encompasses all the personal contact attributes of the
employees with the customers including whether the
employees were prompt, courteous, knowledgeable, neat in
appearance, helpful, attentive, and understood customer
needs (see Appendix). It is instructive to note that courtesy
and knowledge of the menu, generally considered as
assurance items, loaded with measures of responsiveness. In
the restaurant business, one could easily look upon a server
who is knowledgeable about the menu to be able to “respond”
to customer requests or questions effectively; hence it could
arguably be seen as a responsiveness item. Similarly, being
courteous is how customers want contact personnel to
“respond” to their presence – hence explaining its links to
responsiveness.