Customer Service Quality Management In Hospitality: A Case Study Of Cameron Hotel

The Ignorance of Customer Service Quality Management

Question:

Discuss about the Manage Quality Customer Service for Cameron Hotel.

The entire issues is about the customer service quality management in a hotel where more importance is given to the corporate and business bookings done by some premium clients. The discussion is about the ignorance in service providing done by a Sales Manager which created serious consequences for the business and management of Cameron Hotel. Since the hotel business is dependent on clients and their needs, the service of the hotel should respond and cater to their expectations (Kasiriet et al. 2017). In this case there was an issue of ignorance towards the client’s demands and needs which made the situation worse for the Sales Manager ending up in losing her job.Mr. Jones being a premium client of Cameron had some issues in services of the hotel which he was noticing from quite some time. When he addressed the issues of meeting rooms, food item requests and lack of attention towards room reservation requests he got a cold response from the sales manager who handled all the bookings and affairs of Mr. Jones.At first he did not protest against the kind of service he was getting, but to avoid any major lacuna in the services in future he contacted the sales manager to rectify the issue (Janahi and Almubarak 2017). The sales manager did not take this matter seriously and was ignorant towards her call to Mr. Jones which made him furious and cancel all his bookings. This shook the management of Cameron and as a result they fired the sales manager and a senior member of the hotel management took care of the matter himself.    

In the case of Cameron the service delivery was inadequate according to Mr. Jones. He had requested to arrange a meeting in the conference hall but the timings were not specified, hence it created confusion (Josiamet et al. 2017). There was also improper arrangement of food items and even the room listings were not done properly for other participants which was not acceptable for Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones has requested for proper arrangement of the rooms and its listings for other participants who are going to attend the meeting. He has also given the list of food items which will be served in the meeting. Requests related to conference halls were also done by Mr. Jones for proper conduct of the business meet (Ng et al. 2017). 

The Case of Cameron Hotel and Mr. Jones

Employees were ignorant about the kinds of services which were asked of them. The service delivery requests were not honored properly and no attention was given by the sales manager to notify Mr. Jones about the scheduled meeting. The sales manager was ignorant towards Mr. Jones the second time when she had a personal meeting in which she was absent.    

Since Mr. Jones was an old and trusted customers there was no complaint from his side before and the service of Cameron was satisfying for him. But when he found some loopholes in the services he created a fuss about it and cancelled his bookings which was a threatening notion for the business of Cameron which ended up in the sales manager getting fired (Hamariet et al. 2017).

Since the hospitality business is all about service delivery and the quality of services which are rendered to its clients, the best way to mitigate these types of problems was to provide the top notch and best in class services to Mr. Jones so that he was left with no scope to complaint. Any lacuna in the services of Cameron would have been overseen by a higher level and more authoritative staff than the Sales Manager so that Mr. Jones could feel that he is being valued and given importance (Collieret et al. 2017). When the first complaint came from Mr. Jones the management of Cameron should have fired the Sales Manager to maintain its reputation and integrity in front of its customers and would have shown the level of accountability which they possess towards their premium clients. The best way to manage such an issue is to identify the need and requirement of the customer and provide them exactly that and with brisk speed so that it can take their minds off the current issue (Voorheeset et al. 2017). The management of Cameron should have provided Mr. Jones with better facilities for the meetings and upgraded rooms and services for his participants which would have compensated for the inadequate service. The number of staff deployed in the service of Mr. Jones and his meetings would have been increased by Cameron to show their concern towards their customers which would have appealed to the heart of Mr. Jones who was an old and trusted client of Cameron (Ryu 2017).

The following incident which happened with Mr. Jones and the management of Cameron Hotel is a very serious one in context of the hospitality business. The entire industry of hospitality is based on customer satisfaction, their visitations, feedback and advertisement through the customers. This incident have proved to be a major failure in the quality of service and has identified a loophole in the service deliverance at the lower levels of hotel management. The loss could have been major in both tangible and intangible aspects of business (Carrasco et al. 2017). Almost all the business done by hotels depend upon these corporate meetings and room bookings which are done for the meetings. It brings a great deal of revenue to the hotel which is known to be the most substantial part of income for the hotel. Loss of such clients would have incurred a huge loss on the revenue part which is a tangible loss. The intangible loss for Cameron Hotel would have been the loss in reputation in the market due to the negative feedback of a premium client such as Mr. Jones (Boo 2017). The other participants who attended the meeting would also have given a negative feedback for Cameron among their colleagues and friends in the corporate world which could have degraded its popularity and accountability in the market. Due to these reasons Cameron hotel could have faced loss in their customer base which is not acceptable for any hotel in the hospitality business because the entire industry is based on the name and fame of the brand and its customer’s choice (Ryu 2017).

Inadequate Service Delivery

Staff Training: Employees of the hotels should be trained to handle clients of nature and status so that they can feel comfortable in visiting the place again. Staff should be trained to provide the best possible services to their respective clients. There should be separate training to handle corporate meetings, restaurants and other hospitality services (Collier et al. 2017).

Performance Measurement: Every quarter or on a monthly basis the performance of staff should be measured so that they can be rated and further deployed in the training programs. For this purpose there should be a provision for getting feedbacks on the services provided to the clients and customers so that actual performance can be measured. 

Facilities: Clients and customers should be provided with top notch facilities in the hotels which can give them all the comforts and luxury which they desire. Since people spend a lot of money in the hotels so that they can experience services and facilities which they do not get at their homes (Voorhees et al. 2017).

Roles and Responsibilities: Every staff of the hotel should know their roles and responsibilities for managing and servicing their clients. This will provide a better service environment as all the lower level staff will be in the guidance of the middle level staff and the customers will also feel that the management of the hotel is quite good.

References

Boo, H.V., 2017. Service Environment of Restaurants: Findings from the youth customers. Journal of ASIAN behavioural studies, 2(2), pp.67-77.

Carrasco, R.A., Sánchez-Fernández, J., Muñoz-Leiva, F., Blasco, M.F. and Herrera-Viedma, E., 2017. Evaluation of the hotels e-services quality under the user’s experience. Soft Computing, 21(4), pp.995-1011.

Collier, J.E., Collier, J.E., Breazeale, M., Breazeale, M., White, A. and White, A., 2017. Giving back the “self” in self service: customer preferences in self-service failure recovery. Journal of Services Marketing.

Hamari, J., Hanner, N. and Koivisto, J., 2017. Service quality explains why people use freemium services but not if they go premium: An empirical study in free-to-play games. International Journal of Information Management, 37(1), pp.1449-1459.

Janahi, M.A. and Almubarak, M., 2017. The impact of customer service quality on customer satisfaction in Islamic banking. Journal of Islamic Marketing, (just-accepted), pp.00-00.

Josiam, B.M., Malave, R., Foster, C. and Baldwin, W., 2017. Assessing Quality Of Food, Service And Customer Experience At A Restaurant: The Case Of A Student-Run Restaurant In The Usa. Hospitality Marketing and Consumer Behavior: Creating Memorable Experiences.

Kasiri, L.A., Cheng, K.T.G., Sambasivan, M. and Sidin, S.M., 2017. Integration of standardization and customization: Impact on service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 35, pp.91-97.

Ng, S., David, M.T. and Dagger, T.S., 2017. Examining Customer Perceptions of Relationship Quality Over Time. In The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientationsin a Dynamic Business World (pp. 304-304). Springer, Cham.

Ryu, K. and Lee, J.S., 2017. Examination of restaurant quality, relationship benefits, and customer reciprocity from the perspective of relationship marketing investments. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 41(1), pp.66-92.

Voorhees, C.M., Fombelle, P.W., Gregoire, Y., Bone, S., Gustafsson, A., Sousa, R. and Walkowiak, T., 2017. Service encounters, experiences and the customer journey: Defining the field and a call to expand our lens. Journal of Business Research.