Use of the CIT Method for Quality Assessment of Catering Services

Abstract When using various types of services, the customer may experience positive or negative situations, incidents. These incidents may affect the customer's satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Therefore, these incidents can be a source of very valuable information for the enterprise about the quality of the services it offers. The problem, however, is their analysis, because such incidents can affect different aspects of the service, but also, as mentioned earlier, can have a positive or negative impact on customer satisfaction. The Critical Incident Technique (CIT), often mentioned in the literature, can be used for such an analysis. With this method, it is possible to isolate situations that are typical of the negative and positive feelings of the customers, as well as to determine the frequency of their occurrence. The purpose of the papers was to analyze the quality of services offered by the chosen catering enterprise with use of CIT. The research took form of a direct interview with customers after delivery of the chosen service. Data obtained on this basis was analyzed: all incidents were first divided into groups and categories as well as positive and negative incidents, and then statistics for individual categories were presented. This research allowed to indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the research service, but at the same time to indicate the areas of potential improvement.