Perceived Value of Food Services through the Prism of Reliability, Tangibles, and Responsiveness

Abstract

This study determined the influence of reliability, tangibles and responsiveness on perceived value in chain fast food companies in South East Nigeria. It was a survey and three research hypotheses guided the study. Customers of chain fast food companies in the study area formed the population while the sample size was 323. The research instrument used for data collection was a 17-item questionnaire on a 4-point scale which was subjected to a reliability test that produced a co-efficient of 0.79 proving the usability of the instrument. Accessibility sampling technique was used in the administration of the instrument. Descriptive and inferential statistics on SPSS version 23 were used to analyze the data generated. Findings revealed that reliability has a positive/significant relationship with perceived value (R = 0.267); responsiveness has a positive/significant relationship with perceived value (R = 0.315) while tangibles have a positive but insignificant relationship with perceived value (R =0.016). On the strength of the findings, the study concluded that reliability and responsiveness have positively significant relationships with perceived value while the relationship between tangibles and perceived value is not positively significant. Given the findings, it is recommended that managers of these establishments must ensure that service offerings delightfully meet customer expectations, customer service must be made a top priority, effective feedback framework must be developed to regularly track the customer satisfaction index to avert avoidance tendency and finally, human capital training must be made a policy thrust for competitiveness.