Quality Service Management In Tourism And Hospitality PDF

QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY What is GUESTOLOGY? internal customers should understand and fulfill the a term originated by Bruce Laval of The Walt Disney expectations of thes...

QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY What is GUESTOLOGY? internal customers should understand and fulfill the a term originated by Bruce Laval of The Walt Disney expectations of these customers just as any organization tries Company to meet and exceed the expectations of its external Customer-guests are, to the extent possible, studied customers. This logic can easily and rightfully be extended to scientifically (the -ology in guestology). the level of the individual employee. The organization must Guests’ behaviors within the hospitality organization are meet or exceed the expectations of employees about how they carefully observed. will be treated. Smart hospitality organizations know that their Their wants, needs, capabilities, and expectations regarding employees must get the same care and consideration that the hospitality guest experience are determined. they want their employees to extend to their guests. They the service product is tailored to meet their demands and understand that they can't mistreat their own employees and those of future guests expect them to then treat the customers well. They know that means simply that all the organization's employees must the way in which the organization treats its own employees will treat customers like guests and manage the organization from inevitably spill over onto the way their employees treat guests the guest's point of view. and each other. In these organizations, everyone works hard to avoid employee mistreatment and unfairness. As Meeting Customer Expectations expressed in the Southwest Airlines mission.statement, Customers come to a service provider with certain “Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and expectations for themselves, their businesses, and/or their caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to families. First-time guests may have general expectations. For share externally with every Southwest Customer." example, a first-time guest of a major hotel may simply expect a nice room, a comfortable mattress, clean surroundings, Meeting Increased Competition satisfactory meals, and a reasonable price. A repeat guest The competition for guest loyalty and dollars (and euros, may have more specific expectations based on past rupees, won, yen, yuan, etc.) is intense and will only grow experience. more so in the future. New hospitality organizations spring up every day. Although opening a hospitality organization like a Serving Internal Customers hotel, convention center, travel Web site, or airline costs a lot In addition to public consumers, the hospitality organization of money, for thousands of restaurants, travel agencies, sports has within itself many internal customers, persons, and units bars, and convention services organizations, the amount of that depend on each other and “serve” each other. The start-up capital needed is comparatively small. principles for providing an outstanding service experience for These smaller organizations, like the larger ones hoping to external customers also apply to these many internal survive and prosper in this competitive environment, need to customers. For example, a computer help desk that serves master and practice the principles of guestology. If they don't By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY provide the experience their guests expect someone else will. is just a tangible part of the service product that Olive Garden Service A common way to think of service is as the intangible delivers to diners within rooms themed to resemble a classic part of a transaction relationship that creates value between a Italian restaurant and a feeling that when you are there provider organization and its customer, client, or guest. More "you're family." A final point about the service product: Both the simply, a service is something that is done for us. Services can organization and the guest define it, and the definitions may be provided directly to the customer (e.g., a spa treatment, a not be the same. The organization may think its service haircut, and medical procedures) or for the customer product is a well-made, tasty hamburger, reliably consistent (e.g., finding and purchasing tickets to a show, lawn care, and from location to location. But the guest may be “buying” a car repair). The services can be provided by a person (e.g., more extended service product: a well-made, tasty, consistent by a service associate in a restaurant or by a travel hamburger delivered quickly in clean surroundings by a agent) or via technology (e.g., by booking a ticket online or cheerful server. Cleanliness and cheerfulness may be as using an ATM). And, of course, services can be provided as a important as burger taste for many guests. Since it all starts combination of these characteristics. Most services include a with the guest, a hospitality organization always needs to tangible physical product or tangible materials and equipment define its service product not in terms of its own interests but in the transaction as well: At McDonald’s you get a hamburger in terms of what its guests want and expect. you can see, touch, eat, or take home in a box; you also get service along with the hamburger. A cruise line will include a Service Industries ship, a dining experience will provide food, and a teacher’s Just as the service product is a mixture of tangible and lesson may require chalk, texts, and notes. Other service intangible elements, so are the entire industries that provide transactions, like a session with a psychiatrist or Social these products. Although some industries have traditionally Security counselor, offer only the customer-provider been referred to as service industries, marketing writer interaction. Theodore Levitt made an important point about service as early as 1972: "There are no such things as service Service Product industries. There are only industries whose service Another, perhaps even more common, meaning of service components are greater or less than those of other industries. refers to the entire bundle of tangibles and intangibles in a Everybody is in service." transaction with a significant service component. One necessary distinction to realize is that the service product does not refer specifically to the tangible items that may Goods to Services to Experiences accompany the transaction, though it can include them. That A characteristic of the contemporary economy that hospitality is, if you go to Olive Garden for dinner, the actual meal is not organizations were the first to understand is that, for many the service product; it consumers, receiving well-made goods or well-rendered By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY services may no longer be sufficient. If you build a better people." Each guest brings to the guest experience a different mousetrap today, the world may or may not beat a path to bundle of needs, wants, capabilities, and expectations. Some your door. More and more, today's consumers want their guests will arrive happy and excited about whatever goods and services packaged as part of a memorable is going to happen to them. Others will arrive unhappy, bored, experience that has an emotional impact. Of course, today's or even angry. Some guests know how to use the fondue airlines must fly passengers safely from point to point on pots. Others need to be taught so they don't burn schedule; restaurants must serve tasty, safe-to-eat food; hotels themselves. Even more challenging is that it is possible that must provide clean rooms- all at a price customer are willing to the happy excited guest that came yesterday is the unhappy pay. But the most successful hospitality angry guest coming in the door today. The hospitality organizations, and an ever-increasing number of organizations organization must not only strive to satisfy each of the guests it of all types, are recognizing the competitive advantage they seeks to serve in its target market but also adapt what it does can gain by providing carefully designed to account for the changes in expectations, wants, experiences that unfold over a period of time for their needs, and capabilities that those guests may have from a visit customers, clients, and guests. to visit. B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore were among the first to note that just as we had moved from an industrial to a service The first step in understanding how to manage the guest economy, we have now transitioned to an experience experience then is to understand the guests that are in their economy. If this is true, thinking in terms of providing customer target market, to whatever extent possible. Ideally, this experiences is important for many organizations in varied understanding would include: industries; in the hospitality industry, such (1) the traditional demographic breakdowns of age, race, thinking is already considered essential to a successful gender, and guests' home locations. competitive strategy. (2) the psychographic breakdowns of how they feel, what their attitudes, beliefs, and values are, and what kind of experience Understanding the Guest they need, want, and expect the hospitality organization to To well-managed hospitality organizations, guests are not deliver; and statistically entitled to vague concepts or abstractions. They (3) the capabilities (their knowledge, skills, and abilities understand that within the heterogeneous mass of [KSAs]) to coproduce the people they serve or want to serve, each is an individual, each experience. is unique; some companies use the term VIP to remind their Meeting the expectations of a customer who arrives needing employees that they are serving "very individual but not really wanting the service and angry at the service provider, perhaps even at the world itself, is difficult. In By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY such situations, ensuring the quality of the service experience who produced those different activities and projects flawlessly. is even more crucial because of the circumstances leading to For purposes of planning and the need for the services. In hospitality, sometimes people execution, most hospitality organizations divide the total must travel but don't particularly want to, like the experience they offer into convenient overtired business traveler, the reluctant wedding guest, or the units or components. For purposes of explaining the total child forced to go on the family vacation or out to a family guest experience, we shall do the dinner. Fortunately, most guests of hospitality organizations same, even though such a division is to an extent artificial. W. not only can co-produce the experience but also eagerly Neu and S. W. Brown suggest anticipate the service and have no problems with needing it or that even traditional manufacturing organizations are wanting it. They are easier to keep happy than the person increasingly interested in the service waiting for the dentist's drill, surgeon’s knife, or divorce component of the manufactured product as they have lawyer's advice, or otherwise forced into circumstances, not by recognized the value of the total product their choosing. Understanding and appreciating that guests, offering, including the services associated with it. their expectations, and their capabilities are varied motivates Product, Setting, and Delivery the guest-focused organization to design each guest - to provide each guest with a seamless three-part guest experience from each guest's point of view, to offer a experience-service product, service personalized experience insofar as possible. setting, and service delivery-each part of which will at least meet the guest’s expectations and the THE GUEST EXPERIENCE sum of which ideally will make the guest say, or at least think, A term that we have already repeatedly mentioned and will "wow! In a simple service recur many times in the following pages is guest experience. situation, the entire guest experience might be delivered by a It is the sum of the experiences that the guest has with the single person in a single moment, service provider on a given occasion or set of occasions. If but for the typical guest experience, speaking of a service you tell your friend that last night you had a "wonderful delivery system seems more evening at the dinner theater," you are referring to the evening accurate. That system consists of an inanimate technology as a whole and are thinking of it that way; the evening of part (including organization and theater was your guest experience. Providing you with information systems and process techniques) and the people the different phases and aspects that made up your wonderful part-most importantly, the frontline evening, however, took many dinner theater employees, some server who delivers, or presents the service, or co-produces it of whom you saw and some of whom you were not even with the guest. aware, By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Here is the basic equation that captures all the components of day. Add in the intangibility of service itself, and the the customer experience that must uniqueness of each guest experience cannot be questioned. That uniqueness is what provides the primary challenge to the be effectively managed by the guestologist: hospitality service provider. The old saying has it that "you Guest experience = service product + service setting + service can't please every guest," but the hospitality organization has delivery system to try, even though everybody is different. On the other hand, guests do respond to many experiences in similar if not All the moments you spent at the theater add up to the guest identical ways. These categories of responses can be experience you later describe as a "wonderful evening of sampled, studied, and modeled to produce extremely accurate theater." But you probably had many, smaller service predictive models of what guests will do and how they will experiences during the evening. If, for example, at behave. Probabilistic statistics is a major tool in the intermission you went to a designated area and received guestologist's kit for identifying how hospitality organizations beverage service, that short experience would have its own can best respond to the needs, wants, and expectations of service, setting, and a delivery system. The next time you go their targeted guest markets. Successful hospitality to a vacation resort, take a cruise, fly, or visit a theme park, organizations spend considerable time, effort, and money although you will have numerous separate service studying their guests to ensure that each part of the entire experiences, you will end up making a judgment about the guest experience adds something positive to it. They also quality and value of the overall guest experience. If you spend expend significant resources finding and fixing the inevitable three days or a week at a resort-as many people do-each mistakes as best they can. day's individual guest experiences will add up to the overall day's experience, and the one-day experiences will add up to Components of the Guest Experience the overall resort experience. Though the three elements that the hospitality organization has to work with often blend seamlessly into one Unique, Yet Similar experience-and should do so we can for the purpose of Because incidents and occurrences are never exactly the discussion break them out into the service product, setting, same for two people-whether at a theater, hotel, vacation and delivery system. Here is a fuller description of resort, restaurant, or on a cruise ship-no two guest each. experiences are exactly a like. Even if the incidents and occurrences were exactly the same, your experience of them would be unique because the wants, needs, tastes, The Service Product preferences, capabilities, and expectations you bring to the The service product, sometimes called the service package or experience are uniquely yours and may change from day to service/product mix, is why the customer, client, or guest By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY comes to the organization in the first place. The basic product can be relatively tangible, like a hotel room, or relatively The Service Delivery System intangible, like a rock concert. Most service products have The third part of the guest experience is the service delivery both tangible and intangible elements and can range from system, including the human components (like the restaurant mostly product with little service to mostly service with little if server who places the meal on the table or the sound engineer any product. at the rock concert) and the physical production processes (like the kitchen facilities in the restaurant or the rock concert's The Service Setting sophisticated amplification system) plus the organizational and The second component of the guest experience is the setting information systems and techniques that help deliver the or environment in which the experience takes place. The term service to the customer. Unlike a factory’s assembly line servicescape, the landscape within which service is system, which is generally distant from and unobservable to experienced, has been used to describe the physical aspects consumers, many parts of service delivery systems must of the setting that contribute to the guest's overall physical feel necessarily be open to consumers who can avail of the experience. Las Vegas casinos are famous for using themselves of the services directly and coproduce the their hotels' designs to make the focus of the service setting experience. Also, the output products of an assembly line on the gambling. Hotel lobbies are lavish, making the system can be touched, physically owned, and seen; the customer feel he or she is in a resort. Everything the customer services produced by the service delivery system are in needs—the rooms, bars, fancy restaurants, fast food, tangible memories of experiences that exist only in guests' shopping, shows—are all conveniently inside the casino. And minds. While all aspects of the service delivery system are to get to any service you need-for example, the front desk to important, the people interacting with customers or guests are check-in or out, or to get to any restaurant-you must always by far the ablest to make a difference in how customers feel pass through the casino. The design of the service setting about the value and quality of the experience. keeps the customer focused on where the hotel makes its money: from the casino. The servicescape is also extremely Service Encounters and Moments of Truth important to the themed "eatertainment" restaurants like The term service encounter is often used to refer to the Bahama Breeze, HardRock Cafe, and Rainforest Cafe. They person-to-person interaction or series of interactions between use the distinctive theme of the food-service setting-from the customer and the person delivering the service. Although the building exterior to decorations inside the restaurant, to both parties are usually people, the many situations or background music choice, to table interactions between organization and guest which are and menu design-as an important means of making now automated-the automatic teller machine, check-in kiosks, themselves memorable and distinguishing themselves from and online transactions being familiar examples-may also be other restaurants. considered service encounters. The heart of a service is the By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY encounter between the server and the customer. It is here truth during a single guest experience or many moments in a where emotions meet economics in real-time and where most lifetime relationship with a company, but each one needs to be customers judge the quality of service. positive. The best organizations identify when and where these moments of truth occur and ensure they are managed An encounter is the period of time during which the well. Since many involve a customer coproducing an organization and the guest interact. The length of a typical experience with an employee, these organizations make a service encounter will vary from one service provider or special commitment to ensuring that their servers know how organizational type to another. The purchase of a ticket is a to deliver on the many make-or-break moments of truth brief service encounter; the interaction between guest every day by not only delivering a flawless service but by and agent at a hotel front desk is usually somewhat longer, doing so in a way that is memorable to the guest. and the series of interactions between guest and server comprising a restaurant meal is an even longer encounter. A Another term often used in the services literature is a critical day in a theme park may involve fifty to a hundred service incident. Dwayne Gremmler, in his review of the technique encounters. for collecting data on critical customer experiences, describes its uses, advantages, and disadvantages. His extensive Service encounters or interactions, and especially certain review of the technique offers a helpful checklist of how to use critical moments within them, are obviously of crucial it and interpret its findings. importance to the guest's evaluation of service quality; they can make or break the entire guest experience. Many hospitality organizations have asked their employees to identify such moments of truth or critical incidents and record At the moment of truth, a server or other organizational them in a database. Gaylord Hotels, Hyatt, and Disney, for representative is typically present and attempting to provide example, ask their staff members to share stories about service. Some writers include interactions with inanimate critical incidents that they have observed so they can use objects as potential moments of truth. Opening the door of a these stories to help teach employees about their service hotel room might be such a moment. If the guest's first culture. impression of a room's appearance is negative, or if the organization has slipped up and forgotten to clean the room, The Nature of Services for example, a crucial moment has not been properly managed Services and manufactured products have different and a guest, possibly an excellent long-term customer, may be characteristics. Manufactured products tend lost for good. The moment-of-truth concept is very important: to be tangible; produced, shipped, and purchased now for Each guest may have only a few moments of consumption later; and lacking in much if any interaction between the manufacturer and the consumer. Services tend to By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY be intangible, purchased (if not always paid for) first, then get served at all. If capacity exceeds demand, then the simultaneously produced and consumed, and accompanied hospitality organization's human and physical resources sit by considerable provider-customer interaction.' idle. Finally, because services are intangible and therefore difficult 1. Services Are Partly or Wholly Intangible to comprehend fully before they are delivered and If the service rendered includes a tangible item (the Mickey experienced, organizations wanting guests to try their services Mouse hat, Mardi Gras beads, a good meal), then the total rather than those of competitors must find ways to make the guest experience is the sum of the service-product mix, the intangible tangible-through photographs in advertising, a environment within which it is delivered, and the service virtual tour of a hotel interior on the internet, using cloth versus product's delivery. Because all or part of the service product is plastic tablecloths at a restaurant, hanging awards on the intangible, it is impossible to assess the product's quality or hotel lobby wall, getting endorsements by famous people, and value accurately or objectively, to inventory it, or to repair it so forth. Such efforts to give tangible evidence of service (although we will talk later about correcting service failures). quality help the employees as well. After all, the service is as Since the customer decides whether or not the quality is intangible for the organization's employees as it is acceptable or value is present, the only way to measure either for guests. Tangibles help organization members form a quality or value is through subjective assessment techniques, mental image of what their service should be like and what the most basic of which is to ask the customer. their organization's quality level should be. The second implication of this intangibility characteristic is 2. Services Are Consumed at the Moment or during the that every guest experience is unique. The less tangible the Period of Production or Delivery service provided, the more likely each guest will define the Even if the guest takes home the Mickey Mouse hat, or the experience differently. The point is simple: Since every guest is plastic beads, or the full stomach, or even if the luncheon was unique, every guest experience will also be unique. prepared an hour before the customer had it, the service as a Another implication of intangibility is that hospitality whole and from the customer's perspective was consumed as organizations cannot keep an inventory of guest experiences. delivered. The customer can take home the The inability to inventory experiences has important hat, beads, and the memory of the experience but not the implications for hospitality organizations. One of the more service itself. In addition, the experience must at least equal important is the management of capacity. Because capacity is that which the same guest had in previous visits. The limited and demand for guest experiences varies over periods hospitality organization must think through the service delivery of time, capacity must be carefully managed to meet demand. process by working from the guest backward.This working If demand exceeds capacity, then guests have to wait or don't backward to meet customer desires and expectations is a By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY major difference between hospitality organizations and typical This interaction can be as short as the brief encounter bureaucratic functional organizations, which are often between the customer and the order taker at a McDonald's designed for the convenience and efficiency of organizational drive-thru, or as long as the lifetime relationship between the members. In a well-designed hospitality organization, the patient and the family physician. These interactions can be focus is on the guest experience and those who coproduce it. face to face, over the phone, on the Web, or by mail, All the traditional organizational and managerial concepts that e-mail, or texting. When the interaction is face to face, have been classically taught as the best way to manage are customers and employees must be taught how to coproduce turned upside down. Instead of concentrating on top-down the experience in some systematic way. When the experience managerial control systems to ensure consistency and happens at the moment of its consumption, then the employee predictability, hospitality organizations must organization needs to plan on how to ensure that new, concentrate on employee empowerment. untrained, inexperienced, and unknowledgeable customers get the same service experience quality and value that the They know managers cannot watch every guest-employee returning, trained, experienced, and knowledgeable ones get. interaction. The guest experience cannot be held back until the boss checks it for errors, as would be true of a new book, Since each customer is different, the organization cannot tractor, or suit. The frontline service provider who cares about expect each customer to consume the same amount of time the service, the organization, and the guest must be selected or resources in the experience. Accommodating the variability in the employment process and then trained and trusted to in customer differences is how a guestologist can make an deliver the guest experience as well as that person knows important contribution by careful research and thoughtful how. Instead of managers following the traditional model of planning to adjust the service experience provided for each reviewing employee performance after the fact, in the customer. hospitality organization they must use goal-setting skills and create service standards that help the employee know-how Many services are delivered with customers present at some and why the consistent delivery of a high-quality guest stages but not all. experience is critical to guest satisfaction and organizational success. Instead of tracing information and authority from the top down, the guest-focused organization GUEST EXPECTATIONS must trace it from the bottom up. Guests arrive with a set of expectations as to what that chosen hotel or restaurant can and should do, how it should do it, how 3. Services Usually Require Interaction between the the people providing the service should behave, how the Service Provider and the Customer, Client, or Guest physical setting should appear, what capabilities guests should have to perform their roles or responsibilities in By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY coproducing the experience, how the guest should dress and will be unhappy. act, and what the cost and value of the successfully delivered service should be. Some Customer/Guest Behavior when Expectations are NOT Met: First time guests build a mindset of expectations based on they will remember their unmet expectations as poor service advertising, familiar brand names, promotional devices, their and a bad experience previous experiences with other hospitality organizations, their tell their friends about their terrible experience own imaginations, and stories and experiences of people they angry customers can use social media to rant about their bad know who guests have already been. The organizational experience responsibility for bringing new or infrequent guests to the post their complaints on established Web sites or blogs organization usually lies with the marketing department's dedicated to providing a means for customers to convey their ability to make promises about what expectations will be met. experiences with different organizations or products (ex. TripAdvisor) People's past experiences with an organization provide the primary basis for their expectations regarding future Challenges for Hospitality Organizations: experiences. In many instances, this sets a high standard to anticipate guest expectations as accurately as possible and meet: what may create a "wow" experience for guests upon a then meet or exceed them first visit may be only "as expected" the next time. the expectations are high in fine-dining restaurants, fancy cruise ships, 5-star hotels, business class airline bookings, The organizational responsibility for getting the repeat exclusive clubs and memberships business of both new and previous customers rests on the providing comfort and convenience even during peak service provider’s ability to meet and maybe even exceed both hours/season the promises that marketing has made and prior experiences first impression last of repeat guests. too good to be true If the organization cannot meet certain types of expectations, it should not say it can; it should not promise more than it can deliver. Meeting Expectations The major responsibility for fulfilling the expectations created Do Not Provide More Hospitality Than Guests Want by the marketing department and by the past experiences of Organizations must be careful not to over-deliver to the point repeat guests lies with the operations side of the organization. of making guests feel uncomfortable or unpleasantly If what guests experience falls short of what they have been surprised. If customers enter Eat ‘n' Run, which looks and led to expect or have learned to expect, they sounds like a fast-food restaurant, and see white linen By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY tablecloths, they may feel that they are about to experience expensive, leisurely, “fine" dining and incur a bigger cost than Ten most common customer complaints by Len Berry: they expected. 1. Guest Complaint : Lying, dishonesty, unfairness. Guest Expectation : To be told the truth and treated fairly. Waiters are supposed to be attentive and polite. But consider a 2. Guest Complaint : Harsh, disrespectful treatment by dining experience during which the waiter constantly hovers employees. and speaks to the diners. If Mary Jones has taken her boss Guest Expectation : To be treated with respect. out for an important business discussion, or Bob Smith has 3. Guest Complaint : Carelessness, mistakes, broken come to the restaurant with his love interest in hopes of promises. finding a quiet moment to propose marriage, the constant Guest Expectation : To receive mistake-free, careful, reliable presence of an overly attentive waitstaff will be a major service. annoyance and too much service. 4. Guest Complaint : Employees without the desire or authority to solve problems. The excellent hospitality organization will do two things to Guest Expectation : To receive prompt solutions to problems find out. from empowered employees who care. 1. First, it will spend the time and money to train its employees 5. Guest Complaint : Waiting in line because some service to be alert to customer cues, signals, and body language so lanes or counters are closed. they can fine-tune their interaction with their customers. Guest Expectation : To wait as short a time as possible. 2. Second, it will constantly survey or ask its guests what they 6. Guest Complaint : Impersonal service. thought about the experience, to ensure that guests receive Guest Expectation : To receive the personal attention and more service value than they expect but not so much more as genuine interest from service employees. to detract from the experience. 7. Guest Complaint : Inadequate communication after problems arise. Just What Does the Guest Expect? Guest Expectation : To be kept informed about recovery efforts Most guests have the same general expectations when they after having or reporting problems or service failures. go to a hospitality organization for 8. Guest Complaint : Employees unwilling to make extra effort service. Surveys and interviews are not required to determine or who seem annoyed by requests for assistance. that most guests expect cleanliness, courtesy, Guest Expectation : To receive assistance rendered willingly responsiveness, reliability, and friendliness. Customers by helpful and trained service employees. complain when they do not get what they expect or when they 9. Guest Complaint : Employees who don't know what's have an unpleasant experience. Another way to get at what happening. customers expect is to examine their complaints. By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Guest Expectation : To receive accurate answers from service The first equation that follows describes these relationships for employees knowledgeable about both service products and the quality of the guest experience, Qe. It is equal to the organizational procedures. quality of the experience as delivered, Qed, minus the quality 10. Guest Complaint : Employees who put their own interests expected, Qee. If the delivered and expected quality are about first, conduct personal business, or chat with each other while the same, quality is not zero as it would be if these were true the customers wait. mathematical equations but average or normal. If quality is Guest Expectation : To have customers' interests come first. average or above average, the guest can be described as Being aware of these common guest concerns and satisfied. If quality is below average, the guest is dissatisfied. expectations should be part of any hospitality organization's knowledge base and training program. Qe = Qed − Qee QUALITY, VALUE, AND COST DEFINED As reflected on the right side of the equation, quality as In the hospitality industry, the terms quality, value, and cost perceived by the guest will be affected by changes in either have specialized meanings to fit the guest-focused orientation guest expectations or organizational performance. If Qe is high of the benchmark firms. enough, the guest had an exceptional, memorable, or wow service experience. The quality of any aspect of the service Quality experience could be described in the same way. Two "equations" can help make clear what quality, value, and cost mean to the guestologist and why we say that quality and Quality is independent of cost or value. Quality can be high value are determined not in any absolute sense, as they might and cost also high; quality can be high and cost low, and so be in other situations, but entirely by the guest. forth. The quality of the entire guest experience or of any part of it is Value defined as the difference between the quality that the guest The value of the guest experience (Ve) is equal to the quality expects and the quality that the guest gets. If the two are the of the experience (Qe) as “calculated” using the first equation same, then quality in this special sense is average or as divided by all the costs incurred by the guest to obtain the expected; you got what you expected and you are satisfied. If experience: you got more than you expected, quality was positive; if you Ve = Qe All costs incurred by guest got less than you expected, quality was negative. If the quality and cost of the experience are about the same, the value of the experience to the guest would be normal or as expected; the guest would be satisfied by this fair value but not wowed. Low quality and low cost, and high quality and By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY high cost, satisfy the guest about the same, because they Cost of Quality match the guest’s expectations. Organizations add value to An important concept in service organizations is the cost of their guests’ experiences by providing additional features and quality. Cost of quality is often used as a reminder not of how amenities without increasing the cost to guests. much it costs the organization to provide service quality at a high level but of how little it costs compared to the cost of not Cost providing quality. If the organization thinks about the costs of One source of cost difference to a guest having lunch today at fixing errors, compensating guests for failures, lost customers, your restaurant rather than someone else’s is, of course, the low employee morale, and negative word of mouth that can price of the meal. In addition, experienced restaurant and result from poor service, the cost of quality is low indeed and other hospitality managers appreciate that the guest has also the cost of not providing quality enormous. incurred other, less quantifiable costs, including the so-called opportunity costs of missing out on alternative meals at Who Defines Quality and Value? competing restaurants and foregoing experiences or Because service is intangible and guest expectations are opportunities other than eating at a restaurant meal. The variable, no objective determination of quality level (and cost of the guest’s time and the cost of any risks associated therefore of value) can be made. In some areas of business, a with entering into this service transaction must also enter the quality inspector might be able to define and determine the equation. The guest’s time may not be worth an exact dollar quality of a product before a customer ever sees it. In the figure per minute or hour, but it is certainly worth something to hospitality field, only the guest can define quality and value. the guest, so time expenditures (time spent getting to your restaurant, waiting for a table, waiting for service) are also No matter how brilliantly the organization designs the service, costly. the environment, and the delivery system or develops measurable service standards, if the guest is dissatisfied with Finally, the customer at your restaurant runs some risks, slim any of these elements, the organization has failed to meet the but real and potentially costly, like the risk that your restaurant guest’s expectations; it has not provided a guest experience of cannot meet expectations or the risk that your service staff will acceptable quality and value. Of course, the hospitality embarrass that customer in front of the customer’s own special organization may help the guest to perceive quality and value guest today, as in our previous example, her boss. by offering a guarantee or a pledge of satisfaction that can be All these tangible and intangible, financial and nonfinancial exercised by the guest when the guest feels that the costs comprise the “all costs incurred by guest” denominator experience did not meet expectations. Starbucks, for example, of the second equation. They make up the total burden on the promises its customers good value by claiming in its guest who chooses a given guest experience. advertising, “More for your money. A value to stay By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY with.” Starbucks adds tangibility to this promise by offering a 3. Ask, ask, ask your guests. guarantee in its Pledge of Perfection: “Your drink should be 4. Provide memorable experiences that exceed guest perfect every time. If not, let us know and we’ll make it right.” expectations, when possible, but know when enough is enough; deliver more than the guest expects, but not more The customer decides. than the guest wants. To meet or exceed the expectations of all types of guests with 5. Manage all three parts of the guest experience: the service their different needs, wants, experiences, capabilities, and product, the service environment, and the service delivery moods is the fundamental and most exciting challenge of a system (both the processes and the people). hospitality organization. If the hospitality manager does not 6. The less tangible the guest experience, the more important believe that the guest is always right (at least in the guest’s are the frontline people delivering the service to the guest’s mind), then the manager had better find a new career. Even perception of quality and value. when guests are wrong by any reasonable standard, the 7. You may under-promise, but always try to over-deliver. hospitality manager must find ways to let them be 8. The cost of providing quality is low compared to the wrong with dignity so that their self-esteem and satisfaction potential cost of not providing quality. with the guest experience and the organization are not 9. Service product + service environment + service delivery negatively affected. system = guest experience 10. Experiences that evoke a guest’s emotions are more Importance of Guestology memorable While guestology is obviously most helpful in organizing knowledge about the management of hospitality MEETING GUEST EXPECTATIONS THROUGH PLANNING businesses—like hotels and restaurants, which have traditionally spoken of their clientele as guests—it can be The Hospitality Planning Cycle used to study and understand any organization in which Focus: find a way to give guests what they want, when people are served in some way they want it, even if they do not know yet exactly what they want How? ✓ The organization gathers as much information as it can on Notes to Remember: what its present customers want, need, and do 1. Treat each customer like a guest, and always start with the ✓ Tries to imagine what kind of experiences their future guest. guests will find satisfying and then plan ways to deliver them 2. Your guest defines the value and the quality of your service, so you had better know what your guest wants. By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY The way to reach these outcomes is through the STRATEGIC These premises are the beliefs of managers assessing all PLANNING PROCESS long-term aspects of the external environment and trying to use them to discover what forces will impact the The process has TWO basic steps: business in the future and especially what customers will 1. ASSESSMENT (external and internal) want in that future environment 2. Figuring out what to do on the basis of that assessment The Necessity for Planning Those who fail to plan, plan to fail Every hospitality organization needs a road map to unite and focus the efforts of the organization’s members and get them prepared for the future that the organizational planners predict Only by creating and implementing plans can we communicate to those both inside and outside the organization where we want to go, what criteria we should use to allocate scarce resources, and which alternatives we should pursue or avoid The planning process should never stop because the world in which any organization operates never stops changing External Assessment Assessment of environmental opportunities and threats leading to the generation of strategic premises about the future environment By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY The organization determines what it does well, what it does not do well, and how its strengths and weaknesses pair with what it wants to accomplish Core Competencies The bundle of skills and technologies that give the organization an important difference in providing customer benefits and perceived value Example: The core competence of Marriott is the ability to manage excellent lodging facilities Many organizations seek to outsource activities or functions that they believe are not their core competence to another organization that has a core competence in those activities and functions (forming strategic alliances) Strategic Premises Internal Assets Are assumptions drawn by hospitality organizations after Reputation making conclusions about the future of its industry and market Pool of human capital from its environmental assessment Managerial capabilities From the strategic premises (educated guesses), the service Material resources strategy is based Competitive advantages based on technology Not to guess at all means reacting day to day to whatever Brand name seems to be going on, without a plan or a focus for Customer loyalty organizational activities VISION STATEMENT Internal Assessment articulates what the organization hopes to look like and be Assessment of organizational strengths and weaknesses like in the future leading to a redefinition or reaffirmation of organizational core it creates a picture toward which the organization aspires– competencies it provides inspiration to the journey ahead A searching look within defines the organization’s core it is used to unite and inspire employees to achieve the competencies and considers the organization’s strong and common ideal and to define for external stakeholders weak points in terms of its ability to compete in the future what the organization is all about By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY MISSION STATEMENT service strategy Articulates the organization’s purpose, the reason for This strategy is critical to any service organization’s which it was founded and for which it continues to exist success because it provides guidance in how to make It defines the path to the vision , given the strategic every organizational decision , from capital budgeting to premises and core competencies handling customer complaint It is a guide to defining the how, what, who, and where for The organization must now define its market’s key the organization’s overall service strategy that in turn drivers, craft its service product to meet the market’s drives the design of the service product, service needs, create the appropriate service environment, and environment, and service delivery system design the service systems to reach the target market It should guide the managers as they allocate resources, Asking customers what they want– the best way to know focuses organizational marketing efforts, and defines for what your customers want and expect( to help determine all employees how they should deal with guests and the key drivers of customer satisfaction) customers It include three elements: Service Expert Len Berry suggests that an excellent ✓ what is the product or service you are providing to the service strategy has 4 characteristics: customer? 1. Excellent strategy emphasizes quality ✓ who is the targeted customer? 2. Excellent strategy emphasizes value ✓ where is the service or product going to be provided to the 3. Excellent strategy focuses the entire organizational targeted customers? Place, niche or market segment? effort on service The organization’s mission statement often includes it 4. Excellent strategy should foster among employees a CORE VALUES sense of genuine achievement CORE VALUES- those that the organization hold which form the foundation on which they perform work and ACTION PLANS conduct themselves Action plans can be developed because the organization now Values underlie the work, how the employees interact with has a clear idea of who it wants to serve, what it wants to each other and which strategies to employ to fulfill the serve, where the market for that service is, where the mission company wants to go, and how it intends to get there Action plans represent the leadership’s decisions on how SERVICE STRATEGY to best implement the service strategy in specific terms that Once the external and internal assessment factors have will motivate and guide the organization’s members been examined in light of the corporate vision and toward mission, the hospitality organization is ready to define its By: Melody Mitch  QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY accomplishing the overall service strategy and customer at the most advantageous price to maximize both organizational mission capacity use and revenue These plans lay out the specific of how the organization will operate, what everyone will do in the next time period All action plans need to be considered as a whole and individually. Example: no marketing plan should be set without also taking into account the financial budgeting plan KEY ACTION-PLAN AREAS ✓ Indicates the 5 key areas in which action plans should be established: management, staffing capacity utilization, finance and marketing ✓ Each area has an appropriate means for measuring the degree for which those plans were achieved (performance measures) ✓ The measures ensures that the right actions are taken, the right goals are achieved, and the employees can see how well they are doing as they work towards achieving the goals of the action plans ACTION PLANS- CAPACITY MANAGEMENT CONCEPT The Design Day- an important concept in capacity planning; whenever a new restaurant, hotel, theme park is created, management must determine how big to build it; it finds the best balance between investing in and carrying the costs of excess capacity and ensuring the quality and value of each guest’s experience Yield Management- managing the sale of units of capacity to maximize the profitability of that capacity; also called revenue management; selling the right capacity to the right By: Melody Mitch