Determination of restaurant managers' perspectives towards utilization of pyhsical evidences: The case of Eskişehir

The purpose of this study is to identify the viewpoints of hotel independent tourism licensed food and beverage establishments' managers towards physical evidences which is a marketing mix element used in restaurant services' marketing. In addition to this, expressing restaurant managers' thoughts about whether physical evidences effect customer's reactions, which physical evidence dimensions are emphasized more and the issues which are being paid attention to in planning, presenting and management of physical evidences are among the other objectives of this study. In the literature it can be seen that effects of physical evidences on customers are frequently researched, but there are not any studies observed, which concentrate on determining viewpoints of restaurant managers on this subject. Due to this, current study has an importance in regard to revealing viewpoints of restaurant managers on physical evidences. Managers of restaurants which are operating in Eskişehir form the population of this study. In data collection stage, data was collected by interview technique with a semi-structured interview form suitable for the objectives of the current study. Throughout July 2015 face to face interviews were conducted with a total of 19 restaurant managers in 18 different restaurants. The collected data were examined with content analysis. After this examination six themes named "planning of physical evidences", "purpose of physical evidence usage", "physical evidence dimensions most commonly commented by customers", "reasons why physical evidences are changed", "most commonly changed physical evidence dimensions" and "physical evidence dimensions which are perceived as the most important" have been acquired. As a result of this study, it was identified that most of the managers pay attention to ambiance and design dimensions while planning physical evidences, they utilize physical evidences to create customer satisfaction, they change physical evidences for obligatory reasons and they mostly pay attention to sanitation and decoration elements among physical evidences. It is expected that current study will contribute to the literature regarding the evaluation of physical evidences through restaurant managers' viewpoint. Also it will guide restaurant managers about the utilization of physical evidences in marketing.