Service Quality and Satisfaction in the Context of Varying Levels of Restaurant Image and Customer Orientation during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Extant hospitality literature has tended to view the dimensions of service quality as primarily complementary or differential in nature. However, studies of the similarities and differences between the two types of service quality have been limited. This study investigates how restaurant image and customer orientation affect the relative importance of both process and outcome service quality in customer satisfaction, focusing on restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a moderated moderation process and macro-based approach (M = 3), our findings show that process service quality impacts restaurant satisfaction; however, they also reveal that outcome service quality has a stronger main effect on restaurant satisfaction than process service quality. In particular, the findings show that the negative impact of the relationship between process (or outcome) service quality and restaurant image on restaurant satisfaction is insignificant when customer orientation is low. On the other hand, the same relationship has an even stronger positive effect on restaurant satisfaction when customer orientation is high. These findings have implications for restaurants’ efforts to develop and improve service quality, and bolster customer orientation, helping them identify more effective strategic approaches during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.