The Twenty Percent

            For this assignment I interviewed the owner of a Mediterranean restaurant in midtown. To the question about who's their target customer he told me it was students and university staff mostly. He said they use no marketing whatsoever, all they rely on is word of mouth and location which in fact is not exactly noticeable easily since the restaurant is not in University Avenue but one of the streets that take you behind midtown. Then I asked about what they think their customer problems were. According to himself the only problem is they have no parking. When asked him whether this was a major problem, he replied with a strong yes, saying to many people it's their only problem, however when I asked him whether they have done anything about it he replied with a dismissive no claiming it wasn't something they were responsible for. On whether the customers have a budget allocated to the problem he replied most people don't want to pay for parking when they go to eat and this is a common problem for any business in mid town where parking is very scarce.

      Then I went on to interview the customers. He was right about the fact that students represent the largest customer base since all three customers I talked to were UF students. You can see the interviews recorded above. Parking was only mentioned by one of the three customers I interviewed. The other two complained about taste and the excessive use of oil in the the foods. In my question to whether they have voiced those problems to the restaurant they all responded negatively. Hence I believe that the restaurant has perhaps not sought actively for feedback and it is something they need to change. Also they probably should try to at least ease the parking problem if at all possible instead of neglecting it entirely and leaving it up to the customer themselves. To summarize I would say they only know one issue and should do more to adequately understand their customers's full experience of their offering; they need incentivize more feedback and make an effort to address customer's issues.