Table of Contents

Introduction

Section A

Core Service

Intangibility

Perishability

Simultaneous Production and Consumption

Heterogeneity

Lack of Ownership

Section B

Nando’s Servicescape

Section C

Servicescape

Environmental Conditions

Ambient Conditions

Space and Function

Signs, Symbols, & Artifacts

Holistic Environment

Perceived Servicescape

Moderators

Internal Responses (Employee Responses)

Cognitive

Emotional

Internal Responses (Customer Responses)

Emotional

Behaviour

Social Interaction Between and Among Customer and Employees

Section D

Conclusion

Appendices

References

Nando’s is an international restaurant chain that was originated in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1987. It has over 1,000 stores in now 35 countries. According to Kerwin (2010), Nando’s became one of the world’s top 30 best marketing brand, in 2010. The development of the Nando’s food chain in the United Kingdom (U.K) was brought in by the chairman Dick Enthoven son Robert Enthoven (Leigh, Ball, and Haddou, 2014).

This essay will discuss Nando’s core service and mapping and discussing the company into the ‘Servicescape Model’ by Bitner 1992. Then recommendations for Nando’s will be provided based on prior analysis.

Core Service

The service concept refers to the way in which a firm would prefer to have their services perceived by its consumers, employees, and shareholders (Heskett, 1986).  Johnston and Clark (2001) stated that the service concept consists of core attribute. The core attribute is that area of service that individuals think of when the service is named (Iacobucci and Ostrom, 1993).

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Nando’s core service is flame-grilled chicken, which the recipe was originated from South Africa with a Portuguese twist to them. They offer quarter, full, half and wings chicken, with sides. There’s also a variety of burgers and pita wraps. Recently, Nando’s introduced more options for customers with a different diet. They now offer vegetarian options and more healthier sides. Between having friendly cashiers, when ordering the food, to the amazing unique dishes, Nando’s has many loyal customers.

Nando’s is one of the many places that puts consumer to work. They apply prosumer concept by making the customers get their own cutlery, plates and sauces by themselves (Toffler, 1980). In addition, the consumers have to go to the server to order their meals and get their own drinks f they chose the bottomless drinks option or water.  It’s because of the put the customer to work concept, Nando’s does not do service charge. Additionally, this is a great thing on Nando’s and its employees. The prosumer concept allows the restaurant to cut down labour cost (Ritzer, Dean, and Jurgenson, 2012) so they can have their staff focus mainly on serving, cooking, cleaning and greeting and ultimately employ less individuals.

Intangibility

Nando’s service is intangible but also tangible, the food that they serve is tangible, but the waiter service and décor are intangible (Greasley, 2013). In figure 1, the intangible spectrum is shown. The fast food outlets are right in the middle because they are a mixture of both intangible and tangible. Nando’s intangible service is the biggest problem because the customers cannot see the food as they order it. Nando’s service can be quite difficult for both customers and business. For the customer, they pay for the service without ever seeing it until it arrives, it may cause a problem. For the business, they can’t store the service, nor can’t it be patent. There are so many Peri-Peri stores, it would be impossible for Nando’s to do something about it.

Figure 1

Source: International Journal of Management Studies

Perishability

Perishability service has a limited period of time. Nando’s service is not really a physical thing that cannot be stored, it must be consumed when it is produced or it will spoil and be a waste (Greasley, 2013). Nando’s provides empty seats where the customers can die at however, but it cannot be stored for later. Additionally, if all the seats in Nando’s weren’t taken, capacity is wasted but when all the seats are filled and exceeds capacity, which is most time when I visit, business may be lost (Lovelock and Gummesson, 2004).

Simultaneous Production and Consumption

The Nando’s service are produced and consumed at the same time.  This means that the Nando’s employees and the customers will be interacting with one another during the service delivery process (Greasley, 2013). However, there are multiple approaches to customer engagement (Prahalad, 2004), there is a term called coproducer, which was mention earlier as prosumer, has levels of customer engagement. It’s when consumers become “partial employee”, in Nando’s where they plate themselves, and serve their own drinks (Benapudi and Leone, 2002).

Heterogeneity

Greasley (2013) states, “The fact that services require simultaneity and are produced and consumed simultaneously, implies another important characteristic of heterogeneity.” At Nando’s there are new, old, foreign, different people with different beliefs all under this one building. These customers will perceive the quality of the service differently.  Zeithaml (1981) stated that there are no two customers who are just alike, which will give unique demands or experience the service in a unique way. As for the employees from their perspective they know humans by their nature are most likely to vary their actions and sometimes make mistakes (Greasley, 2013).

Lack of Ownership

In Nando’s the consumers do not own anything, and they aren’t allowed to take the service with them. Consumers are simply accessing this service for a limited and particular amount of time. Consumers are renting the plates, cutlery, the bottomless drinks and the seats of the service (Lovelock and Gummesson, 2004). The lack of ownership is mainly for the experience of the service. So, after the consumers finish their service at Nando’s, it’s not there with them anymore, however they are left with memories and experiences.

Nando’s Servicescape

Figure 2

Source: Bitner, 1992

Bitner (1992) stated that the servicescape is a concept that was made to highlight the effect of the physical environment which a service process takes place. The servicescape concept can help measure the difference in customer experience between different sizes of restaurants, or different branches of Nando’s. Solomon et al. (2006), stated that though the service is the same to every customer, the customer may perceive higher quality because of what kind of environment the service is in.

Environmental Conditions

Ambient Conditions

The Caribbean/African music that Nando’s uses are positive and joyful, which stimulates more thoughts (Hul, Dube, and Chebat, 1997), which in turns makes the customers feel more relax. In addition to the music encouraging customers to have a positive vibe, it reduces the negative effects of waiting for the food to come, since it serves as a distraction (Hul, Dube, and Chebat, 1997). The temperature inside of Nando’s is very cool and has this relaxing feel to it, customers are most comfortable when it’s cool (Sundstrom & Sundstrom, 1986).

Space and Function

The seating in Nando’s are quite soft, with a back rest (Floyd & Ward, 1969), and they have padding, which increases the customers comfort level (Oborne, 1987). However, Nando’s do have crowded seating, which can cause feelings of physical discomfort. There isn’t much space between each chair in the restaurant, which may cause the customer to feel too crowded (Worchel & Teddlee, 1976). Nando’s has a huge window that customers and by-passers can we through, this allows those individuals to view into the restaurant and maybe get influenced to enter and pay for the service (Sen, et al., 2002).

Signs, Symbols, & Artifacts

Nando’s has many African/Caribbean styled paintings in most of their restaurant branches which speaks about what kind of restaurant that is to customers (Becker, 1977). The paintings and quotes written on the wall implies to customers about the meaning, the story, heritage, norms and expectations for behaviour in the restaurant (Bitner, 1992).

Holistic Environment

Perceived Servicescape

Through Nando’s servicescape design, such as the music, temperature, paintings and the prosumers concept. Customers can interact and experience the true Nando’s style. Customers perceive the effect of the servicescape on their behaviour. To further on the music within the Nando’s from a customer perspective, a study from Yalch and Spangenberg (1988) stated that the when the music is an instrumental – easy listening song, younger customers they stayed longer. Caribbean music, known as reggae, is known for its instrumentals to be like and fun. Additionally, impulse buying is highly driven by all the stimulating things that they have in their environment, that’s as listed about before, in addition to having their desserts on display, and being able to see the chefs cook (Mattila and Wirtz, 2008). When there is music and customers who are relax, there comes noise. The noise levels from other customers in Nando’s is very loud which can cause stress, frustration, interfering with what activity the customer’s doing, it’s an environmental condition (Kryter, 1971).

Moderators

Internal Responses (Employee Responses)

Cognitive

Bitner (1992) stated that the cognitive response is the influence of the environment on an individual’s beliefs about the place. Nando’s employees, as they enter the physical environment it affects their belief because they want to do a good job, they are committed because the of the satisfaction the receive (Gardner, 1985). Weiss and Cropanzano (1995), stated that job satisfaction is an attitude, it contains cognitive components and is usually measured as an evaluate assessment of job. In addition to commitment, the employees may think that the Nando’s have a commitment to them, which is a pay, avoiding health and safety risk etc (Eisinberger et al., 1990).

Emotional

The employees would hope to have a positive outcome (Boyle, 1997), which is related to the employee’s motivation and other aspects of the restaurant (Isen and Baron, 1991). However, low job satisfaction can lead to a negative effect, which may lead to a threat to the employee’s wellbeing, causing them to be nervous or giving up on motivation (Brown and Leigh, 1996).

Internal Responses (Customer Responses)

Emotional

When customers are at Nando’s they feel relaxed and enjoying themselves because of the environment, causing them to stay longer and spend more money (Bitner, 1992). However, every customer has different perception of the servicescape. What one customer finds relaxing and soothing another may find bothersome, such as the music collection that Nando’s have (Ferreira and Oliveira-Castro, 2011).

Behaviour

Social Interaction Between and Among Customer and Employees

Nando’s does not have much social interaction between customers and employees, or customer. The most interaction that happens between employee and customer within the environment are seating arrangement, ordering the meal and getting the meal (Forgas, 1979). All of these are re-occurring social behaviours because it’s associated with the environment that they are in (Barker, 1968).

Recommendation

Based on past experience in Nando’s, there are a few recommendations that will be discussed. Firstly, the number of staffs within the restaurants are quite limited, which causes slow service and a bit of waiting time. This can be resolved by hiring more staff who only work during the peak times, like part-timers.

Secondly, they can innovate their ordering system by implanting technology to reduce the queuing time, by using a mobile phone where customers can directly pay as well. Usually in Nando’s, customers have to wait in a line for an available employee to take their order. The line is usually long and in front of the entrance so it’s really bothersome for customers to keep moving around in the line so that other customers can come in, leave or do their activities, there is a photo of this in the APPENDICIES. Since the arrival of technology, restaurants service has been changing rapidly (Pantelidis, 2009), so Nando’s have to change with the times or they’ll get left behind. Mobile technology has come so far, where some airplane services allows customers to pre-order their meals before they aboard (Pantelidis, 2009).

Thirdly, Nando’s menu is quite limited to the vegan/vegetarian customers. There are salads that customers may be able to customize to their likings and a few mushroom substitutes but other than those there is not much. Nando’s need to innovate their vegan/vegetarian menu if they want to attract more consumers, more meals are consumed away from home (Ivkov et al., 2014). Additionally, time is changing, individuals are more concern than ever in what they are putting into their bodies. More and more people everyday are going vegan to help the world.  Greene (2018) stated that people have started to make more informed food decisions, driven by a growing awareness of the impacts of animals, climate change and health. Examples of restaurants that’s now on the vegan trend is Wagamama, who has a vegan menu and created its vegan egg, Pizza Hut and Zizzi now offers vegan pizzas well. Nando’s needs to join this trend if they want to gain more customers and be successful and relevant in the near future.

Lastly, the Nando’s is main service is selling South African – Portugal chicken dishes. However, the chicken dishes are plain. Customers can get chicken with a side, on a salad, in a sandwich. There should be innovation with the chicken dishes, it is very limited. Examples of innovative chicken dishes that Nando’s can do are; chicken alfredo, soup, casserole, chicken bake and there’s much more.

In conclusion, this assignment clearly demonstrates that Nando’s service is well thought out but not executed to the standards of how humans are evolving today. Nando’s service perceived by me, a customer, brings me relaxation and fun however that won’t be the case for others because the seats are crowded and sometimes the other customers are too loud which create an uncomfortable and annoying environment. Additionally, their service needs to be innovated, people are now being careful with what they consume goods and service, they want to be healthier and turning vegetarian. Nando’s needs to modernize their menu to cater to new customers.

Figure 1

Source: International Journal of Management Studies

Figure 2

Source: Bitner, 1992

Figure 3

Source: Trip Advisor Customer, 2014