Observation study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Observation study - Essay Example Introduction Tim Hortons cafe is one of the most populated cafe in the New York region. There are various branches of the cafe in New York area, and still several in the Rochester region (Nelson, 2009). They emanate from a chain of business cafes operating under the same name from Canada. In the USA, Tim Hortons cafe has opened over 800 branches. Tim Hortons cafe, 1508 Buffalo Rd, Rochester, NY 14624 is one of the cafe from the Tim Hortons chain of cafes (Craves, 2007). Methodology To be able to determine why Tim Hortons cafe has many customers than many other cafes and restaurants in the region, a structured qualitative observation methodology was applied. In this study, 45 minutes of full-time observation were utilized, during a Wednesday evening, starting 5: 30 pm to 6:15 pm. The location was particularly selected due to its popularity, as well as the access, since it is situated on the Buffalo road. Structured observation entailed the observation of different activities within th e cafe, including the way the customer arrive and leave the cafe, the time taken since a customer’s arrival to the time the customer is served, and the nature of the service that the customers in this cafe are offered. ... en, since the pre-selection of some participants would render the study skewed towards the desirable characteristics and relationships between the employees and the customers. Therefore, a random sampling method of participants was applied, to ensure that the observational study will be accurate and no desirable social characteristics are elicited on either the customer participants or the employee participants. The selected participants were representative of every aspect of demographic characteristics. Thus, the participants were selected from different ages, gender and racial groups, as well as perceived different economic classes. To establish why customers like Tim Hortons cafe, the researcher looked for the following: 1. The arrival and departure rate of customers 2. Customer-to-employee relationship in terms of language and communication 3. The service time gap between when the customer arrives and when they are served 4. The opening and closing schedule of the cafe 5. The pri cing strategy of the cafe Data and Measurement For the purpose of accuracy of the data collected, the data measurement applied two methods, namely structured observation as well as brief interviewing. This combination was resulted to, after a session of debating that found that observation alone was not adequate for the nature of the study, since simply observing the atmosphere of the cafe, the nature of the relationship between the employee and the customers, as well as the pricing of the cafe would not give plausible and adequate information regarding the other innate reasons that attracts the customers to the cafe. Therefore, interviewing was resulted to, as a complimentary method, to compliment the information obtainable through observation, for the sake of clarification and certainty,