Intersection Of Hospitality, Service, And Customer Experience In Hotel Management

Hospitality, Service, and Customer Experience: A Challenge for Hotel Managers

1. Discuss the intersection of hospitality, service and customer experience as a major challenge to Hotel Managers

2. Provide examples to support the practical application of these concepts

3. Evaluate how a manager would assess the effectiveness of these concepts
 

By the very term hospitality, the readers are able to understand that hospitality management deals with those services that are required to provide the receptors with the facilities and provisions that will make them feel contended from almost all the perspectives, it may be in return of something or may not be, as the case may be. Hospitality, thus, involves the act of rendering a warm and friendly welcome to the individuals who are received as guests to any particular venue.

Hospitality management therefore denotes the management of certain events that take place in the service industry, that involve hotels and tourism industry. The staff of the hospitality management department would engage those individuals those who possess the skills for ensuring a warm and deserving welcome to the guests along with the management of various departments that are related to the concept of hospitality. In an organization, the front desk, housekeeping, the human resources, operations management, financial management, marketing and sales, restaurant and bar comprise all such departments that are required to be managed by the Hospital management department of an industry. These departments should be organized in such a way that they are able to serve the guests the needed welcome and satisfaction that they feel they are worth of.

The relationship between the hospitality management department and the customer or guest service experience play a very important role in deciding the success of any organization or service industry like hotel and tourism industry. This is because the more the hospitality management department is involved in satisfying the demands of the customers or the guests, the more an organization or a business is able to progress in the business world. Many consultants and mangers of specific hotels and tourism sectors have reported that the customers in today’s society are very much involved in assessing the conduct and the service provided to them by any business process.

The service-profit chain, thus, is the main determinant of any business organization’s growth and stability. The profit and progress of a business is dependent mainly upon the loyalty and the value-added service that is provided to the customers. In accordance with the views presented by James L. Heskett , Thomas O. Kones  and others, the service profit chain is created by an extensive relationship that is formed among the employee satisfaction, loyalty of the employees, customer satisfaction and the ultimately the productivity. As and when the service provided to the customers by the employees are satisfactory, automatically it increases the loyalty of the customers towards that particular service. Therefore, the hospitality management is the service that aims at the management of all those events and services with the required skills and dexterity (Grissemann et al. 2013).

The Service-Profit Chain

Now, according to “The Experience Economy”, by Joseph pine and James H. Gilmore, the experiences matter largely in determining the success in customer service policies. The manner in which the goods are delivered by the business organizations in order to secure customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty, experiences are also sold in achieving a healthy business (N. Torres & Kline 2013). The critics opine that the consumers nowadays not only evaluate the services of any business but also base their assessment upon the experiences, they aspire for experiences from the services more than the standards or the quality of the services rendered to them. The experiences created by the companies or the business organizations become memorable for the customers, they turn to be much more important than the goods or services sold by an organization. The designing of experiences are now are as much a business art as the designing of product and services are. As for instance, the Forum shops in Las Vegas mall portray the theme of an ancient Roman marketplace, that create an ever-lasting impression on the minds of the visitors. Thus, this falls under the criteria of an experience. Various cues can be used by which should be in accordance with the theme that a company sets for the establishment of experiences, such cues help in enhancing the impression upon the consumer’s mind and will create a strong sense of experience among the customers. In the pursuit of engaging the consumers in experiences, the hospitality management department of an industry needs to place such cues, which will pose a positive impact upon the customers rather than creating negative influence. 

The concepts of hospitality, customer satisfaction, and experience economy and service-profit chain are being continuously applied in today’s world by all the companies in order to realize their goals and progress accordingly. For instance, Banc One is a company that is based in Columbus, Ohio, has improved upon its services by introducing the techniques for measuring and tracking the customer satisfaction rates through the regular evaluation of the factors that determine the customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and ultimately the customer loyalty. “Xerox” is one of the companies that had engaged itself much earlier during 1990s in the ratification and analysis of the levels of the customer satisfaction and customer that draws customer loyalty (Li et al.2013). This process of analysis has truly helped the company in extending and upgrading its efforts to satisfy the customers through various mean and earn their trust. The South West Airlines that is the seventh largest domestic airline of U.S.A. is again another example that has achieved its employee retention and the productivity from the employees through the facilities that the Southwest Airlines has provided to the employees. Thus, the company mainly aims at securing the ultimate growth through customer satisfaction which is again derived from the increase in the employee satisfaction and thereby employee productivity. Many other companies such as the Information Technology sector and the firms related to the IT are very much involved in satisfying the demands of the clients or the consumers. This is enabled by the ability of the companies to deal well with the employees and ensure good positions fir them , thereby securing the contentment of the workforce, which ultimately enhances the productivity of the firms or that of the employees , consequently the satisfaction levels of the consumers are also doubled in the process (Mohammed & Rashid, 2012).                     

The Experience Economy

On the other hand, the concept of the Experience economy has become one of the most important pre requisites of any firm in the act of dealing with the customers and for providing them the most reliable services. The restaurants like the Hard Rock Café and Planet Hollywood are the examples of businesses that base their customer satisfaction upon the themes of the entertainment (Tan 2014). The themes of entertainment possess some cues or the other that determine the themes that become important for attracting the attention of the consumers. However, this is not only confined to the experience of entertainment, the customers are also influenced by the personal matters. One of the Café’s opened by an entrepreneur in Israel charges its customers only for entering the Café, and not for any other purpose (Law et al. 2014). That Café has been regarded by the customers as just the meeting point, where they come up for social gatherings, they meet their acquaintances and are charged for that, no one enters the Café with the intention of having food, the priority rests upon the intention meeting nag to be seen. Thus, it is evident that the Café in order to meet the wish of the people has prepared itself accordingly and covey the experience that the consumers actually want to undergo by visiting that café. Therefore, it has become clear that hospitality management department of that café should be aware of the personal needs of the consumers and make arrangements in such a manner, so that they are judged in accordance with the experiences they provide to the consumers. Experiences are sold, thus, rather than the products.

Experiences when they are conveyed by an organization should meet the purpose or the demands of the customers in the same way as the goods and services fulfill the needs. The experiences or the modes of experiences can be of various kinds that will tend to engage the customers in various ways and give them the needed enjoyment. They need to be designed in such a way that they retain the capabilities of going along with the wants of the customers. There can be four realms of experience; some experiences require the consumers to get fully immersed in the activities, some are escapist experiences that make the people get involved in the activities much more, the experiences sometimes demand passive participation of the consumers forgetting the realities. Thus, the entrepreneur of any company needs to explore and research well about his company’s prospects and existing features, which will help him in setting up and designing the experiences that will suit the purpose or aims of his company as well as the demands of the customers. For example, the Disney World may serve its customers in all the possible ways by rendering them all the kinds of experiences that are required to make the visit to the Disney World memorable (Padilla-Meléndez et al.2014).

Practical Application of these Concepts

A few key design principles have been identified by the critics, that would help the entrepreneurs in the depiction of the experiences in a well-defined manner and thereby earning the trust, and demand of the consumers. Thus, setting up of a theme, such as The Rainforest Café”, the name itself says the mode of experience that the consumers are able to get by entering venue. Thu, the theme need to be very concise that can enable the customer knows exactly about the intention of the business enterprise or any establishment and proceeds accordingly (Llach, J., Alonso-Almeida, M. D. M., Martí, J., & Rocafort, A. (2016). Another most important aspect that need to be taken care of by a company is that the experiences should pose a positive impact upon the consumers, for example in case of a traveling company, the company should make the consumer aware of the value-added services that it will be able to provide, it need to create an impression by informing the customer about the travelling packages and schemes that can attract them as well as rendering them with all those services that would make them feel that the expenses made by them are worth the experiences received. All kinds of negative cues need to be evaded. For example, in case of the “The Rainforest Café”, if a customer is being told that he or she is going to undergo the adventure instead of being told that they are going to be served with the delicious food items, the statement will act as a cue in posing a truly positive impact upon the minds of the consumers.

In many cases, the consumers are faced with quite bad experiences at some hotels, as when and they approach the hotel for some purpose. The manner of reception that the customers receive at many hotels do not remain up to the mark along and even the boarding and lodging services that are provided to the visitors may not satisfy their wants and even the cues provided to them during their stay in the hotel may create completely a negative impression upon the minds of the consumers and they may avoid the services any further from the establishment.

The companies should not execute poor management of the services that cannot engage the attention and demands of the consumers; as well the senses of the consumers need to be engaged in order to succeed in the field of making the experiences a success. 

A manager of any organization in his pursuit of making the business of the company more and more successful should need to take care of all the means that can help in creating customer satisfaction and enhancing the same. Being a manager of an establishment, as for instance, a hotel that serves towards the lodging of the visitors, he or she should be well prepared by setting forth all the facilities that can create and enrich all the possible experiences of the inmates during their stay (Mok et al. 2013).

In order to satisfy the above-mentioned purpose, the manager at the first and foremost stance should make sure about the well-defined presence of the departments of the hospitality management in the hotel, so that the inmates of the venue do not feel any kind of discomfort and unsatisfactory service on their part. Thus, in order to ensure this, the manager along with his staff of the company or the establishment should need to ensure that the employees of his concern are fully satisfied with the employment policies and programs that are designed for retaining the employee satisfaction (Zhou et al. 2014). Through the proper implementation of the service profit chain the manager of an establishment is able to receive the best and productive services from the employees (Chen et al. 2013). Now, if the employees are provided with those privileges that they deserve then they will be able to serve the customers in terms of hospitality more and more better. This in turn will enhance the productivity of the firm or the company, enhancement of employee satisfaction will lead to employee retention and consequently employee productivity (Ali et al2014).

If the manager after the implementation of the service-profit chain does not get the desired results in terms of customer experience and customer loyalty and satisfaction, then he should be more alert in assessing the experiences that the customers receive after entering his establishment (Lee, 2016). Therefore, he should set another small department of a few officials who will design the experiences that the customers should undergo during the process of enjoying the products or services of the particular concern. On the other hand, the assessment of the employee productivity needs to be one. If the manager feels that the customers are happy with the experiences that they receive from their establishment or organization, he should increase the employee management schemes, he can then set up another department that will take care of the issues related to the employee productivity and satisfaction and enrich the same through various training and proper recruitment processes.

Now, if the manager finds that the enhancement of the employee productivity and loyalty have successfully led to the progress in the hospitality management department of the concern , thereby securing a good reputation among the consumers by gaining their loyalty and trust through the creation of experiences and reliable services. 

Conclusion:

Thus, it is evident that the hospitality management constitutes one of the most vital departments of an organization from almost all perspectives that are required for the growth of the firm. When the consumers are able to receive the sophisticated and most coveted and polite service that they deserve in return of the value they are paying for the same, the image of an organization automatically is enriched along with its profitability.  

References:                       

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