Discuss about the Personification Of The Service Labour Process Risk.
According to Chathoth et al. (2016), service concept helps in mediating the client needs with the organizational intent. The service concept includes both tangible and intangible elements that create value for the customers (Goldstein et al., 2002). In the given case study, Broughton House is converted into a boutique hotel mainly attracting leisure and business travellers. The main requirements of the leisure and business travellers are centralized location, in-house dining option, dedicated services and exclusive amenities. Being one of the fastest growing sectors in the world right now, the hospitality industry provides growth opportunities and it can be done by following the proper service quality management and service failure recovery processes.
Broughton House would have to follow the critical procedures and practices to maintain the customers’ satisfaction and help in the growth of their brand image. This can be done by having proper working structure, use effective communication skills by the employees and the managers and considering the feedbacks of both the customers and the hotel employees providing the services. They would have to use proper tools such as the SERVQUAL model and theory which puts the service quality as their prime factor and the scale helps in quantification of the quality of services being provided. They would have to eliminate the probable causes of failure and reframe their policies and structure for improvement. There are various service management strategies that Broughton House should be following in order to create a better brand name and enhance the brand image. The case study further states that the hotel provides concierge services which are well appreciated by the travellers as they might require insider information and tips on best places to visit or eat in the city. A satisfied customer would work as an indirect promotion and even if there was a failure, the recovery method used to minimise the damage would say a lot about the quality of hospitality being provided by the hotel. The key is to provide these services giving a sense of comfort and reliability to the customers and the same has been discussed in the report.
According to the case study, Broughton House is a boutique hotel that offers much better services and amenities than an average hotel. The service concept of the hotel includes both tangible and intangible offerings. The tangible offerings of Broughton House are living spaces which are decorated with high quality linen and curtain drapes, food offered at the restaurant, computers and phones. The intangible offerings are room service, reservation services, parking facility, check-in and check-out services and others.
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (2013) define customer expectation as the ideas and feelings about a product or service. The target customers of Broughton House are leisure and business travellers. The most important features that these target customers look forward to are an ideal location, helpful concierges, WiFi and recreational facilities. Apart from the above, the customers look for friendly nature of the staff, courtesy, honesty and to-be-informed. According to the case study, the location of Broughton House is nearby various entertainment and external dining outlets. There are fifty parking spaces that allow the visitors to utilize the amenities without going through the parking hassle. The case study further states that the hotel provides concierge services which are well appreciated by the travellers as they might require insider information and tips on best places to visit or eat in the city. Moreover, the hotel has three distinct food and beverage services that include 100-seat restaurant and café, a bar for welcome and after-hours. These features shall increase the expectations of its travellers as the needs of business travellers involve reliable, freshly cooked and 24-hour available food option (Pizam, Shapoval, & Ellis, 2016).
It is further analysed that Broughton House is looking to satisfy the needs and meet the customer expectations. The exclusive amenities, high quality décor and ambience shall increase the service expectations from the hotel suiting the customers’ mood and emotional state. It shall help in building a foundation of exceptional service and need fulfilment that shall lead them in revisiting Broughton House (Gabbott & Hogg, 2000).
Service encounters can be defined as the interactions between the service provider and customer. There are three main departments at Broughton House: Front Office, Restaurant/Café and Concierge Desk.
The front office at Broughton House includes the reception where the guests go after they arrive at the hotel. Firstly, it is recommended to greet the customer when they arrive at the reception. It is because greeting creates a good first impression and a positive atmosphere in continuing the conversation. The staffs must wear a smile on their faces from the moment guests walk in till they walk out. Secondly, when a guest places request for room reservation, their needs and nature must be dealt in an understanding demeanour. Even if the hotel is booked to its capacity, they may suggest alternate hotels in the locality (Lusch, Vargo, & O’Brien, 2007).
The two most common situations of service encounters at the restaurant/ café of Broughton House are taking order for food and beverage, and dealing with rude or troublesome customers. Firstly, the main aim of the food and beverage department is to provide high quality food and top-notch services. The orders placed by the customers must be written and delivered in the kitchen as soon as possible. It is because the customers expect their food to arrive soon with less waiting time. Secondly, as the customers pay for service, they have certain expectations from luxurious hotel. There may arise situations where the customers shout or be abusive. It is suggested that the employees at Broughton House must not take the anger or frustration of its customers personally. They must try to take on a positive attitude without lowering the duty and not let a dissatisfied customer walk away (Garavan, Morley, Gunnigle, & McGuire, 2002).
Concierge Desk has multiple functions that include taking reservations, assisting visitors, facilitating travel, keeping guests informed and handling multiple activities. Firstly, the most common interaction and service encounter is to facilitate travel. It is suggested that the concierge desk must arrange for tours, excursion and transfers of passengers from airport (Bayraktaroglu & Kutanis, 2003). It is because Broughton House shall be able to develop a deeper relationship with their clients. Secondly, the concierge desk must keep their patrons informed of the nearby museums, sightseeing destinations, hotels and others. It is because the employees can show that they are knowledgeable and can sufficiently answer the queries of their guests (Bailly, & Léné, 2012).
The SERVQUAL theory focuses on the fact that the customers’ satisfaction is indeed the most valuable asset when you are building an image of your company or the brand. Brand image plays a vital role in the service industry. The SERVQUAL model theory prioritizes in providing utmost customer satisfaction. SERVQUAL is like a scale developed for assessing the service quality perceptions of the target customers. As per the SERVQUAL model, there are five different dimensions of the service quality which affects the customers’ satisfaction and shapes the brand image namely Tangibility, Assurance, Responsiveness, Reliability and Empathy. Broughton House should look after the tangibles such as their staffs’ appearance, equipments etc (Stefano, Casarotto Filho, Barichello, & Sohn, 2015). They should train their staff to assure confidence and trust and their willingness to respond positively for the customers’ needs would project responsibility. The ability to provide accurate services shows reliability and the extent of individually caring for their customers would establish empathy. Broughton House needs to focus on the improvement of service quality along with building a brand image and satisfying the customers’ needs (Knutson, Stevens, Wullaert, Patton, & Yokoyama, 1990).
Reliability- Every customer requires a reliable hotel to stay in. The feedback provided from the customers must be excellent in terms of hospitality, food and service. The promises and commitment made by Broughton House must be delivered accurately and dependably.
Tangibles- The physical facilities, equipment and personnel are considered tangibles. The waiters serving food are not acquainted with the knowhow of serving customers. The waiters must be acquainted with the knowhow of serving customers. The accommodation facilities must be able to accommodate more people at the same time.
Responsiveness- The willingness of service providers must be used adequately to serve the customers. Communication must be efficient so that the employees do not leave the customers annoyed.
Assurance- It deals with the knowledge and courtesy of the employees that can inspire confidence and trust among employees. Conflicts must be resolved in the department. There must not be any gap and suggestions must be applied at all levels at the hotel to make the service excellent.
Empathy- The customers must be given adequate care and attention on an individual basis. The employees must be motivated and must not be limited by bureaucracy.
There are various methods available for managing the service quality for Broughton House. Some of these strategies include Comment Cards, Management Observation, Employee Feedback Programs, Mail Surveys, Interviews and many others. Broughton House should try to channelize the feedbacks into better ways to correct or provide services. These strategies are as useful as a support pillar for running the hotel (Guchait, Lee, Wang, & Abbott, 2016). Two strategies have been discussed hereunder:
The first strategy, that is, comment cards, would help Broughton House in setting a trust with the customers showing that the hotel is considering their feedbacks and opinions of service quality (Bailly & Léné, 2012). This would allow them a recovery opportunity from a service failure. Comment cards are also very cost effective and can be implemented with moderate expenditure (Keith & Simmers, 2013). Broughton House should value each and every piece of advice that they would receive from these comment cards and should channelize their efforts in improving the service quality. It is because the customers would have mentioned specifically if they were dissatisfied with any of their services (Simmers & Keith, 2015).
Another strategy is the Employee Feedback Programs where the employees of Broughton House would provide them with feedback regarding their obstacles while they were providing the services to the customers. This would allow them to get detailed guest feedbacks. The customers are ready to share their experience as a guest with the employees and expect a better result next time the service was not up to the mark (Weber, 2015).
Process mapping refers to the structural analysis of a process follow, by distinguishing how a work is done or should be done, or the functions that are or need to be performed (Hemmington, 2007). It is important and significant as it shows the visibility from end-to-end processes. It helps the employees understand where they stand in the organization (Dillard, Browning, Sitkin, & Sutcliffe, 2000). The following figure illustrates the service process of making a booking a room in the hotel.
Servicescape is a concept developed by Booms and Bitner (1990) that emphasizes the impact of physical environment. Following is the proposal for the room reservation at Broughton House-
Ambience- The importance of indoor temperature cannot be undermined. When the guests arrive at the reception desk, they must be respond positively to thermal comfort. Along with the temperature, other elements like pleasant odour, pleasing music, adequate lighting must be proper (Chebat & Kollias, 2000).
Cleanliness- The hotel including the rooms must be neat and tidy that creates an image of superior service. The paintings on wall and other decorative items in the lobby must be clean with an attractive interior (Dillard, Browning, Sitkin, & Sutcliffe, 2000).
Layout- The hotel layout is important and it must be spacious and clean. The setup of reception, concierge desk and others must be designed in a manner that appeals the guests to visit in. The hotel must be equipped with CCTV cameras that prove effective supervision.
Employee uniform- Not only verbal behaviour of the employee is important, but also their uniform must be smart as it indicates the status of the hotel. It is also easy to identify them by the visitors at the hotel who might be willing to book a room in the hotel (Hemmington, 2007).
The impact of competitions these days drives the hotels to make sure they have a healthy relationship with their customers. The hotels focus on delivering top-notch services and they are obviously prone to certain failures in doing so. The service failure affects the satisfaction negatively and future indulgence of the customers. Broughton House needs to reduce these failures by managing them effectively and efficiently supporting their cause with proper recovery strategies. Service failures can be categorised on the basis of these three different situations which are failure of service delivery or defects in the service, customised needs for the service or low/unavailable services and employees’ actions (Chebat & Kollias, 2000).
The first and the most important one is the failure of delivering a service where the hotel was unable to deliver a service due to any reason or if the service delivered had defects. The hotel would face loss of credibility, loss of profit and certainly loss of their customer base. Broughton House needs to acknowledge the failure and handle the complaints of their customers with their satisfaction (Edvardsson, Tronvoll, & Höykinpuro, 2011). If there was a customised service required but the hotel was unable to deliver them causes a lot of brand, monetary and customer base loss. This also happens when the customers are facing low availability of the services or complete unavailability. Broughton House needs to provide proper care to the needs of their customers and make sure that they do not run out of supplies so as to completely provide satisfactory services. Lastly, the employees’ actions determine a hotel’s image and how the customers think of the brand image. Broughton House needs to train their employees in such a way that even an unsatisfied customer gets the chance to be heard and dealt with proper care (Basso & Pizzutti, 2016).
A customer’s zone of tolerance needs to be considered important and they should be properly heard and their feedback should be valued. Service recovery process constitutes to be the most vital pillar of the hotel industry. Broughton House would have to train their employees accordingly and apply the fairness theory to have an accurately effective recovery process. Service recovery tools are the most effective way of complementing the customers’ satisfaction. The impacts of these service failure recovery strategies should be analysed properly by Broughton House (Shahin, 2010).
A service guarantee can be defined as a marketing tool for reducing consumer risk perceptions, managing customer complaint and service recovery. It is a promise made to the customers and what they can expect if the organization fails to do so (Kandampully & Butler, 2001). A few examples of service guarantee at the hotel are: You will get what you paid for, if we fail to meet this commitment, we shall provide you a full refund if dissatisfied with our services. The service guarantee can be developed using the available resources at Broughton House. Firstly, it must be unconditional and should not have any prerequisites. Secondly, it must be easy to understand to understand and communicate so that the customer knows what to expect. Thirdly, it must be meaningful as it provides adequate values to offset service failure. Fourthly, the guarantee must be easy for the guest to invoke. Lastly, it must be easy for the customer to collect and not be offered after certain time lapse (Yves, De Keyser, & Larivière, 2014).
The external customers are the ones who bring revenue to the firm. They can be managed by implementing Customer Relationship Management strategy for improving customer experience and satisfaction. The internal customers are the ones that participate in the business by being a part of it. Customers are unique and the internal relationships must be managed in a unique manner too. Customization of services can help in increasing competitiveness and establishing a long-term relationship. The priorities or certain requirements of the customers can be met by customizing based on their needs (Bailly, & Léné, 2012).
Experience is the heart of hospitality industry. According to Pine and Gilmore (1998), experiences are a distinct economic offering. The companies stage experiences that sell as an experience occurs when an organization intentionally engages the consumers for creating a memorable event. The companies may exclude negative cues for enhancing experience.
For instance, the housekeeping department of Broughton House plays a key role in forming its reputation. The housekeeping department is an essential part of the hospitality operation which can enhance seamless guest experience. Broughton House can introduce a unique app like Mews Commander app that allows the hospitality team to manage their tasks from any device. The technology shall allow navigating the room with all reservation, arrival and departing guests. The housekeeping app can create seamless guest experience as it shall help them create maintenance requests. The lost and found entries can also be easily synchronized with the guest data. There is less scope of misunderstanding and miscommunication if the right options for the app are used by the guests. The app can encourage the guests to spend as much as possible by upselling the products and services from the local partners. Also, the app can help build a long-term relationship with the guests. Further, communication with the guests after stay can be enhanced as they directly put up request using the app. The employees can change the status of room from dirty to clean adding to uniqueness. The guests would not have to wait for a clean room or get a fast check in experience.
Conclusion
Conclusively, the above report helped Broughton House improve customer satisfaction, enhance their positive experiences and reduce the chances of failures and loss due to these failures. They would have to use proper tools such as the SERVQUAL model and theory which puts the service quality as their prime factor and the scale helps in quantification of the quality of services being provided. The tangible offerings of Broughton House are living spaces which are decorated with high quality linen and curtain drapes, food offered at the restaurant, computers and phones. The intangible offerings are room service, reservation services, parking facility, check-in and check-out services and others. Apart from the above, the customers look for friendly nature of the staff, courtesy, honesty and to-be-informed.
The exclusive amenities, high quality décor and ambience shall increase the service expectations from the hotel suiting the customers’ mood and emotional state. The staffs must wear a smile on their faces from the moment guests walk in till they walk out. The orders placed by the customers must be written and delivered in the kitchen as soon as possible. It is suggested that the employees at Broughton House must not take the anger or frustration of its customers personally. They should train their staff to assure confidence and trust and their willingness to respond positively for the customers’ needs would project responsibility. Process mapping helps the employees understand where they stand in the organization. The importance of indoor temperature cannot be undermined. When the guests arrive at the reception desk, they must be respond positively to thermal comfort. The service failure affects the satisfaction negatively and future indulgence of the customers. Broughton House needs to provide proper care to the needs of their customers and make sure that they do not run out of supplies so as to completely provide satisfactory services.
There may arise situations where the customers shout or be abusive. It is suggested that the employees at Broughton House must not take the anger or frustration of its customers personally. They should train their staff to assure confidence and trust and their willingness to respond positively for the customers’ needs would project responsibility. The physical facilities, equipment and personnel are considered tangibles. The waiters serving food are not acquainted with the knowhow of serving customers. Broughton House should value each and every piece of advice that they would receive from these comment cards and should channelize their efforts in improving the service quality.
Broughton House needs to manage their service failure issues and their managers and employees should be readily available for the recovery processes. They need to be provided with proper training and skills so as to work effectively and efficiently. The chances of failures are not negligible and might occur every now and then but what decides the fate of the industry is the way they deal with it and how effective it turns out to be.
Broughton House should monitor the activities and manage the same accordingly by focussing on the critical elements that are recurring and negatively affecting the services. They need to create and proper channel for the flow of work and communicate in a standardised manner. Communication is the key to success and unreliable or inappropriate communication increases the vulnerability and leads to further damage. The managers and employees need to coordinate according to their requirements and follow the protocol. This includes proper briefings, formal & informal meetings and regular day to day discussions which would help a lot and Broughton House should maintain the same practice.
The employees should participate further and involve themselves in performance evaluation and management. This helps in the decision making processes done by the upper level managers. Taking feedback from the customers through comment cards and also from the employees has been proved to be very beneficial and allows the managers to correct their mistakes from the recommendations made by the customers. The employees can provide direct information regarding the difficulties encountered by them while they were providing the services.
Broughton House can analyse themselves by following the SERVQUAL theory which recommends that an organisation should capture the expectations of the customers and the service perception. SERVQUAL works as a scale which helps in quantifying the quality of service being provided. It helps in managing the tangibles, assure proper quality services, check the responsiveness of the authority, provide proper reliability and focus on the individual customer needs.
Managing the external and internal customer relationships helps the industry for achieving their long term goals and maintains their customer base. The external customers bring revenue whereas the internal customers participate in the business as they are a part of it. Broughton House should focus on the critical key areas and manage their services accordingly considering the time factor as well. A well satisfied customer works as an indirect promotion of their brand image and their feedbacks should be valued for their service recovery processes.
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