THE DETERMINANTS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTION AMONG RESTAURANTS IN KLANG VALLEY AREA OF MALAYSIA: A CONCEPTUAL STUDY

Abstract

In recent past, research studies on the restaurant industry concentrated on variables such as variety of drinks with little focus on attributes such as food quality, service quality and atmosphere. The little amount of research highlighting these attributes if at all, were carried out in the Chinese and American systems, highlighting their value systems only. The present conceptual research is aimed at narrowing these research gaps by examining the impacts of service quality, food quality and atmosphere on customer satisfaction and behavioral intention in the restaurant industry, in the South-East Asian context, with particular emphasis on the Klang Valley region of Malaysia. This conceptual research is intended to carry out an in-depth review of literature pertaining to three independent variables (i.e. food quality, service quality and atmosphere) and two dependent variables (i.e. customer satisfaction and behavioral intention). Particularly, the study hypothesized that food quality, service quality and atmosphere will significantly influence customer satisfaction and behavioral intention in the restaurant industry in the Klang Valley region of Malaysia. Several implications of this study were further discussed.