awful waffle final

Research Report

BYU Comunications Research and Measurement: Winter 2013

Table of Contents

Research Report--pg. 1

• Overview..................................................................................2• Awareness................................................................................5• Branding..................................................................................8• Location...................................................................................9• Gender....................................................................................14• Appeal and Ambiance..........................................................21• Price........................................................................................25• !e Village.............................................................................26• Social Media..........................................................................27• Conclusion............................................................................29

Overview


The Awful Wa"e transformed from a mere idea to a spousal entrepreneurial endeavor in June 2011 a#er an enterprising couple went on a backpacking through Europe for a month collecting equipment and recipes. When you, Lance and Ashley, $rst opened your restaurant, you o%ered only one type of wa"e, one type of

crepe, and other limited European food. In the months following, you increased and perfected your menu items. Your $rst location, south of campus, was a little red brick hole in the wall, but you were proud of its continuing progress. In August 2012, you closed your doors and moved to a bigger-sit-down beautiful location at !e Village at South Campus. Since the move, you have updated your menu to include Italian pizza and gelato. !e items on your menu are very authentic, as Lance has met with several Belgian chefs to learn how to make wa"es and crepes and with Italian chefs to learn about making the most authentic pizza and gelato. As part of the move to !e Vil-lage, you have added a small convenience market in one part of the restaurant.

Although !e Awful Wa"e has implemented some great public relations strategies and received several hits in popular Utah news media outlets, which is very good for a restaurant that is less than two years old; however, you are still looking for ways to increase the amount of customers who come through the door. Many customers are not aware of the new location and this has presented some business concerns.

!anks to your invitation, our BYU Communications 318 Research Methodologies class took on the chal-lenge to $nd out several factors that would help us understand !e Awful Wa"e and its situation. !is includes in-formation about dining habits, types of restaurants, restaurant service, and any other information that could prove more relevant to solving the issue of old customer retention and new customer in&ux.

At the beginning of our project, our class had the chance to meet with you, Ashley, to talk about !e Aw-ful Wa"e and some of your concerns, which are parking, branding, awareness, and retaining and attracting more customers. We know that one of your biggest concerns is the lack of available parking. You also said !e Village had o%ered only eight spots to !e Awful Wa"e in which customers could park; however, your customers still have a hard time $nding these eight available spots because Provo City does not allow parking signs on the street.

Another concern you mentioned in our meeting was the branding of your business. Both you and Lance said the reason you chose the name of your restaurant was because it was catchy and creative. Going along with branding, you also demonstrated concerns about awareness. You said that you wanted to inform your customers, especially those who went to the old location, of the new location at !e Village. In order to help spread the word, you have been using social media, updating your website page, car advertising, and promoting events to maintain your current customers and attract new ones to reach a goal of 3,000 dollars every weekend.

Another concern you had was the lack of items sold at promoted events held by the restaurant. !ough the events have been a success, your sales do not necessarily increase during those events. You also said that some of


your customers had complained about the consistency of the food. Some say that it had too much sugar or too little topping. In order to $x this, you have trained your employees to better accommodate to the customer’s needs.

We thank you for allowing us the opportunity to work with you. It has been a privilege and a great experi-ence for us and we are thrilled to be part of this project. We have been working on this project from the beginning of January until now, mid-April, 2013. In order to address your concerns more e%ectively, we executed some qual-itative, quantitative and social media research. In order to be more productive and e%ective, our class split up into four groups and each one was responsible for a speci$c demographic that we believe are your key target publics. We are excited to share our $ndings with you.

Our class conducted three di%erent focus groups ranging from six to eleven participants each. We recruited volunteers via word of mouth, texting, email, and Facebook. Our participants included students who live in !e Village, students who live around !e Village (from Center Street to campus and from Ninth East to University Avenue), and students who live in campus housing not close to !e Village. One group also conducted in-depth one on one interviews with adults who live in Provo. Di%erent incentives were provided for each demographic.

Each focus group had a moderator with several pre-prepared questions for the participants. !e questions started very broadly, like “Do you ever eat out?” to narrower questions such as, “What do you think about the employees at !e Awful Wa"e?” New questions were also created as the focus group progressed. If the moderator noticed that a particular participant was not responding, he or she would single out the participant and speci$cal-ly ask him or her a question. !e participants also discussed several of the questions among themselves. O#en, participants would comment as another participant shared new, interesting or relevant information. !is created a ripple e%ect where many responses came from a single group member’s initial comment. !e discussion continued until the hour of allotted time had run out.

One group conducted in-depth interviews with several pre-prepared questions for non-students who live in Provo. Each person in this group interviewed at least two people. Similar to the focus groups, the questions started broadly, “Do you ever go out to eat?” and were narrowed down to more speci$c questions such as, “How do you like the food at !e Awful Wa"e?” Interviewers acted neutral so that the interviewees felt comfortable enough to give sincere answers. We conducted 10 interviews, which lasted no more than 30 minutes each.

We took transcriptions and summaries from our notes, audio and video recordings from each focus group and in-depth interviews and analyzed the general patterns. We used the information from the focus group and the in-depth interviews to write a research paper that identi$ed many primary and secondary themes that we observed in the transcriptions. We have provided said information along with speci$c quotes from the focus groups and interviews in the appendix to this report. !e focus groups also generated information that gave us insights

Overview

into the opportunities and challenges !e Awful Wa"e will face as it moves forward and continues to expand. !ese insights led to questions that we felt would prove useful in our e%orts to formulate our quantitative research approach, which was a survey distributed to wider groups of people, still within !e Awful Wa"e demographics mentioned above.

In conducting the survey, we were able to gain considerable information about awareness, perceptions, and likes and dislikes of those who knew of or had visited !e Awful Wa"e. We cannot consider this survey to be a purely scienti$cally valid instrument because we were not able to completely randomize the survey (therefore it is what is known as a strati$ed random sample); however, we believe that with close to 350 responses, the survey gives information that should be pretty valid and useful to !e Awful Wa"e.

!e survey was constructed as a group under the supervision of Professor Wake$eld. It was designed on Qualtrics so#ware and took advantage of several di%erent types of question forms to supply a variety of ordinal, nominal, and scale data to use when looking for signi$cant relationships. !e survey began with general questions about restaurant eating habits such as “How o#en do you eat out?” !e questions then funneled down to get more speci$c to !e Awful Wa"e’s needs and demographic information about participants. !e survey was designed with survey fatigue in mind and skip logic was applied when possible.

!e survey was administered online through the members of our four di%erent research groups. It was passed around through email and social media sites to engage people living at the Village, people living around the Village, people living elsewhere in Provo and people living outside of Provo. !ere were nearly 300 participants comprised of 67 percent women and 33 percent men. !is gender sample somewhat re&ects the higher female pop-ulation in Provo which showed, according to a 2010 census, there were 100 females to every 96.4 males over the age of 18. One interpretation that follows assesses the signi$cant $ndings of the survey as they pertain to the di%erence between men and women. Later on in the appendix we provide you with the data that we collected from the quanti-tative research.

A couple of class members also looked at social media, following several social media avenues that !e Awful Wa"e utilizes such as Twitter, Blogger, and Facebook. !e class members looked at the demographics of people who were talking about !e Awful Wa"e online, as well as the things people were saying about !e Awful Wa"e. Further into the report, we have provided some suggestions on how to increase online tra'cking, as well as ways !e Awful Wa"e can improve its online presence.

With all of this research data now at our disposal, we believe we are able to o%er insights, implications, and recommendations that will help !e Awful Wa"e move into the future with the greatest possible opportunity for continued success. !ese insights, implications, and recommendations are included below:


Overview

Awareness


One of the initial problems you presented was that you were not sure as a whole, how many people are aware of your new location or your restaurant. We researched with that concern in mind and found that 77.3 percent of our survey respondents have heard of !e Awful Wa"e.

We also found that 45.3 percent of respondents had heard of !e Awful Wa"e, but had never actually been there. Of the nine individuals who participated in an in-depth interview, $ve had heard of it and two had actually visited. One non-student, Provo resident respondent said she had heard of it, but she didn’t have much information. She knew it was in Provo, but didn’t know where it was located.We categorized qualitative responses into $ve di%erent categories showing ways people learned of !e Awful Wa"e.


Of the people who had heard of, or been to, !e Awful Wa"e, 56 percent heard about it through friends. Only 3 percent said they heard about it speci$cally through social media. We believe that many people who said they heard about it from friends most likely heard about it through friends on social media because of the current nature of communication through friends.

33 percent of respondents said they walked past the location on their way to school. Interestingly, most said they “used” to walk by it. We do not know if this means because the participants moved or because !e Awful Wa"e moved. Many also speci$ed that they used to walk by the old location by J. Dawgs. Only a couple mentioned they had heard about it from walking by the new location. We can assume that people still walk by the new location but are unaware that they do. A small percentage (7 percent) learned of !e Awful Wa"e through traditional advertising methods.

Awareness


Speci$c quotes from our survey support these data:

•Word of Mouth: “ I was asked on a date to eat dinner there.” •Social Media: “A friend posted something about !e Awful Wa"e on Facebook.” •Traditional Media: “Newspaper.” •Saw physical location-“Drove past it once.” •Other-“Mom bought a Groupon.”

Another positive indicator of awareness is your presence on social media. As of April 9, you have 2,405 “likes” on your Facebook page. Of those “likes”, 70.2 percent are female and 59.2 percent are 18-24 years old. Women ages 18-24 are those who primarily engage with !e Awful Wa"e on social media. Compared to the Facebook pages of other crepe and wa"e places in the Provo/Orem area (Roll Up, !e Crepe Co., Wa"e Love), your amount of “likes” is surmounted only by Wa"e Love. On Twitter you have 322 followers. You also have a blog that, according to Ashley, was started to be a “more personal aspect of the business that the general public could tap into.” !ese social media outlets are a great asset for brand awareness, and you should focus on optimizing that awareness to turn it into customer behavior.

You have been on several news articles. In addition to your more than 2000 “likes” on your Face-book page and 322 followers on Twitter, you have been on television such as Studio 5’s “Utah’s Wa"e Wars” and Channel 2. !e producer of Studio 5, Stephanie Bryson, said that your “shop has amazing coverage.” In other words, you have great public relations; but, if that’s the case, then why do you not have more busi-ness? In the remainder of this report we have consolidated primary and secondary research to inform you of challenges and missed opportunities that may be limiting your customer growth despite your good public relations. !ese areas are branding, location, gender, appeal and atmosphere, price, !e Village and social media.

Awareness

Branding


In both our survey and our focus groups we noticed some very mixed feelings about the branding of your restaurant. Although we have no statistically signi$cant results to help determine which target groups like the branding and which do not, in our focus groups we did not $nd much evidence to say

the name ‘!e Awful Wa"e’ deterred clients from trying out the restaurant.

In our survey we received many freeform responses about participants’ feelings about the name of the restaurant. A#er coding these responses we noticed a slight slant towards a negative perception of the name (47% compared to 40% positive). While the name is not always a deterrent to new customers, it helps solidify a negative opinion when customers have a less than satisfactory experience. !at expe-rience could come from a number of reasons, but having the word ‘awful’ in the name makes it an easy target for disgruntled customers. !ere is also some evidence to imply that the name Awful Wa"e could deter $rst-time customers from eating there.

!e Awful Wa"e’s previous location, just a wa"e shack, coupled with the name and the nature of its major product, suggest the brand of a quick and cheap dining experience. It can be confusing for customers who are now adjusting to !e Awful Wa"e being more of a partial-service restaurant.

Having three separate entities within the same building has lead to confusion among customers about what the three di%erent entities are and how they di%er from one another. !is confusion creates dissonance as customers try to identify !e Awful Wa"e brand. For example, participant from focus group four said, “It would be better if the service wasn’t ‘awful.’ !at alone makes the name redundant.”

Location


Through our research we wanted to answer questions about how the move from the shack had a%ect-ed your restaurant, and how the new location at !e Village a%ects your restaurant. We found four main points related to location: who visits !e Awful Wa"e, who is aware of the move, how the move

a%ected your customer base- both in who attends and if they like the new location and parking $ndings.

!e $rst thing we found is who is your largest customer base. Using the survey we discovered that how familiar people were with !e Awful Wa"e is strongly associated with where they live. We are de$ning “familiarity” as either hearing about !e Awful Wa"e, visiting !e Awful Wa"e once, visiting !e Awful Wa"e a few times or visiting o#en. !e chart below illustrates the relationship.

As shown, people who live in or around !e Village were signi$cantly more likely to have visited or at least heard of !e Awful Wa"e.

!e $ndings from the survey showed that location played an important role in knowing that !e Awful Wa"e had changed locations. People who lived 4 blocks around !e Village or at !e Village were signi$cantly aware of the move and the new location. People who live in Utah County, outside of Provo were signi$cantly unaware of the move.

!ese $ndings were not surprising, you would probably guess that some people around Provo knew you moved and people outside of Provo probably had no idea. However, it is important to under-stand that potential customers may or may not know where the new location is, based on where they live.

Another $nding we discovered supported something you told us yourselves. Ashley said that some of their previous customers who visited the old location were now coming to the new location- and she’s very right! Using the survey we discovered it is statistically signi$cant that customers who visited the old location are more likely to visit the new location. But what we also found was people who never visited the old location are much less likely to ever visit the new location.

We also gained insight as to why some students in Provo who don’t live in !e Village are not vis-iting the new location. An inhibitor that is speci$c to your restaurant is the perception of !e Village. One person from focus group two said they had heard “only rich kids live there.” Other words used to describe the new location in focus group three were “ritzy” and “upper-scale hipster.” One respondent talking about why he hasn’t gone to the new Awful Wa"e said that !e Village reputation has “de$nitely been part of what has kept me from going.” From these responses, it may give insight to why the survey $ndings say some students are not visiting the new location, especially if they had not visited the old, however we can-not generalize the focus group responses to the entire population.


Location


However, we discovered customer satisfaction from the old shop to the new one has improved. Our survey indicates that !e Awful Wa"e’s move to its new location brought about a 14 percent increase in overall customer satisfaction, as shown in the chart below.

About 60 percent of respondents who rated the new location responded that they were either satis$ed or very satis$ed (41 and 19 percent, respectively). At their old location, only 46 percent of cus-tomers responded that they were either satis$ed or very satis$ed (32 and 14 percent, respectively). !is shows that once customers visit the new shop, they like it, so the real issue is getting customers to come in the $rst place.

Location

One challenge speci$c to your location that inhibits customers from visiting is parking. You have recognized this as an issue, and our survey validates this concern. In the survey, respondents who have visited !e Awful Wa"e at !e Village were asked to rate di%erent features on a scale from 1 to 10. Parking was rated the lowest at 2.9 and was more than 2 points the second lowest feature. !e chart below shows the features and their rankings in order.


!roughout our research we noticed a pattern in responses toward the parking situation at !e Awful Wa"e. Responses were typically negative and went on to say that if parking was not easily ac-cessible, not only at !e Awful Wa"e but anywhere, then it would heavily sway individuals to choose to eat elsewhere. !ere is also confusion about where customers are even allowed to park when com-ing to eat at !e Awful Wa"e.

Location

Location


During a focus group, one respondent answered, “All the parking- as I understood it- was either already taken on the street by residents, or was made for those who lived in !e Village and we would be ticketed for parking there.” Another respondent expressed confusion concerning the location when answered, “It took me awhile to $nd somewhere to park, and a#er I $nally did, I had no idea where !e Awful Wa"e was in relation to the parking spot.” One focus group respondent even went so far as to say, “!e parking is awful. It doesn’t exist.”

It is also a concern that non-students, not knowing the area as well, may especially be a%ected by the lack of parking. During an in-depth interview with a resident outside of Provo, one respondent explained that she had yet to visit !e Awful Wa"e as she had heard only negative things regarding the parking situation. She went on to say that this would especially be a problem for her during the winter, as walking out in the cold does not sound appealing. It seems that it would be extremely important to some for the parking to improve to simply just get people in your doors to have that $rst experience with !e Awful Wa"e. We recognize that the parking situation for !e Village and !e Awful Wa"e has been a continu-al uphill battle and is currently out of your control. With that being said, we have a couple suggestions to possibly improve the perspective of others, taking parking from an essential aspect of the experience to something customers are willing to overlook and enjoy one of your many treats. First, we recommend that you be open and honest with your customers. Don’t pretend that the problem doesn’t exist, rather share it. Let people know on your website where they can park, and that they won’t be ticketed. It is our understanding that although parking is di'cult to $nd, customers are typically only required to walk just across the street to reach !e Awful Wa"e. One idea is to implement a phrase such as, “Awful Wa"e: Worth the Walk.” With a phrase such as this, it shows that you as a busi-ness acknowledge the situation and are trying to make the best out of it.

Gender


Through our research we found several insights between gender preferences and !e Awful Wa"e. !is section contains research comprised of the four focus groups we conducted, and results from a survey of people in the Provo/Orem area.

Survey

A#er we received results from the survey, we analyzed each question by running an independent t-test against each gender. Four questions produced signi$cant results, which is meaningful di%erences, between males and females. !e following are the four questions that produced signi$cant results and the data asso-ciated with each.

Question 1: How o!en do you eat out?

Data:

Gender


Results: From this question we learn there is a signi$cant di%erence between males and females and how much they eat out. Males eat out more than females. So, if males eat out more than females, this should also be true for !e Awful Wa"e. To discover if this holds true, we ran a chi square test and found that there was not a signi$cant di%erence between males and females and their familiarity or visits to the awful wa"e. !is means that !e Awful Wa"e is missing the important demographic of males.

Question 2: How o!en do you go out to eat dinner?

Data:

Gender


Results: From this question we learned that males eat out for dinner more than females. !is question also led us to another test we performed to see what type of restaurant males and females preferred. We learned that males and females both prefer the quick service café style, like !e Awful Wa"e.

Question 3: Rank in order the top three reasons for going out to eat-Invitation from friends and family

Data:

Results: From this question we learn that males respond to invitations from family and friends more than females do.

Gender


Supporting quotes from focus group:

“!e only time I go to like a sit down restaurant is on like a date or something like that, I would never just go by myself or with a buddy to like Applebee’s.” -Male

“I don’t think I’ve gone to go buy food just by myself in like probably a year. Cause, uh, I’ll just go with-out. Cause part of the experience is being with somebody while you eat. So I’m just like well, I’ll just fast until 4:00. So yeah I think it’s totally a group experience.” -Male

“Even like late at night it was de$nitely the social thing like when I go get crepes I never do it by myself, it’s always like Provo people or like, let’s go get crepes its so cool.” -Female

“Yeah de$nitely go out to eat on dates and with friends and stu%. But I almost never just buy food for myself and when I do I just feel dumb cause I’m spending money on myself.I feel like you go there with like a reason, like for birthdays. You don’t go there to eat, like, your meal or something.” -Female

Gender


Question 4: How would you rate the following features at "e Awful Wa#e currently? –Bands and events

Data:

Results:From this question we learn that the males like the bands and events more than females do.

Supporting quotes from focus group:

“I really like what they have here. But I think they should have more “nights.” Like other places have a jazz night, di%erent nights.” -Male

Gender


"e Focus Group

!e focus group also uncovered the some attitudes towards !e Awful Wa"e that are important to consider. Findings from the focus group cannot be generalized to apply to an entire population, how-ever, they can be very insightful and are important to consider. One attitude we uncovered is that people think a wa"e or crepe doesn’t constitute a meal. Supporting Quotes:

“I mean they have the savory crepes, but when I think of crepes and wa"es I don’t think of a meal, really, and so I just never go.” -Male

“I feel like you go there with a reason, like for birthdays. You don’t go there to eat your meal or some-thing.” -Female

!is attitude is important to consider because as stated above, males go out for dinner most, but they do not consider !e Awful Wa"e as dinner.

Another attitude, speci$cally from males, is that they prefer quantity to quality.

Supporting Quotes:

“Like subway is $ve dollars for a foot long, or you can go to Taco Bell and get $ve dollars worth of food and get $lled up…” -Male

“I’m more a quantity guy than quality.” -Male

Gender


Conclusion In conclusion, we found that males eat out more, but not at !e Awful Wa"e. !e focus group gave us some ideas as to why. !ose reasons could be, !e Awful Wa"e isn’t seen as a meal place and men prefer quantity to quality. !e research then led into some ways males respond to eating out. Males respond more to invitations from family members or friends. Lastly, males like the events at !e Awful Wa"e more than the females do. In application, we suggest you focus messaging towards males, since they are not being reached currently. Also consider the self-interests of males, like they prefer dinner and events, when planning for the future.

Appeal and Ambiance


Appeal

Several interesting $ndings arose during our analysis of customer’s appeal to restaurants, as well as their overall impressions of the ambiance at !e Awful Wa"e. In our analysis, focusing on what draws custom-ers into restaurant doors we asked those surveyed to rank the top $ve factors contributing to where they

eat out. Our results showed that the taste of food was either the $rst or second factor for nearly 57 percent of all respondents. !is statistic revealed that customers are concerned that they like what they are eating, and are willing to go back regardless of other factors. !is is great news for !e Awful Wa"e because a di%erent survey question indicated that among the many features at !e Awful Wa"e, the taste of food was ranked number one. Customers like the food served at !e Awful Wa"e and this is most important to them.

Appeal and Ambiance


In addition, we were surprised to see the low response in regards to authenticity as a driving factor as to why people eat out. In fact, authenticity never ranked among the top $ve factors. Additionally, when understanding that much of the publicity you received came from bloggers, many of whom are profes-sionals, when running a two sample chi-squared test we learned that there is no statistical signi$cance between students, non-students and authenticity. !e pearson chi-squared was .391 which is above .05. Looking at the 20/80 rule because 60% of the cells have expected count less than 5. !is was interesting because we expected non-students would care more about authenticity than students. We were proven wrong. Among college students in Provo, the authenticity of the food is not as important as the taste of the food and the price.

Appeal and Ambiance


!e focus groups and in-depth interviews that we conducted contributed to our $ndings on authenticity. Many students interviewed in our focus groups did not have an understanding of what European food was and what makes it authentic. When asked what foods they associated with Europe, many noted pizza, pasta and then jokingly added French fries, French bread, etc. !ey rarely connected wa"es or crepes as authentic European foods, unless they had personally visited France and Belgium. Upon hearing the history and background of !e Awful Wa"e and its rec-ipes, respondents generally agreed that this information would be interesting for all the public to know. However, we found the overall consensus concerning authenticity of food was that if the food were authentic it was a nice plus, but they particularly did not have any biases one way or another. It seemed that although the food was authentic, if food was not appetizing to them, they were not going to eat it. A participant noted, “Personally I think it’s cool if it’s authentic, or someone told me that it’s authentic, but if it’s good food at a good price, it’s good food. So I don’t know if it’s a negative draw if it’s not authentic.”

We also asked survey respondents which meals they most commonly eat out for. We found that our respondents were least likely to eat out for breakfast, with only 31 percent who eat out for breakfast at least once a week. We did however see much higher percentages in those who ate out for lunch, din-ner and a small snack. Respectively 82 percent eat out for lunch at least once a week, 83 percent go out for a snack or dessert at least once a week and an overwhelming 92 percent eat out for dinner a minimum of one time per week. !is showed us that the market for lunch, dinner and snack places are very popular among Provo residents and students. While students may not associate crepes and wa"es as a meal, they are also interested in going out for desserts and lighter snacks and the meal and snack market can be optimized.

Appeal and Ambiance


Ambiance !e atmosphere of !e Awful Wa"e was ranked the second highest feature that students were most pleased with. Qualitative comments included in the survey showed that students like the trendy, modern, comfortable and fun environment. In 45 responses, 39 were positive, 0 were negative and 4 were neutral. Eleven respondents speci$cally mentioned the chalk tables and how fun and creative they felt they were. However, we did also learn from our focus groups that some students did not like the slant on the menu board because they felt it was hard to read. Additionally, ten students described the overall space as fun, and nine wrote that it was trendy and relaxed. Students feel that it was a place where they can come to hang-out and relax. !e space and atmosphere are appealing to students and this is a great strength to your restaurant. !e following list is what some of the focus group respondents said about the atmosphere. “It’s very unique and fun; I love drawing with chalk on the tables and I love the shabby-chic feel,” “Love the $replace and just the little places to gather, including the couches,” “I think it’s a cool place that feels like it’s an inner city restaurant even though it’s not in the city. It is a fun relaxed place to go. Big open room, cool furniture and stu%. Overall cool.”

Our survey also indicated that overall satisfaction with service at !e Awful Wa"e was high. In a total of 31 responses from those who felt strongly about the service 25 were positive, 2 were negative and 4 were neutral. !ose who had positive experiences with the service most o#en described the employees as polite (12), friendly (5) and helpful (4). However, some of our qualitative $ndings indicated that some people were not impressed with the service. In the focus group that interviewed students at !e Village, the general consensus was the service at !e Awful Wa"e could be improved. One respondent said, “!ere are some of them who are nice, but there was one who would take our orders and sit there in the back for ten minutes.” Another reported, “!ere is one person standing there in the entire restaurant, so I feel like I’m burdening them by being there.” Another stated, “It’s a really nice place, but because the service is so slow, it really killed my buzz.” !e data from the focus groups, in this instance, is surprisingly con&icting with the survey responses which said the service was great. !e focus group data cannot be generalized, but we wanted to make you aware of what some people are saying about !e Awful Wa"e.

Price


A 2007 study by Food Service Director Magazine showed the average college student spends $5.65 for a quick-service (fast food) meal (Food Service Director, 2007). Another study done by Cornell Univer-sity reveals that price of service makes up 67 percent of a college students purchasing decision when

selecting a fast food restaurant (Knutson, 2000).

!e Awful Wa"e’s average price is close to what the average college student wants to spend on a meal. While this is the case, according to our research, individuals feel that the prices at !e Awful Wa"e are too high. We also found from our focus groups that people consider crepes and wa"es to be more of a snack food or a dessert. It may be that because wa"es and crepes are not seen as a meal that people are less willing to pay $5-7 to eat at !e Awful Wa"e. If there is not a pricing change customers are less likely to become returning, loyal customers. Customers may come once, but may not come back because they feel the prices are too high for a crepe or a wa"e and for toppings too. Many respondents in the focus group and the survey felt the prices were too high compared to portion sizes.

If !e Awful Wa"e wants to be a part of the BYU culture, it may need to consider pricing changes that better $t students’ needs. Students in the focus groups referenced places like Taco Bell, Little Caesars, Cafe Rio and Zupa’s as places that gave a satisfactory amount of food for a low price. In one focus group, one male student responded he likes Taco Bell because you can get $lled up for $ve bucks. A male respondent said the same thing about Subway but did not think you could get enough food for the price at !e Awful Wa"e. College students like restaurants that are quick and inexpensive. It is important for college students to get “the biggest bang for their buck.”

We also asked survey respondents to rate various features at !e Awful Wa"e. !e average rating from of each of these factors is listed below. You will notice that price had the second lowest score of all the factors, which provides quantitative data to indicate you may want to reconsider rearranging your pricing model.

Table: Response to survey question, “How would you rate the following fea-tures at "e Awful Wa#e?”

!e Village


We surveyed 24 Village residents and analyzed their responses in order to gain an understand-ing of them as a key public and market for !e Awful Wa"e. We compared their responses to the responses of those respondents in three other residence categories: within four blocks

of !e Village, farther than four blocks from !e Village and outside of Provo, but still in Utah County.

!e most statistically signi$cant results were that residents of !e Village are more aware of !e Village Market than other resident groups and also that residents of !e Village are more likely to go to the Awful Wa"e than those who don’t live at !e Village; both return a signi$cant p-value of .001 in a Chi-Square test for signi$cance. We then compared the means for the likelihood of eating out at the Awful Wa"e and discovered that residents of !e Village are three times more likely to eat at the Awful Wa"e than people who reside in other areas and complexes.

Residents of !e Village and willingness to explore the menu had a strong correlation as well. A p-value of .09 found through a Chi-Square test for independence would probably prove signi$cant with a larger sample size. Residents of !e Village seemed to be more likely to try wa"es, crepes, pizza, gelato and items at !e Village Market while residents of other areas tended to purchase only wa"es and crepes.

None of the other survey responses revealed statistical signi$cance, but some results to note were as follows:

• Customer satisfaction was the same between residents of !e Village and other respondents. Living at !e Village does not help or hinder customer satisfaction level signi$cantly. • Residents of !e Village tend to use the Market more than those who do not live at !e Village, but not a signi$cant amount more • Residents of !e Village reported eating out more o#en than residents of other areas; however, the low number of respondents means we cannot report statistical signi$cance. • Residents of !e Village seemed to eat out a little later than residents of other areas (p-value of .11), but not signi$cantly so. However, not one resident reported eating out before 11 a.m. In fact, of the 368 total survey respondents, only one reported ever eating out before 11 a.m.

Social Media


Currently you are active on several social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Blogger. As mentioned before, your Facebook page has 2,405 “likes” and you have 322 followers on Twitter. Your blog has 17 followers. Most of the posts you put on your Facebook page are

about events and deals. Some of the posts are also about individual employees.

!e majority of the conversation surrounding !e Awful Wa"e brand is positive. !e trending topics people post about are the events and the food. An important aspect of your social media engage-ment is that many people message you through Facebook about performing at !e Awful Wa"e. It is great that you have a connection with local musicians. !e Provo music scene is something your busi-ness can bene$t from. As bands play at !e Awful Wa"e and tell their fans to come, awareness about your restaurant will increase and hopefully this will turn into new customers for you.

While you are doing an excellent job with your social media, we wanted to let you know of a few ideas you could implement to make it even better.

1. Reach out to bloggers

You recently partnered with smallfryblog.com and the Facebook page analytics show that 70 people came to your Facebook page through that post. We recommend that you continue to reach out to blog-gers to write about !e Awful Wa"e. You could even o%er incentives to get them to the restaurant, as well as doing more partnerships like you did with smallfryblog.com. In an email, Ashley mentioned that you want to reach out to mommy bloggers to write a guest post on !e Awful Wa"e blog about what it means to them to be a mom. However, since you have only 17 followers on your blog, it may be more bene$cial for you to get food bloggers to write about the restaurant, which is a more relevant topic to your brand than being a mom. 2. Vamp up Instagram

As mentioned previously Wa"e Love is the only crepe/wa"e shop in the Provo/Orem area that has more “likes” on its Facebook page compared to !e Awful Wa"e. We believe this is because they have a very active Instagram account that they link to their Facebook page. We believe that if you vamped up your Instagram presence and maybe did a contest with an #awfulwa"eshop hashtag where people post pictures of themselves at !e Awful Wa"e, you would be able to increase your already positive social media presence. A contest that brings people into the restaurant will also help you reach your goal to increase sales.

Social Media


3. Keep your posts related to your brand

While you have a great social media presence, it is our opinion that you are still struggling to $nd your voice and personality on your social media platforms. Some of your posts are about speci$c employees and things about them that do not relate to !e Awful Wa"e. Additionally, you are posting pictures of your daughter on the Instagram account. While she is adorable, you should post about her on your per-sonal social media platforms not your business’. While this may not seem like a huge issue now, as your business grows and potentially becomes franchisable, you do not want the social media identity of !e Awful Wa"e brand to be your daughter. You want your voice to be consistent.

4. Cross post your content

One thing that greatly bene$ts brands is to share content between social media platforms. If you write a blog post, you should post about it on Facebook and Twitter. If you are doing an Instagram contest, you should post the winning photos on Facebook and Twitter. If you are featured in an article or television show, you should write about it on your blog, as well as share the article on Twitter and Facebook. Cross posting your content will help increase your engagement on social media. Someone might only follow you on Facebook, but then will see a picture of your Instagram contest and then begin following you there.

Conclusion


Once again, we would like to thank you for this opportunity to work with you. It was a wonderful experience for us as a class. A#er conducting in-depth interviews, focus groups and surveys with hundreds of your current and potential customers, we have shared with you the resulting

data, our insights and the implications that we believe answer the big question, “You have great public relations, so why don’t you have more business?” We hope you will $nd our suggestions bene$cial and we believe that they will help !e Awful Wa"e gain more business and achieve its goals. As your com-pany grows and faces challenges in the future, we hope you will look to the BYU Bradley PR Lab to help you better understand your customers and to create tactics and strategies that will help you achieve your goals and mission. We are con$dent that !e Awful Wa"e will continue to grow and be successful for years to come.

Appendix

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