The Santa Fe Grill Marketing Project Case Study

Marketing Research Case Study and Analysis: The Santa Fe Grill

 

The owners started the Santa Fe Grill in Dallas, Texas because it was a good market for reaching baby-boomers and young families. The restaurant concept focused on fresh ingredients, a festive atmosphere, friendly service, and cutting-edge marketing and advertising. The business was successful but not as successful as the owners expected. They realized that marketing research could help to answer the questions, which would help them to improve their marketing strategy.

Review the History of the Santa Fe Grill in Chapters 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9. Prepare a report, summarizing the information from the history, and answer all the questions at the end of the case in a 1400 word paper. Use at least three journal articles (Regent Library databases) to support your positions. Use the APA style as appropriate.

 

Chapter 1

1. Based on your understanding of Chapter 1, what kind of information about products, services, and customers should the owners of the Santa Fe Grill consider collecting?
2. Is a research project actually needed? Is the best approach a survey of customers? Should employees also be surveyed? Why or why not?

Chapter 3

1. Based on your understanding of the material presented in Chapter 3 and the above key research questions, should the owners of the Santa Fe Grill Mexican restaurant go back and restate their questions? If “no,” why not? If “yes,” why? Suggest how the research questions could be restated.
2. Regarding the owners’ desire to understand the interrelationships between customer satisfaction, restaurant store image, and customer loyalty, develop a set of hypotheses that might be used to investigate these interrelationships.

Chapter 4

1. Do the two areas of the research project proposed by the consultant include all the areas that need to research? If not, which other needs to be studied.

2. Can these topics be fully understood with qualitative research alone. Is quantitative research needed as well?

Chapter 8

The Marketing Research in Action in this chapter extends the discussion on questionnaire design. It includes actual Screening Questions (Exhibit 8.7) and a Questionnaire (Exhibit 8.8) for Santa Fe Grill. The research objectives guiding the survey are provided.

1. Based on the research objectives, does the self-administered questionnaire, in its current form, correctly illustrate sound questionnaire design principles? Please explain why or why not.
2. Overall, is the current survey design able to capture the required data needed to address all the stated research objectives? Why or why not? If changes are needed, how would you change the survey’s design?

(i) To identify the factors people consider important in making casual dining restaurant choice decisions.

(ii) To determine the characteristics customers use to describe the Santa Fe Grill and its competitor, Jose’s Southwestern Café.

(iii) To develop a psychographic/demographic profile of the restaurant customers.

(iv) To determine the patronage and positive word-of-mouth advertising patterns of the restaurant customers.

(v) To assess the customer’s willingness to return to the restaurant in the future.

(vi) To assess the degree to which customers are satisfied with their Mexican restaurant experiences.

1. Evaluate the “screener” used to qualify the respondents. Are there any changes needed? Why or why not?
2. Redesign questions # 26-29 on the survey using a rating scale that will enable you to obtain the “degree of importance” a customer might attach to each of the four listed attributes in selecting a restaurant to dine at.

Chapter 9

1. Could observation be used to collect qualitative information?
2. If yes, when and how could observation be used?
3. Are there topics that could be explored better using focus groups?
4. If yes, suggest topics to be used in the focus group studies.

Remember to include a separate title page, double-spacing, APA current edition citations for paraphrased materials/(all direct quotes must have the page or paragraph numbers), and a references page.