Quality Service and its Impact in the Hospitality Industry
In any service-oriented industry, delivery of good, quality customer service is the key to longevity. The question now is if the business can sustain giving consistent, high-quality customer service. Quality service, simply defined, is how a business brings forth their products or services on the highest possible scale in their effort to meet the customer’s demands and exceed their expectations (Kapiki, 2012). Delivery of good customer service sometimes differentiates one hotel, for example, from another and creates a lasting impression that ensures repeat business for that particular hotel. Due to the industry’s competitive nature, the impact of quality service in the hospitality industry is essential for success, now, more than ever. In this light, it is, therefore, important to give due attention to the continuous improvement of customer service.
How The Industry Makes use of Customer Input to Improve Customer Service
Quality customer service, if you ask a guest in a hotel, for example, would mean that they have experienced the best time of their lives with their stay at that hotel. It is about having their needs met, expectations exceeded, and sometimes, each whim fulfilled. It is having the littlest request granted even if it means moving mountains to have it fulfilled. It is the anticipation, assurance given to customers and meeting their needs every time (Kumar, 2013).
In an effort to improve customer service, the customer, and their needs should be top of mind consistently. Of course, there are other factors that attract customers to a hotel of their choosing. It may be due to creative advertising, marketing promotions or referrals. However, as soon as the customer enters the hotel up until his departure, this where his experience weighs to influence his initial perception of the hotel, his decision to come back or what he would be saying about the hotel to his family and friends, creating more business for the hotel or otherwise.
Aside from a hotel’s guest services department, the customers themselves can be a reliable source of improvement points that can be utilized for delivery of quality service. The customers stand to act as the service quality controller. As guests get to experience firsthand, a hotel’s services, it is but natural for the guest to start assessing his experience. This “assessment” becomes essential if sourced properly by the hotel in their interaction with the guest, in knowing what aspects of the service delivery the hotel was able to live up to or fail in. In this face to face interaction, there is a service provider (hotel) and receiver (guest). Both participant’s actions should be evaluated and assessed in order to manage quality (Vasile, 2009). As a service quality controller, guests have the ability to initially assess service delivery by giving praises, tips or negative comments upon their interaction with a frontline staff. Moreover, the customer can further a negative experience by airing their complaints by talking to a manager in charge or writing to management about it. In these cases, the hotel is now utilizing the customer’s input to further improve on a service failure or reinforce a service delivery success. Guests are also encouraged to voice out their feedback via the hotel’s survey (usually given at the end of the stay), electronic mailers encouraging the customer go online and share their experience, or simply by asking how their stay was upon checkout.
Service Standards to Meet Customer Expectations
Service standards are an integral part of the hospitality industry. For these standards to be effective in bringing in guests and be able to get their repeat business in the process, management needs to give due attention and importance in its creation. It is a tedious process that involves numerous consultation sessions among the staff members to find out where their priorities should lie. In these sessions or meetings, best practices are shared and further improved on. It is also very important that the goals of the company are well defined and properly disseminated and are understood by members of the team. And lastly and most importantly, these standards should be inculcated in all the members of the team via proper training and implementation, and a follow-up monitoring system.
There are two main categories of service standards widely implemented across the hospitality industry. For one, a group of service standard focuses on the operational aspect of service delivery. It consists of standards upheld by the industry in terms of the initial interaction between the frontline staff and the customer – how they greet guests, for example. There are certain guidelines that dictate the hotel staff’s proper manner and gestures in greeting the customer according to the time of day or a particular holiday. Even the maximum number of times a telephone should ring prior to someone picking it up is also outlined. Simple as it may seem, these standards create the initial impression of the guest about the hotel and usually lasts his lifetime. To uphold these standards and assess if they are being implemented properly, a program making use of mystery shopper is a good way to evaluate how these standards are being executed without the staff knowing that they are being assessed. An advantage of this would be that in the time of assessment, the staff acts normally unlike when they know they are being assessed, they tend to be in their best behavior, which may not necessarily be all the time. The results of this mystery shopper program can definitely lead management to create more programs that aim to improve on how they could make the stay of their guests more memorable.
The second service standard category would be involving standards that focus on how guest satisfaction is measured. All hotels have some sort of surveys that they ask guests to fill out during their stay or after. With this, the hotel is able to specifically know if they were able to fulfill the needs of the guest and where they could improve on more (What are Service Standards, n.d.). These surveys may come in the form of on-paper surveys usually left at the welcome packet of the hotel, or is sent electronically via email once the visit of the guest has concluded. To further encourage the guests to fill these survey forms out, these information gathering programs usually include an incentive for every completed form. In the case of restaurants, the incentive may come in the form of discounts or free desserts. In hotels, it may be free spa services during the guest’s next visit or an additional night’s stay, on the house. Another way that guests can be delighted to actually answer a survey form is that if their form can be entered into a hotel-initiated raffle or contest. With incentives to go with their survey programs, undoubtedly, guests will line up to fill these forms up and offer their feedback and inputs on how to make their stay more memorable the next time around.
The Extra Mile: Information Dissemination to Guests
We can definitely say that today’s world is Internet and technology-dependent. We do almost anything online, from window shopping to cooking to paying bills. In the hotel industry, technology has advanced majority of the services that a hotel can offer. Guests can now make an informed decision on where to book their next vacation by surveying several hotels prior to booking. These websites present their hotels in different layouts in their effort to capture the guest and eventually make their booking with them. Most guests right now are self-sufficient, handling the reservation and booking process themselves rather than make them via a traditional travel agent, enabling full control of their choice. Everything else can be done online as well nowadays from membership application down to payment.
Hotel websites remain the most accessible information platform for the industry. In these websites, hotels can showcase their property by providing sections that present their services, amenities, promotions and membership options. Some even provide a guided tour of their rooms to further engage the guest in making the final booking. However, to make information dissemination more efficient and support always readily available, a provision of a live chat option can make the customer feel that anytime during the day, the hotel is ready to go the extra mile to answer queries. Not all hotel websites have this option since it is very expensive to set up (Pathak, 2015). Having this included in the website would definitely make the guest’s reservation or booking survey a breeze since someone is there to immediately attend to their needs. With the live chat option, guests do not need to pick up their phone, go thru a multiple-option phone menu and wait a long time to speak to a representative. Moreover, this feature would definitely make the guests feel that the hotel values them since this option provides for a step by step assistance in order for them to complete their transaction. Aside from providing a convenient platform for information dissemination, the live chat session can be another point of sales for the hotel. These live chat representatives serve also as sales agents to help manage reservations and complete bookings made by guests online. They are tasked to convert guests who are just looking to bookers. This is primarily because of the convenience this option presents. Guests would second-guess going to another website and complete the booking right there and then. Personally, I choose, most often than not, to go visit hotel sites with live chat options for the reasons cited above.
In conclusion, in any industry, services and products should always be consumer-centric. All programs and initiatives implemented should focus on giving these needs and moreover, exceeding customer expectations. Technology nowadays can be considered as an ally and is slowly becoming a way of life. Proper and maximized utilization of online platforms can yield favorable results for both the company and the consumer.
References
Kapiki, S. (2012). Quality Management in Tourism and Hospitality: an Exploratory Study among Tourism Stakeholders. International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories. 2.2, 54-61. http://www.academia.edu/1160667/Quality_Management_in_Tourism_and_Hospitality_an_Exploratory_Study_among_Tourism_Stakeholders
Kumar, A. (2013, August). Providing Quality Guest Service in Hotel Industry. National Informatics Center (NIC). Retrieved from http://www.nchm.nic.in/pagearticles/view/18
Pathak, M. (2015, July 20). eHotelier. [Five Ways Hotels Can Use Technology for a Better Guest Experience]. Retrieved from https://ehotelier.com/insights/2015/07/20/5-ways-hotels-can-use-technology-for-a-better-guest-experience/
Vasile, D. (2009). Customer Contribution to Improving Service Quality in the Hospitality Industry. Amfiteatru Economic. 11.26, 441-450. http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/temp/article_885.pdf
What are Service Standards? (n.d.). Institute for Citizen-Centered Service. Retrieved from www.iccs-isac.org/en//Service%20Standards%20English.doc
