An Empirical Analysis of the Queuing Theory and Customer Satisfaction : Application in Small and Medium Enterprises – A Case Study of Croc Foods Restaurant

Fundamental business principles are very critical to the growth and survival of the business. Waiting in line or queue causes inconvenience to customers and economic costs to firms. Queuing theory is a mathematical approach to the study of waiting in lines/queues. The study presents the results of a study that evaluates the effectiveness of a queuing model in identifying the restaurant queuing system efficiency parameters. It uses Little's Theorem to analyze data collected from Croc Foods Restaurant in Beitbridge over a three-week period. The study showed that on average 60 customers arrive every hour and the service rate is 84 customers per hour. Using the Queuing Theory calculator, the system utilization factor was 71.43%, the probability of zero customers waiting 0.2857, average number of customers waiting 1.782 and average waiting time 0.0298 hours. The study compared the single server model against multi-server model and concluded that M/M/1 model was not the best for Croc Foods restaurant.Using a questionnaire of 171 respondents, the study found out that about 43.3% of customers are not satisfied about the nature of waiting lines and about 69% customers have at least turned away at regular occasions due to the queues. The long term value of existing customers should not be overlooked; constant check for their changing needs and improvement in the time spent when serving them has been emphasized by the study