Quality Service in the Hospitality Industry: Achieving Effective Service Processes and Designs
Abstract
In today’s hotel industry, quality of customer service is an important determinant for a successful business. Identifying the specific expectations of customers, the dimensions of service quality and its relative importance for customers in each segment of hotel industry can help hotel managers meet the challenge of improving quality of service. This paper seeks to show the importance of service processes to the hotel industry. Following a discussion on quantifying service quality, this study describes in detail the most common factors needed to accomplish the most effective service processes and designs.
Among the types of service transactions are electronic-mechanical transactions, indirect personal transactions, and face-to-face transactions (Powers and Barrows, 2006). Electronic-mechanical transactions make the overall experience less cumbersome and hassle free but being technology dependent, they are vulnerable to defects and failures. Indirect personal transactions are repetitive and can easily be standardized. Customers involved in face-to-face transaction can develop an independent opinion of the servers and the organizations they represent. Hospitality organizations also need to render appropriate training and facilities to their employees, including an awareness of time gap between demand and supply of services and responding in a timely fashion to the needs, expectations, and perceptions of the consumers. Employees should keep in mind that experiences are always subjective and differ from one person to other. Hence, it is not possible to authentically standardize them.
The paper goes on to delineate characteristics of the service industry citing their importance in gaining competitive advantage and positioning. It describes the intangible aspects of service quality. Services are essentially intangible by their very nature, as their final output is more in the nature of a social activity rather than a palpable or tangible object. As such, to make their choice more tangible, customers tend to focus on the tangible aspects of a service facility like the décor, ambience, and facilities like swimming pools or saunas.
Another characteristic of the service industry is inseparability. In the context of hospitality services, the server and the consumer are inseparable from each other. Hence, the inseparability between the server and the served makes relevant the concept of employee training and etiquette. Variability as a characteristic of the service industry can be an advantage as it allows service organizations to choose the kinds of services they intend to offer, while allowing customers to have more variety and choice. Finally, perishability must be considered, as the eventual output of the services provided by hospitality organizations is amorphous and intangible and therefore perishable, unlike commodities and goods.
A key issue in the hospitality business is the need to deliver consistent quality through effective management of the service process. The typical processes can be classified as horizontal processes - processes that are generally cross functional in nature and are related to many departments; vertical processes - processes within a specific department; primary processes - processes that are of major concern in terms of cost and revenue; secondary processes - the cost and revenue implications of these processes are low; front office processes - direct encounters with the customer; and back office processes - processes that are not directly encountered by the guest but are hidden services .
To deliver desired performance, important service processes and their strengths and weaknesses need to be identified and designed. Service blueprints can help explain how the service is being delivered and can include all the services encountered by the customer right from his arrival to the time he/she leaves the hotel.
According to Zeithaml and Bitner (2003), the level of complexity and diversity also determines the service process. The complexity of a service process refers to the number of steps that have to be carried out for a particular service, while the diversity of a service is defined as the degree of allowed tolerances in performing a service. These complex service processes can be managed by service blueprint mapping or by following specific strategies, such as reduced complexity, increasing the complexity, strategy of reduced diversity and strategy of increased diversity.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a structured approach for managing organizational services and improving the quality of services or products. This method for service process management consists of management principles and is a set of tools that guides employees to carry out daily tasks according to defined management principles. One of the key elements in the implementation of TQM is leadership, namely the participative style where staff and managers are involved in the design and implementation of a service element. Total Quality Management procedures encourage commitment and involvement of employees towards innovation and improvement.
Failure of service occurs when the service delivered does not match the promised expectations of the guest during the marketing phase. Failures may be due to a disappointing environment like poor hygiene or damaged furniture, very slow service, poor standards of cooking and employees who are impolite. A failure in service can be identified only in a later stage, when is too late to respond.
The role of service is of central importance for the hospitality industry as service quality always has a direct impact on levels of customer satisfaction, which inevitably translates into the matching levels of profitability. This paper seeks to show the importance of service processes that can be adopted in the hotel industry in order to satisfy customers’ needs and wants.
Among these are the time gap between demand and supply of services. Hence, producers need to be sensitive to the fact that they must respond in a timely fashion to the needs, expectations and perceptions of the consumers. Primarily in the hospitality industry, services offered are consumed immediately with little time lapse.
Another point to keep In mind is that experiences are always subjective and differ from one person to other. hence, it is not possible to authentically standardize them. The other major barrier to standardizing services in the hospitality industry is that being delivered by people, the cost of a service is always directly proportional to the level of experience and skills of the server.