when using social media as a marketing tool.
The Findings also pin points the prospects of possessing good social media tools and knowledgeable staff to manage and control it. These findings are relevant to employers, hotels, restaurant proprietors and students of hospitality management profession.
162
5.4 Recommendations
Based on the findings of this study, the following is recommended for policy and further research:
i. For policy development, there is need for a legislative approach to ensure that
government security agencies have access to restaurants social media sites in
order to reduce the insecurity situations across the state and the country at large.
For instance, the restaurant management should not hesitate to provide
information to security agencies when need be as it will help in tackling or
reducing the menace of insecurity such as (boko haram) across the country.
ii. The State’s Hotels and Tourism Board should carry out baseline surveys and
ensure all Hotels, Restaurants and other hospitality sectors are registered for
them to have complete data for proper planning. This study henceforth
recommends that restaurant proprietors should encourage their colleagues to get
organized into abiding by the laws governing hotels and tourism board in the
state for them to gain meaningful operation procedures. For restaurants that are
not registered with the board, should try to understand the advantage of being
in a group, as lack of such grouping makes operation of the hotels and tourism
board difficult.
For future research, a study on the impacts of restaurant social media marketing in the study area will help to identify whether the restaurants in the study area should continue to adapt the two major social media sites they are using (WhatsApp and Facebook), or 163
they should try some other types. This study found that customer relationship with regards to social media marketing in restaurant business does not appear to be fully accepted through social media consumption factors only, and evidence has shown that, there are other self oriented factors such as economic and motivational that may in one way or the other affects customer relationship in restaurant marketing processes.
Therefore, research focusing on economic and motivational implication to find out if restaurant customer relationship can be influence by these factors. Future research should also cover the following gaps identified based on the objectives of this study:
i. On how restaurant management can fill the gap between the staff and guests
expectations related to tools in use role of employees in social media
marketing because the gap will create negative view to both staff and guest
with regard to accepting social media as a marketing tool.
ii. How restaurants in the study area should improve on incorporating their
staff in their social media marketing processes for the staff to feel important
so as to contribute their quota in the marketing processes. Lin (2014), reports
that by engaging all of your employees, from diverse wait staff to different
specialty chefs, you will tap into a wide spectrum of specific networks.
Content shared by employees receive eight times the engagement of content
on branded channels.
iii. How restaurant management can device ways in addition to what they
already have on how their social media sites are managed and controlled.
This is to reduce the negative perception of some customers that their 164
privacy is not secured for whatever they post, comment or suggest through
the restaurant social media sites.
iv. The findings of this study also pin points for the need of the restaurants to
always try and have a well-defined social media goal both in purpose of the
restaurant social media activities and the target of their social media
messages.
v. To increase response rate and reach target customers at ease in this type of
study, it is recommended that, multiple sampling methods be adopted such
as simple random, purposive, proportionate simple random and stratified
methods.
vi. Another recommendation is that the concerns of social media marketing by
restaurants should be mainly to ensure staff and customers’ satisfaction if
staff and customers’ relationship is to be achieved via the medium.
Therefore, the plans for social media marketing have to objectively deal
with providing all the necessary tools that will make the operation effective
and efficient.
Another area that this study found out is the effect of spectator staff and customers as well as in-active staff and customers on social media marketing on customers’ relationship.
165
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Appendix A: Approval of Research Proposal Letter
181
Appendix B: Katsina State Hotels Board; Research Approval Letter
182
Appendix C: Map of katsina State, Nigeria indicating its Three Zones
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Appendix D: Restaurants in Katsina State
S/N NAME ADDRESS/LOCATION 1 Katsina City Restaurant I.B.B. way, Katsina 2 Al-Amir Restaurant IBB way, Katsina 3 Al-Amin Restaurant IBB way, Katsina 4 Aluta Café and Restaurant Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 5 Asma Restaurant HUK Polytechnic, Katsina 6 Asmies Dishes and Recipes Hasssan Usman Rd, GRA, Katsina 7 Bamijisola Catering Services Yahaya madaki way, katsina 8 Bigger Treat Restaurant Lawrence Onoja Rd, Katsina 9 Crispy Meat Pie Nagogo Rd, GRA, Katsina 10 De-Fa-Amoson Restaurant Hassan Usman Rd, Katsina 11 De Lovaz Foods and Pastries IBB way Behind Okmos, Katsina 12 Dunkin Pepper Recipe K/Kaura Round About, Katsina 13 Magama Restaurant Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 14 Excellent Chef Catering Goruba Housing Estate, Katsina 15 Fahaz Restaurant Dandagoro, Katsina 16 Fatima Bafullatana Restaurant IBB way, Katsina 17 Finger Licking Restaurant Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 18 Flora Catering Services Lawrence Onoja Rd, Katsina 19 Food Tins Mangal Flaza, IBB way, Katsina 20 Gamsuwa Restaurant Kafur Rd, K/Kaura, Katsina 21 Grandeza Catering Services Kabomo Crescent, K/Kaura, katsina 22 Ham Restaurant Fagachi Quarters, Katsina 23 Happy Bites Chips IBB way, Katsina 24 Haz Delight Restaurant Murtala Mohd way K/Kwaya, Katsin 25 Himma Restaurant Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 26 Imperial Restaurant WTC Rd, katsina 27 Ummul Khairi Restaurant Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 28 Jumada Restaurant IBB way, Katsina 29 Khadija Hausa Cuisine IBB way, K/Kaura, Katsina 30 Kitchen Skill Ventures Mangal Flaza K/Kaura, Katsina 184
31 Kungfu Chinese Restaurant Nagogo Rd, Katsina 32 Lady M Chops and Restaurant IBB way, katsina 33 Maman Mero Food Canteen Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 34 Marz Catering services Mangal Plaza, Opp Abbatoir, Katsin 35 MCDowells Restaurant GRA Round About, Katsina 36 Meena Special Fura and Yoghurt Mamman Bashar Rd, GRA, Katsina 37 Metro Restaurant IBB way, Katsina 38 Nwanyi Imo Restaurant IBB way, katsina 39 Oasis Bakery Nagogo and IBB way, Katsina 40 Ogo Oluwa Restaurant IBB way, Katsina 41 Royal Hospitality Consult & Catering Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 42 Sahel Foods Goron gida, Katsina 43 Sally’s Cuisine Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 44 Samna Food Restaurant Bakin Tasha, Jibia 45 Shekina Restaurant Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 46 VIP Fast Food Near Nitel, GRA, Katsina 47 Wonders Restaurant GRA Round About, Katsina 48 A-one Restaurant Katsina Rd, Funtua 49 A.Q. Restaurant Hospital Road, Dutsinma 50 Al-Amir Restaurant Dandume Katsina Rd, Dandume 51 Al-Amir Restaurant Funtua Unguwan Dahiru, Funtua 52 Al-Fasaha Restaurant Jabiri, Zaria Rd, Funtua 53 Alhaji Boyi Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru Sokoto Rd, Funtua 54 Amina Gargada Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru Sokoto Rd, Funtua 55 Fa’ida Restaurant Jabiri, dandume Rd, Funtua 56 Fatee Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru, Funtua 57 God’s Time Restaurant Katsina Rd, Funtua 58 K. Nakowa Restaurant Jabiri, Funtua 59 Karama Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru, Funtua 60 Liman Mustapha Catering Services Sokoto Rd Aya Primary School, FT 61 Luba Special Food Restaurant Zaria rd, Jabiri, Funtua 62 Mamman Mustapha Restaurant Hospital Rd, Dutsinma 185
63 Marhaba Restaurant Katsina Rd, Funtua 64 Maryam Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru, Funtua 65 Nasiha Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru, Funtua 66 Ni’ima Restaurant Unguwan Dahiru, Funtua 67 Sahaf Restaurant Kafur Junction, Malumfashi 68 Shukura Restaurant Sokoto Rd, Funtua 69 Tambaya Mai Tuwon Kauna Sokoto Rd, Funtua 70 Temitope Restaurant Jabiri, Zaria Rd, Funtua 71 Unique Restaurant Katsina Rd, Funtua 72 Uwar Sahabi Restaurant Unguwar Dahiru, Funtua 74 Ahuta Hotel Opp. Alliance Bread Katsina 75 Liyafa palace Hotel IBB Way, Katsina 76 Katsina Motel Mohd Bashir Way, GRA, Katsina 77 Al-Bhustan Hotel Katsina Yahaya Madaki way, katsina 78 Makera Motel Daura road, katsina 79 Katsina Tourist Logde Mani Road, katsina 80 Albarka Guest Inn Sokoto road, Funtua 81 Zambrush Suites Yahaya madaki Way, Katsina 82 Katsina Sahara Suites WTC Road, Katsina 83 Makera Motels Sokoto Road, Funtua 84 King Paradise Hotel Gidan Dawa, katsina 85 Corner Delux Hotel Jiba Road, Funtua 86 Gabby International Hotel Off. IBB way, katsina 87 Jamil Hotel, Funtua Katsina Road, Funtua 88 Funtua Motel Sokoto Road, Funtua 89 Darma Guest Inn Jabiri Junction, Funtua 90 Liberty Bounty Hotel Off. Yahaya Madaki way, Katsina 91 Dutsinma Motel Hayin Gada, Dutsinma 92 Daura Motel Mai’adua Road, Daura 93 Dan-malam Guest Inn Zango Road, Daura 94 Katsina Guest Inn Nagogo Road, Katsina 95 Fadama View Motel Yahaya Madaki way, katsina 186
96 Luna Castle Hotel IBB way, katsina 97 Takare Guest Inn Mamman Daura Street, Daura 98 DC International Hotel Zaria Road, Dandume Source: Katsina State Hotels and Tourism Board, 2015.
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Appendix E: Sample Size
S/N Population Sample size (n*320/N) Restaurant Zone Mng Oper Guest Total Mng Oper Guest Total 1 Katsina City Katsina 2 22 30 54 1 3 5 9 Restaurant 2 Aluta Café and Katsina 2 24 25 51 1 3 4 8 Restaurant 3 Bigger Treat Katsina 1 17 30 48 1 2 5 8 Restaurant 4 Dunkin Pepper Katsina 3 29 30 62 1 5 5 11 Recipe 5 Fatima Katsina 1 17 28 46 1 2 4 7 Bafillatanai Restaurant 6 Gamsuwa Katsina 1 17 23 41 1 2 3 6 Restaurant 7 Hot Pot Katsina 1 17 23 41 1 2 3 6 restaurant 8 Haz Delight Katsina 2 19 26 47 1 3 4 8 Restaurant 9 Jumada Katsina 2 22 24 48 1 3 3 7 Restaurant 10 Lady M Chop Katsina 2 20 22 44 1 3 3 7 and Restaurant 11 Meena Special Katsina 2 22 30 54 1 3 5 9 Fura and Yoghurt 12 Ogo Oluwa Katsina 2 18 28 48 1 3 4 8 Restaurant 13 Samna Food Katsina 3 30 30 63 1 4 5 10 Restaurant 188
14 A-One Funtua 2 19 29 50 1 3 5 9 Restaurant 15 Asmies Dishes Katsina 2 20 27 49 1 3 4 8 and Recipes 16 Fatee 2 18 27 47 1 3 4 8 Restaurant 17 Liman Funtua 3 35 29 68 1 6 5 13 Mustapha catering Services 18 Maryam Funtua 4 36 28 58 2 5 4 11 Restaurant 19 Shukura Funtua 3 37 29 69 1 6 5 12 Restaurant 20 Unique Funtua 4 32 31 67 2 5 5 12 Restaurant 21 Katsina Motel Katsina 2 22 28 52 1 3 4 8 22 Albarka Guest Funtua 2 20 34 56 1 3 5 9 Inn 23 King Paradise Katsina 2 25 35 62 1 4 5 10 Hotel 24 Funtua Motel Funtua 2 22 27 51 1 3 4 8 25 Daura Motel Daura 2 22 29 53 1 3 5 9 26 Luna Castle Katsina 2 26 29 57 1 4 5 10 Hotel 27 Liyafa palace Katsina 1 19 25 45 1 3 4 8 Hotel 28 Makera Motel Katsina 2 24 28 54 1 3 4 8 29 Dutsinma Katsina 2 29 31 62 1 5 5 11 Motel 30 Jamil Hotel Funtua 2 19 29 50 1 3 6 10 Funtua 189
31 Darma Guest Funtua 1 17 23 41 1 2 3 6 Inn, Jabiri 32 Excellent Chef Katsina 3 37 29 69 1 6 5 12 Catering 33 Flora catering Katsina 1 17 30 48 1 2 5 8 Services 34 Happy Bites Katsina 2 26 29 57 1 4 5 10 Chefs 35 Imperial Katsina 3 37 29 69 1 6 5 12 Restaurant 36 Kitchen Skills Katsina 2 20 34 56 1 3 5 9 Ventures 37 Maman Mero Katsina 1 17 28 46 1 2 4 7 Food Canteen 38 Marz Catering Katsina 2 24 28 54 1 3 4 8 Services 39 Metro Katsina 2 26 29 57 1 4 5 10 restaurant 40 Royal Katsina 2 24 28 54 1 3 4 8 Hospitality Catring Consult 41 Shekina Katsina 1 17 28 46 1 2 4 7 Restaurant 42 Grandeza Katsina 2 20 34 56 1 3 5 9 Catering services 43 Crispy Meat Katsina 2 26 29 57 1 4 5 10 pie 44 Nwanyi Imo Katsina 1 17 28 46 1 2 4 7 Restaurant 45 Sally’s Cuisine Katsina 2 19 26 47 1 3 4 8 190
46 Ni’ima Katsina 2 20 34 56 1 3 5 9 Restaurant 47 Tambaya Mai Katsina 1 17 30 48 1 2 5 8 Tuwon kauna 48 Katsina Sahara Katsina 2 19 29 50 1 3 6 10 Suites 49 Al-Bhustan Katsina 2 22 30 54 1 3 5 9 Hotel TOTAL ------110 1145 1546 2801 51 183 247 481
191
Appendix F: Time Scale
S/N Activities Date Duration Responsibility 1 Conducting secondary research 15- 1 week Student Coming up with the research problem 22/09/2016 and conceptualisation of the topic as well as identifying the gaps. 2 Meeting with the supervisors to 22- 1 week Supervisors and student reframe the established concept and 29/09/2016 development of the topic based on the identified research gaps. 3 Coming up with background to the 29/09- 2 weeks Student study and identification of purpose 13/10/2016 and specific objectives based on developed concept. 4 Meeting with the supervisors to 13- 2 weeks Supervisors and student discuss and reframe the identified 27/10/2016 purpose and specific objectives. 5 Identifying the theoretical basis as 27/10- 2 weeks Student well as related literatures based on 02/11/2016 the topic. 6 Meeting with the supervisors for 02- 2 weeks Supervisors and student reframing and necessary corrections 15/11/2016 based on the prepared theoretical based and identified literatures 7 Amendment of necessary corrections 15- 2 weeks Student highlighted by the supervisors. 29/11/2016 8 Coming up with the methodology 29/11- 2 weeks Student and the instruments to be used in 12/12/2016 conducting the study. 9 Meeting with supervisors to discuss 12- 2 weeks Supervisors and student the methodology, observations and 20/12/2016 corrections. CHRISTMAS AND NEWYEAR 20/12- HOLIDAYS 08/01/2917 10 Amendment of necessary corrections 09- 1 weeks Student highlighted by the supervisors. 16/01/2017 NATIONAL STRIKE 17/01- 8 weeks 14/03/2017 11 Meeting with supervisors to check if 14- 2 weeks Supervisors and student the corrections are up to their 28/03/2017 expectations. 12 Updating the work in line with the 28- 2 weeks Student schools’ guidelines for proposal 11/04/2017 presentation 13 Proof reading the work for 12/04/2017 1 day Student production of proposal 14 Submission of proposal for 12- 1 week Student presentation 19/04/2017 192
15 Proposal presentation 19/04- 3 weeks Student 02/05/2017 16 Corrections based on observations 02- 1 week Student by the panel of judges after proposal 09/5/2017 Presentation 17 Submission for postgraduate school 10/5/2017 Department/coordinator 18 Collection of approval for the study 11/5/2017- 1 month Postgraduate school 11/6/2017 19 Conducting Primary research 11/6/2017- 1 month Student Conducting Pilot testing and 11/7/2017 analysing the result obtained from pilot test
20 Collection of Quantitative data 12/7- 2 months Student 12/9/2017 21 Collection of Qualitative data 13/09- 1 month Student 13/10/2017 22 Presentation of data and Coding 14/10/2017- 3 weeks Student 05/11/2017 23 Analysis of both primary and 06/11/2017- 1 month Student secondary data. 06/12/2017 24 Meeting with the supervisors for 07- 1 week Supervisors and student observations and corrections based 14/12/2017 on the analysed data. CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR BREAK 25 Amendment of necessary corrections 11- 1 week highlighted by the supervisors. 17/01/2018 26 Meeting with supervisors to check if 18/01- 2 weeks Supervisors and student the corrections are up to their 02/02/2018 expectations. 27 Corrections editing 03/02/2018- 1 month Student 03/03/2018 28 Organisation and production of 04/03- 1 week Student report 04/04/2018 29 Submission for presentation 05/04/2018 1 day Student 30 Presentation 06/04- 1 month Student 06/05/2018
193
Appendix G: Cost Breakdown
S/N Activities Date Cost Responsibility 1 Conducting secondary research 15- Nil Student Coming up with the research 22/09/2016 problem and conceptualisation of the topic as well as identifying the gaps. 2 Meeting with the supervisors to 22- Nil Supervisors and student reframe the established concept 29/09/2016 and development of the topic based on the identified research gaps. 3 Coming up with background to the 29/09- Nil Student study and identification of purpose 13/10/2016 and specific objectives based on developed concept. 4 Meeting with the supervisors to 13- Nil Supervisors and student discuss and reframe the identified 27/10/2016 purpose and specific objectives. 5 Identifying the theoretical basis as 27/10- Nil Student well as related literatures based on 02/11/2016 the topic. 6 Meeting with the supervisors for 02- Nil Supervisors and student reframing and necessary 15/11/2016 corrections based on the prepared theoretical based and identified literatures 7 Amendment of necessary 15- Nil Student corrections highlighted by the 29/11/2016 supervisors. 8 Coming up with the methodology 29/11- Nil Student and the instruments to be used in 12/12/2016 conducting the study. 9 Meeting with supervisors to 12- Nil Supervisors and student discuss the methodology, 20/12/201 observations and corrections. CHRISTMAS AND NEWYEAR 20/12- BREAK 08/01/2917 10 Amendment of necessary 09- Nil Student corrections highlighted by the 16/01/2017 supervisors. NATIONAL STRIKE 17/01- 14/03/2017 11 Meeting with supervisors to check 14- Nil Supervisors and student if the corrections are up to their 28/03/2017 expectations. 194
12 Updating the work in line with the 28- Nil Student schools’ guidelines for proposal 11/04/2017 presentation 13 Proof reading the work for 12/04/2017 3000Ksh Student production of proposal 14 Submission of proposal for 12- Nil Student presentation 19/04/2017 15 Proposal presentation 19/04- Nil Student 02/05/2017 16 Corrections based on observations 02- 2000ksh Student by the panel of judges after 09/5/2017 proposal Presentation 17 Submission for postgraduate 10/5/2017 Nil Department/coordinator school 18 Collection of approval for the 11/5/2017- Nil Postgraduate school study 11/6/2017 19 Conducting Primary research 11/6/2017- 15,000ksh Student Conducting Pilot testing and 11/7/2017 analysing the result obtained from pilot test
20 Collection of Quantitative data 12/7- 50,000ksh Student 12/9/2017 21 Collection of Qualitative data 13/09- 30,000ksh Student 13/10/2017 22 Presentation of data and Coding 14/10/2017- Nil Student 05/11/2017 23 Analysis of both primary and 06/11/2017- Nil Student secondary data. 06/12/2017 24 Meeting with the supervisors for 07- Nil Supervisors and student observations and corrections based 14/12/2017 on the analysed data. CHRISTMAS AND NEWYEAR BREAK 25 Amendment of necessary 11- Nil Student corrections highlighted by the 17/01/2018 supervisors. 26 Meeting with supervisors to check 18/01- Nil Supervisors and student if the corrections are up to their 02/02/2018 expectations. 27 Corrections editing 03/02/2018- Nil Student 03/03/2018 28 Organisation and production of 04/03- 7,000Ksh Student report 04/04/2018 29 Submission for presentation 05/04/2018 Nil Student 30 Presentation 06/04- Nil Student 06/05/2018 Total cost 104,000ksh Student 195
APPENDIX H: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STAFF (FOR STAFF) KENYATTA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM
Dear Respondent,
I am a student of the above named institution and school currently undertaking a survey on “Acceptability of Restaurant Social Media Marketing on Customers Relationship in Katsina State, Nigeria”. Kindly help facilitate data collection by answering the questions below as honestly as possible. This questionnaire is purely for academic purposes and information provided would be treated with utmost confidentiality. Kindly, do not include any personal information anywhere in this questionnaire. Shade or Tick on your preferred answers to the questions as provided with options; Strongly Agreed (SA), Agreed (A), Undecided (U), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD). Usman Lawal A. Mani T130F/29107/2014 Section A: Demographic Characteristics of the Respondent
1. Age of Respondent (Kindly indicate your age) a. 15-30 years b. 31-45 years c. 46-60 years d. 61 above 2. Gender of Respondent (Kindly indicate your gender) a. Male b. Female 3. Income of the Respondent (Kindly indicate your monthly gross income) a.
4. Which form of social media do you frequently use? a. Facebook b. Instagram c. Twittwer d. WhatsApp e. Others, specify 5. How frequent do you use it? a. Daily b. Weekly c. Fortnightly d. Monthly e. Others, specify Section H1: Social Media marketing and Customers Relationship (FOR STAFF)
S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENTS RATING SA A UD D SD 1. Right selections of social media platforms 1 2 3 4 5 enhance restaurant customer relationship. 2. Acceptability of social media by customers 1 2 3 4 5 depend on the presence of restaurant modern social media facilities. 3. The restaurant relied solely on social media 1 2 3 4 5 in marketing their products and services to enhance relationship with their customers. 4. The company mixed both mass and social 1 2 3 4 5 medias in marketing their products and service relationship with their customers. 5. Customers feedback shows they are 1 2 3 4 5 satisfied using social media form of marketing 6. Target customers are best reached using 1 2 3 4 5 social media form of marketing by the restaurant 7. Mobile handset, laptops and desktop 1 2 3 4 5 computers are the major devices used by the restaurant for regular post/updates to maintain good customer relationship. 8. Advertising, public relation and Promotion 1 2 3 4 5 of products are the major form marketing the restaurant performed online to enhance good customer relationship. 197
9. Customers obtained through social media are 1 2 3 4 5 higher than those obtained from other sources. 10. The Restaurants find it easier to tackle 1 2 3 4 5 customer’s complaints through social media. 11. There is effective cost control when dealing 1 2 3 4 5 with customers through social media. 12. Customer’s feedback shows they are happier 1 2 3 4 5 transacting with the restaurant through social media. 13. Social media marketing can be rated highly 1 2 3 4 5 acceptable when it comes to maintaining good relationship with customers.
Section H2: Rate of Social Media Consumption by Staff (FOR STAFF)
S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENT RATING SA A UD D SD 1. The restaurant has an effective and 1 2 3 4 5 functional social media site. 2 The restaurants have more than one 1 2 3 4 5 social network site for easy interaction with customers 3. The establishment is using both mobile 1 2 3 4 5 handsets and desktop systems. 4. Majority of the customers posts their 1 2 3 4 5 feedback through the restaurant social network sites. 5. Majority of the customers posts their 1 2 3 4 5 feedback through the restaurant social network sites on regular basis. 6. Customer’s comments are dealt with 1 2 3 4 5 immediately as received. 7. Customers are always engaged for their 1 2 3 4 5 views before decision is taken with regards to products and services.
Section H3: Social Media Experience (FOR STAFF) S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENT RATING SA A UD D SD 1. I only used social network site during leisure 1 2 3 4 5 period 198
2. I only used social network sites when at 1 2 3 4 5 home. 3. I normally utilised my social network sites 1 2 3 4 5 by checking for posts/updates regularly. 4. I interact with family, friends and business 1 2 3 4 5 colleagues through social network sites. 5. I used my own resources in marketing 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant product and services through social network sites.
Section H4: Employee Role in Social Media (FOR STAFF)
S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENT RATING SA A UD D SD 1. I always post regular updates through the 1 2 3 4 5 social network sites. 2. Restaurant’s products and services are 1 2 3 4 5 regularly marketed through the social network sites. 3. I always interact and discuss with guest 1 2 3 4 5 through the social network sites. 4. New information about the restaurant’s 1 2 3 4 5 products and services are posted regularly. 5. The restaurant’s products and services are 1 2 3 4 5 not supposed to be posted to the restaurant’s website directly. 6. The way and manner restaurant employees 1 2 3 4 5 responds to customers comments through social network sites is very bad. 7. I always copy and paste the restaurant’s 1 2 3 4 5 posts from their website to another group. 8. I always market the restaurant’s products 1 2 3 4 5 and services to family and friends through the social network flat form. 9. I normally react when i came across 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant’s posts through their social network sites. 10 The restaurant’s social network sites are just 1 2 3 4 5 introduced to me by friend. 11 I neither post nor comment to the 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant’s posts via their social network site. 12 I only look at posts/updates by restaurants 1 2 3 4 5 and comments by their customers through their social network sites.
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Appendix I QUESTIONNAIRE FOR GUEST (FOR GUEST) KENYATTA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM
Dear Respondent,
I am a student of the above named institution and school currently undertaking a survey on “Acceptability of Restaurant Social Media Marketing on Customers Relationship in Katsina State, Nigeria”. Kindly help facilitate data collection by answering the questions below as honestly as possible. This questionnaire is purely for academic purposes and information provided would be treated with utmost confidentiality. Kindly, do not include any personal information anywhere in this questionnaire. Shade or Tick on your preferred answers to the questions as provided with options; Strongly Agreed (SA), Agreed (A), Undecided (U), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD). Usman Lawal A. Mani T130F/29107/2014 Section A: Demographic Characteristics of the Respondent
1. Age of Respondent (Kindly indicate your age) a. 15-30 years b. 31-45 years c. 46-60 years d. 61 above 2. Gender of Respondent (Kindly indicate your gender) a. Male b. Female 3. Income of the Respondent (Kindly indicate your monthly gross income) a.
b. Instagram c. Twittwer d. WhatsApp e. Others, specify 5. How frequent do you use it? a. Daily b. Weekly c. Fortnightly d. Monthly e. Others, specify
Section I1: Social Media Marketing and Customers Relationship
(FOR GUEST)
S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENTS RATING SA A UD D SD 1. Right selections of social media platforms 1 2 3 4 5 enhance restaurant customer relationship. 2. Acceptability of social media by customers 1 2 3 4 5 depends on the presence of restaurant modern social media facilities. 3. The restaurant relied solely on social media 1 2 3 4 5 in marketing their products and services to enhance relationship with their customers. 4. The company mixed both mass and social 1 2 3 4 5 medias in marketing their products and service relationship with their customers. 5. Customers feedback shows they are 1 2 3 4 5 satisfied using social media form of marketing 6. Target customers are best reached using 1 2 3 4 5 social media form of marketing by the restaurant 7. Mobile handset and desktop computers are 1 2 3 4 5 the major devices used by the customers for regular post/updates to maintain good relationship with restaurants.. 8. The restaurant performs advertisement, 1 2 3 4 5 public relation and Promotion of products online to enhance good customer relationship. 202
9. I, family and my friend regularly patronises 1 2 3 4 5 the restaurant through social media. 10. My complaints are best tackled by the 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant through social media. 11. There is effective cost control when dealing 1 2 3 4 5 with restaurant through social media. 12. I always feel happy when transacting with 1 2 3 4 5 the restaurant through social media and post to them my feedback. 13. Social media marketing can be rated highly 1 2 3 4 5 acceptable when it comes to maintaining good relationship with customers.
Section I2: Social Media Consumption
(FOR GUEST)
S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENT RATING SA A UD D SD 1. The restaurant has an effective and 1 2 3 4 5 functional social media site. 2 The restaurants have more than one 1 2 3 4 5 social network site for easy interaction with customers 3. I use both mobile handsets and desktop 1 2 3 4 5 systems. 4. Majority of the customers posts their 1 2 3 4 5 orders of the restaurant products through the restaurant social network sites. 5. Majority of the customers posts their 1 2 3 4 5 feedback through the restaurant social network sites on regular basis. 6. Customer’s comments are dealt with 1 2 3 4 5 immediately as received. 7. The restaurant seek for customers 1 2 3 4 5 views before decision is taken with regards to products and services.
Section I3: Social Media Experience (FOR GUEST) S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENT RATING SA A UD D SD 203
1. I only used social network site during leisure 1 2 3 4 5 period 2. I only used social network sites when at 1 2 3 4 5 home. 3. I normally utilised my social network sites 1 2 3 4 5 by checking for posts/updates regularly. 4. I interact with family, friends and business 1 2 3 4 5 colleagues through social network sites. 5. I used my own resources in marketing 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant product and services through social network sites.
Section I4: Employee Role in Social Media (FOR GUEST)
S/N ATTITUDINAL STATEMENT RATING SA A UD D SD 1. I always post regular updates through the 1 2 3 4 5 social network sites. 2. I regularly order for restaurant’s products 1 2 3 4 5 and services through social network sites. 3. I always interact and discuss with restaurants 1 2 3 4 5 through the social network sites. 4. New information about the restaurant’s 1 2 3 4 5 products and services are posted regularly. 5. The restaurant’s products and services are 1 2 3 4 5 not supposed to be posted to the restaurant’s website directly. 6. The way and manner restaurant employees 1 2 3 4 5 responds to customers comments through social network sites is very bad. 7. I always copy and paste the restaurant’s 1 2 3 4 5 posts from their website to another group. 8. I always market the restaurant’s products 1 2 3 4 5 and services to family and friends through the social network flat form. 9. I normally react when i came across 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant’s posts through their social network sites. 10 The restaurant’s social network sites are just 1 2 3 4 5 introduced to me by friend. 11 I neither post nor comment to the 1 2 3 4 5 restaurant’s posts via their social network site. 12 I only look at posts/updates by restaurants 1 2 3 4 5 and comments by other customers through their social network sites. 204
APPENDIX J: Interview Guide for Managerial Staff of the Restaurant
1. What types of social media sites do you provide to your organisation? 2. How important do you find social media facilitating your restaurant marketing? 3. How acceptable do you find e-marketing in increasing your relationship with customers? 4. Among the social media sites you provided to your restaurant, which one do you found more acceptable in contributing toward the relationship with your customers? 5. How are these social network sites being managed and controlled? 6. How often are the network sites being updated through post, review, response and update? 7. Your employees are important to the business, how are they incorporated toward marketing the products and services of the restaurant? 8. How is the employees’ incorporation into the marketing strategy improving customer’s relationship with the restaurant? 9. What strategies do you use in responding to social media customers’ views, comments and suggestions?
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APPENDIX K: Interview Guide Checklist 1. What types of social media sites do you provide to your organisation? a. Facebook b. Twitter c. 2go d. Instagram e. WhatsApp f. Telegram g. YouTube h. Blog i. LinkedIn j. MicroBlog k. Flickr l. Reddit 2. How important do you find social media facilitating your relationship with customers? a. Very important b. Less important c. Not important 3. How acceptable do you find e-marketing in increasing your relationship with customers? a. Highly acceptable b. Less acceptable c. Not acceptable 4. Among the social media sites you provided to your restaurant, which one do you found more acceptable in contributing toward the relationship with your customers? a. Facebook b. Twitter c. 2go d. Instagram e. WhatsApp f. Telegram g. YouTube h. Blog i. LinkedIn j. MicroBlog k. Flickr l. Reddit 5. How are these social network sites being managed and controlled? a. Through engagement of knowledgeable personnel in ICT b. Creating password known only to authorised personnel 206
6. How often are the network sites being updated through post, review, response and update? a. Daily b. Weekly c. Fortnightly d. Monthly e. Others, specify 7. Your employees are important to the business, how are they incorporated toward marketing the products and services of the restaurant? a. Providing them with opportunity to marketing the products and services using their websites. b. Allowing them to directly interact with customers using social media c. Providing them with free network for social media interaction with customers. 8. How the employee’s incorporation into the marketing strategies is improving customer’s relationship with the restaurant? a. Through disseminating information of their unit to the customers b. Through their direct contact with the customers c. Customers are more familiar with employees who normally attend to them 9. What strategies do you use in responding to social media customer’s views, comments and suggestion? a. Responding to customer’s feedback as soon as possible b. Regular post c. Regular update d. Including customer’s views and suggestions in their activities.