A study of factors influencing customer to select a cafe

The restaurant industry in Thailand is growing every year, with the fastestgrowth in the “café” business sector. The high competition makes it difficult for caféowners to survive. Barriers for entry into the café industry in Thailand are low, resultingin rapid propagation in the number of competitions. Despite the recent acceleratedboom in the café industry, business owners still fail to recognize the key success factors.The restaurant industry is young and fast-growing, hence, the café business sector hasbecome broad and diverse. The definition of what constitutes a “café” has becomeblurred and now it is even more difficult to successfully startup a “good café”.Coffee consumption of Thai people has recently increased from less thanone kilo to five kilos per person per year. To survive in the current climate, café ownersneed to understand their target customers, the expectations of their clientele, and howto deliver first-class service.This study investigated the marketing mix influencing consumer’s behaviorwhen selecting which café to visit, understanding the reasons for never revisiting a café,and matching the cafe’s customer characteristics to café type. The research focused onmales and females between 18 and 35 years old living in the Bangkok Metropolitanarea.The research design included exploratory and descriptive analyses thatwere conducted to gain insights. Secondary exploratory research was conducted (2)through 15 in-depth interviews, while the descriptive research involved 150respondents who were café users.The key findings of this research indicated that the majority of respondentswere female, most earned income of THB 30,001 to THB 50,000 per month and had abachelor degree or equivalent level of education. Groups of customers as student, officeemployee, government official, business owner and freelance recorded differentfrequencies of visits, numbers of people and budget. An effective marketing plan shouldaim to capture the attention of the specific group of customers targeted by each café.The main factors that influenced a customer to select a café were coffeequality, availability of delicious non-coffee drinks and comfortable seats where patronscould sit for a while and relax. Taking a deeper look at the importance of the 7Psmarketing mix in each type of café, P-Product was the most significant followed by PPromotion. To run a successful café business, the owner should focus on the productsand ensure that these matched customer expectations, as well as running promotions onsocial media to gain increased visibility from target customers. Results from thecustomer decision-making process suggested that customers were more likely to selecta café that they had discovered through a friend or star check-in or after viewing photosthat they had found online.Customers mostly went back to cafés that they had been to before; however,results showed that customers never revisited a café where they had received poorservice. Therefore, employee training is important for all types of café to ensurecustomer satisfaction, and encourage return visits.