DIFFERENCES OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT BETWEEN FINNISH AND NON-FINNISH RESTAURANT BUSINESSES

Progress ReportDIFFERENCES OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT BETWEEN

FINNISH AND NON-FINNISH RESTAURANT BUSINESSES

Adalgisa SantosChang Ma

Mikko LeppäenVera Moshina

Progress5 small restaurants have been interviewed so far:

Cafe Amico, Runeberginkatu 6, Italian Café

Dersim Kebab & Pizzeria, Kamppi, Turkish Kebab and Pizza

Golden Pizza,Vanhaistentie 1-3, Egyptian Kebab and Pizza

Leopardi, Myyrmäki Station, Chinese Restaurant (Lunch Buffet)

South Beauty, Hakaniemenkuja 3,  Chinese Restaurant

Current Research Questions

What are the main differences in CRM between Finnish and non-Finnish restaurant businesses operating in Helsinki?

Sub questions,- How to attract customers- How to retain customers- How to evaluate the satisfaction

Changes in questions from previous plan- Add questions related to competitions as we found this might be interesting and useful to explain their marketing behavior- Remove the question with specific terminologies which can't be fully understood by the restaurant owners such as "CRM" and "Strategic marketing" and use some alternative expressions.

Current findingsSo far, based on these 5 restaurants, we had some findings listed below:

1. All of the owners are confident about their food, e.g. taste and quality;

2. Most of them have tried advertisements but only two of them use internet as a promotion tool;

3. All of them have most of the customers as retained customers;

4. Although their language abilities (Finnish or English) are poor, the businesses are going well.

Difficulties Encountered

1. Language barriersAs estimated in the planning report, the owners of the foreign restaurants are poor in language. And some of them could speak neither good Finish nor English. Although this doesn't influence their operation, we can't collect English record with their best answers.

2. Difficult to find enough Finnish restaurant with appropriate sizeMost of the Finnish restaurants are larger and have more employees beyond our research scope.

3. Rush hoursWe did most of our interviews in our vacant time,  but that time might be the peak hours for the restaurant which made our interview invitation failed for a lot of times.

Difficulties ResolvedFor languages, we allow the owner to speak their mother tongues in order to get better quality answers, as we have native Chinese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Finnish speakers in our team, which can be considered advantages in some interviews. For examples, for the Chinese restaurants, interview questions were asked and answered in Chinese and then they were translated and document in English after that.

For Finnish restaurants, we'll try to find more later so that we can have enough samples to compare with foreign restaurants.

For the time problem, we now have appointment with the owners so that we can be more efficient to interview them and the owners can get better preparation before the interviews.

Key Things Learned

Preliminary summary according to the research so far:

1. Advertising might have limited effects to attract new customers, but the quality of the food could be the key factor to keep their customers;

2. Communication could be important and they are trying all the time, although their language abilities are not strong;

3. Traditional ways of marketing are more popular among the restaurant owners, and only minority of them are willing to try something new such as internet marketing.

Thank You