Service Excellence and Leadership: Study Guide For Module No. 11
Service Excellence and Leadership: Study Guide For Module No. 11
Service Excellence and Leadership: Study Guide For Module No. 11
0 10-July-2020
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
MODULE OVERVIEW
Service excellence is about delivering to the customer expectation, and then meeting and
slightly exceeding that expectation. Notice I said “slightly exceeding” and I say that because if you go
above and beyond, you begin to create a customer expectation you can’t achieve without negatively
impacting other priorities.
Service excellence and customer expectations vary by brand and by hotel type – select service
vs. full service, commercial vs. resort, luxury vs. economy, country and culture and so on. As the
operator, it is your responsibility to understand the brand promise in regard to service and the related
customer expectation. You need to find the right balance between meeting and exceeding the
customer expectation while also being true to the integrity of the brand. This includes creating a
positive work environment for your team as well as meeting and exceeding profit objectives.
LEARNING CONTENTS
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
1. A concentration, by a service company, on productivity means that the company will look towards
an effective use of resources and towards producing more for less.
2. A concentration, by the company, on service quality means that it will look towards satisfying
customers and, through customer retention and loyalty, increasing revenue.
3. A concentration on profitability means that the company will address the combined effect of cost
reduction and revenue generation. This should involve an active interest in both productivity and
quality.
In a general sense, measuring service quality depends entirely on the context and brand promise,
and service quality dimensions vary according to the industry. However, the industry standard and
most widely-used metric is SERVQUAL.
SERVQUAL
SERVQUAL is based on a set of five dimensions which have been consistently ranked by customers
to be most important for service quality, regardless of service industry. These dimensions defined by
the SERVQUAL measurement instrument are as follows:
• Tangibles: appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication
materials.
• Reliability: ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
• Responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
• Assurance: knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and
confidence.
• Empathy: the caring, individualized attention the firm provides its customers.
These five SERVQUAL dimensions are used to measure the gap between customers’ expectations
for excellence and their perception of the actual service delivered. The SERVQUAL instrument, when
applied over time, can help you understand both customer expectations, perceptions of specific
services, and areas of needed quality improvements.
SERVQUAL has been used in many ways, such as identifying specific service elements that need
improvement, and targeting training opportunities for service staff.
Proper development of items used in the SERVQUAL instrument provides rich item-level information
that leads to practical implications for a service manager.
The service quality dimensions evaluated by SERVQUAL should be adjusted for optimal performance
in different industries, including public and private sector applications.
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
SERVQUAL scores are highly reliable, but when used in different industries may fail to produce a
clear delineation of the five basic dimensions. Other measures, such as the Six Sigma model should
be considered for applicability in quantifying the gap between service expectations and perceptions.
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
2. Improve Hotel’s Products & Services: Customer feedback is an insight into the overall
working of your hotel’s products and services. It helps make the experience of clients better.
Customer insights are valuable to enhance a hotel’s performance. Their opinions help to
ensure that the hotel will meet the expectations of its clients.
3. Improve the Hotel’s Staff Behavior and Hospitality: Behavior of the staff and employees
of the hotel are an important aspect of the hotel industry. It affects the overall experience in
the hotel on a guest. Mistreated customers do not wish to return to a hotel and it harms the
reputation of a brand. A good connection with people helps restore customers and build
eminence.
5. Get More Referrals and Build Reputation: Gathering surveys through reliable customer
feedback app not only helps to retain customers but also brings new business. Happy
guests refer the hotel to new customers and build a positive brand reputation. They share
the experience with others and ultimately increase the hotel’s profits. Hotels should take an
initiative to create a customer feedback friendly environment to gauge the satisfaction level
of their guests.
6. Shows You Value the Customer’s Opinions: By expressing that you value your guest’s
opinion, you involve them in shaping your business making them feel attached to the
hotel. Listening to their suggestions and complaints helps to create stronger relations with
them. Word of mouth spreads quickly and giving personal attention to every guest helps gain
loyal customers. It shows you value their opinion. It gives the impression that the hotel’s
services are for the people.
7. Help Make Data-Driven Decisions: Successful hotel owners gather and manage distinct
kinds of data through hotel guest feedback software. This aids to develop future
strategies. This way the hotel owners are able to better align the customer needs with the
services of their hotels. Customer feedback is one of the most reliable sources for tangible
data. This can be used to direct their improvements and innovations on the right path.
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
1.4 Tools Used to Analyze Service Quality Problems
Improving quality for customers leads to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty and repeat
purchases. Tools commonly used in quality management initiatives enable you to perform root-cause
analysis and computational statistics, analyze processes, evaluate options and monitor customer
feedback. By using these tools, you can find out why quality suffers and take steps to improve
processes, reduce waste and increase customer satisfaction
Cause Analysis
Cause analysis tools help you figure out what went wrong. For example, by drawing a fish bone
diagram, you identify as many possible causes to customer quality issues as you can. Then, you sort
these into categories. This helps you figure out why problems occur. When you have multiple
problems, focus on the most significant by analyzing the frequency of problems using a Pareto bar
graph chart. This type of chart visually depicts which problems occur most frequently. Focus on these
to improve quality.
Process Analysis
To improve customer quality, you must understand your company’s workflow and processes. To
create a picture of the separate steps in sequence, use free online tools for creating flowcharts. This
allows you to identify the inputs and outputs and other details. It helps you isolate problems and
identify potential adjustments. Then, you can measure changes. If improvements occur, make these
changes throughout your company. You can also create a decision matrix to prioritize options. By
comparing options to established criteria, you can evaluate the options and make the best choice.
For example, if product errors cause customer dissatisfaction, identify all the possible mitigation
alternatives, such as product repair, replacement or refund, and then choose the best alternative
based on lowest cost and time to implement.
Brainstorming
By conducting brainstorming activities, you can solicit ideas from a group and generate ideas on ways
to solve customer quality issues. Using free concept-mapping tools, you can sort ideas into
categories. This helps you organize your thinking. For example, run a focus group with a small group
of customers to get their feedback about a quality issue. Create a visual map of the problems and
solutions. Then, you can use this information to work with product engineering teams to devise a
solution and improve quality for customers.
Customer Feedback
Collecting customer feedback using online surveys allows you to quantify and qualify customer
satisfaction. Create an online survey and distribute it to online customers after they purchase
products, interact with your customer support team or view information on your website. Get feedback
on product usage, problems and requirements. Using this information, you can identify customers
who have the highest potential for responding to campaigns. Focus your effort on these customers.
Rather than wasting time on users who won’t generate revenue for your company, reward customer
loyalty with preferred treatment. Improving the quality of the customer you deal with translates into
more referrals, higher profits and long-term success.
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
terms of revenue, covers served, number of rooms cleaned, the number of check-ins/check-outs, etc
….
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
strategy for generating additional revenue. On average it costs eight times the amount of money to
acquire a new customer as it does to retain a current customer.
The simplest (and most cost effective) way to get new customers is to offer incentives to your current
customers and motivate them to initiate referrals for you. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of
advertising.
3. Increase your Conversion Rate
Generating new leads is an important part of business growth. But do you know what percentage of
these leads eventually convert to a sale? Increasing sales conversion in your business is one of the
fastest and lowest cost methods to boost your business profits.
4. Review Current Pricing Structure
Raising prices can be a terrifying prospect; however a small increase in your prices can make a
significant impact on your gross profit.
Therefore, correct costing of your products and services is very important. You should review the
costing of your products regularly and adjust your prices accordingly.
5. Reduce your inventory
Stock control is a good way to streamline your business and improve cash flow.
With less money tied up in slow-moving inventory and fewer losses due to expired or discontinued
inventory. Ordering more frequently allows you to compare prices and take advantage of seasonal
clearance or overstock discounts.
6. Reduce your overall direct costs
Reducing your overall direct costs will have a significant impact on your gross margin.
One way to reduce your direct costs is to negotiate better prices or discounts for everything you
buy. Provided the quality is comparable finding the best prices may require finding a new supplier.
Another way to reduce your direct costs is to eliminate unnecessary purchases. A thorough review
of your direct costs should highlight any areas where overspending has occurred.
7. Reduce your overheads
For many businesses, overhead expenses have a way of creeping up over time. Regular review of
your overhead expenses is a simple and effective way of improving your net profit. Benchmarking
your business to similar businesses in your industry may highlight areas for improvement.
Improved productivity must, therefore, take into account effectiveness as well as efficiency.
Productivity improvements in the service sector are possible and a number of ways of improving
service productivity are suggested.
1. Improving Staff:
One way is through improving the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour of existing and
new staff involved in service delivery and performance through better systems of recruitment, training,
development and motivation.
Thus staff in contact with customers handling the visible elements of the service can be trained in
handling queries and complaints, in product knowledge, in the operations of internal systems.
Productivity bargaining schemes with considered measures of output and formulae for sharing gains
can be operated to provide incentives for improved productivity. In other words staff can be
encouraged to work harder and more skillfully.
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
features of the systems approach. For example productivity improvements in grocery retailing have
been made possible by a systems approach to physical handling of goods, layout, job design and
merchandising.
The systems approach to service can be applied in three ways: through hard technology, soft
technology and hybrid technology.
(a) Hard technology means substituting machinery and tools for people (e.g. automatic car washes,
airport x-ray surveillance equipment, automatic car parking, automatic vending equipment, audio
visual equipment, and computers.)
(b) Soft technology means substituting pre-planned systems for individual service operations. The
systems may involve some technology, but their basic characteristic is the system itself which is
designed for optimal results (e.g. fast food outlets, pre-packaged tours).
(c) Hybrid technology is where equipment is combined with planned systems to give greater order,
speed and efficiency to the service process (e.g. limited service, fast repair facilities for car exhausts,
tyres and brakes).
The approach to service activities can have important effects upon productivity. The systems
approach, like the marketing approach, is as much about attitude and outlook as it is about tools,
techniques and hardware or engineering. But the combination of division of labour with industrial-
ization of service can produce new solutions to old problems.
The effects of this kind of thinking when applied to services are reflected in features like:
(a) Greater standardization of performance and the mass production and greater impersonalization
of services (e.g. telecommunications, group travel schemes);
(b) The appraisal of jobs. Attention is focused on how improvements can be made in the ways of
doing the present job, what new methods can be employed to do jobs differently, and how the jobs
and tasks themselves can be changed.
(c) Reconsideration of the scale of operations. Economies of operation through chain operation or
franchising may be sought;
(d) Specialization of effort of markets to make labour more productive.
3. Reducing Service Levels:
Productivity can also be improved by reducing the quantity of service and/or the quality of service
(e.g. doctors could give less time to each patient). There are dangers in these approaches particularly
where a service organization has promised to deliver a higher level of service in the past. Also
competitors can differentiate their services by broadening and upgrading their service quantity and
quality.
4. Substituting Products for Services:
Productivity can be improved by providing a product substitute for the service (e.g. new data transfer
technology has removed the need for the telegram service).
5. Introducing New Services:
It is possible to design a more effective service that eliminates or reduces the need for the less
effective service. For example, transatlantic travel by air has largely replaced transatlantic travel by
sea; the credit card has replaced the former system for obtaining overdrafts.
6. Customer interaction:
It is possible to change the way in which customers interact with service providers. This is particularly
possible with ‘high contact’ services. Using the consumer more in the production process demands
greater understanding of consumer behaviour and its underlying causes. Ways have to be found to
hardness consumers or to change the behaviour through education and persuasion for the benefit of
service delivery.:
Consumers are involved in service delivery anyway, whether actively or passively. To improve the
useful, active role of the customer in service delivery may mean new managerial approaches,
changed organizations or organizational structures, the employment of para professionals and
perhaps a changed role for the professional service manager.
He may become more of a catalyst, stimulator, orchestrator or manager directing energies toward the
maximum involvement of the consumer, student, client, parent or whatever. In other words more
consumer- intensive designs have to be developed to maximize the contribution of the customer to
service performance and delivery.
7. Reduce the Mismatch between Supply and Demand:
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
A significant feature of many service organizations is the mismatch that often exists between supply
of the service and demand for it. A major goal in marketing services is to get greater control over
supply and demand and to obtain a better balance between the two. If more people want to use an
airplane than there are seats available then business may be lost to competitors; unsold seats for a
theatrical performance mean revenue lost forever.
Service marketer may therefore face problems of:
Increasing demand (e.g. using up spare capacity);
Decreasing demand (e.g. where demand is excessive);
The relationship between productivity and customer satisfaction is complex. Service Quality and
Productivity Management describes that the quality and productivity are twin paths in creating value
for both customers and organizations. This book describes how to improve service quality and
productivity, and discusses how to use key tools (including customer feedback systems) to achieve
this. This book is the 12th volume in the Winning in Service Markets Series by services marketing
expert Jochen Wirtz. Scientifically grounded, accessible and practical, the Winning in Service Markets
Series bridges the gap between cutting-edge academic research and industry practitioners, and
features best practices and latest trends on services marketing and management from around the
world.
Service quality in the hospitality industry becomes one of the most important factors for gaining a
sustainable competitive advantage and customers’ confidence in the highly competitive marketplace,
and therefore service quality can give the hospitality industry a great chance to create competitive
differentiation for organizations. It is thus considered as a significant core concept and a critical
success factor in the hospitality industry. A successful hotel delivers excellent quality service to
customers, and service quality is considered the life of the hotel.
Service quality consists of three dimensions: physical facilities, staff, and materials. It also divided
into two aspects: functional quality and technical quality. A similar approach argued that service
quality includes three dimensions: functional quality, environment, and technical quality. Another
approach confirmed that service quality has five dimensions namely: assurance, reliability, empathy,
tangibility and responsiveness.
Customer satisfaction is the internal feelings of every individual which may be satisfaction or
dissatisfaction resulting from the assessment of services provided to an individual in context to
customer’s anticipation by an organization Hotels are continuously trying to improve the service just
to satisfy their customer because higher customer satisfaction will leads towards customer loyalty.
The most important concept of customer satisfaction is accepted all around the world is the
expectancy disconfirmation theory. This theory was presented by Oliver, he said that satisfaction
stage is the resultant of the distinction between anticipated and supposed performance. Satisfaction
will be encouraging when the actual level of services or products is better than the
anticipated (positive disconfirmation), whereas (negative disconfirmation) when the product or
services level is lower than expected.
A 'business success plan' for the hospitality industry requires a new set of disciplines because
knowledge acquisition of the changing technologies alone represents a challenge in and of itself;
A 'business success plan' for the hospitality industry requires a new set of disciplines because
knowledge acquisition of the changing technologies alone represents a challenge in and of itself;
Another item on the list is the "Just Do It" mentality. Nike's ad campaign has served us well. Often,
talk is cheap and actions do not take place in the market. Leaders act and get it right the first time by
taking action the moment it is required. They also inspire others to do the same. Do sales managers
return calls within an hour or two at the most? Are requests for proposals mailed out the same day
they are made? At the front desk, can desk clerks resolve guest concerns and make refunds without
STUDY GUIDE in QUALITY SERVICES MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY Module No.11
the manager? Do restaurant employees know how to promptly handle a food complaint?
LEARNING ACTIVITY
Experiential Exercises
Visit a known convenience store chain or a well-known supermarket chain. Observe the structure and
design of the store and its employees and customers. Based on what you learned in this chapter,
what kind of firm does the subject qualifies at? Explain your answer. Prepare a chart highlighting the
basis of your evaluation.
SUMMARY
Today’s business environment of cutthroat competition has led to a more evolved customer
profile. So much so that satisfying customers does not guarantee their loyalty.
A provider and its people must deliver unique and unforgettable service to retain the customers they
acquire. Skilled front-liners are expected to go the extra mile and make each point of contact stand
out from the competition.
To reach that extra mile, your front-liners need an effective manager or supervisor who creates
an environment that fuels the right attitude, unleashes positive energy, and maintains service
standards at the highest level.
REFERENCES
Ford, Robert C., Total Quality Management For Hospitality and Tourism, 2015
Fevzi Okumus, Strategic Management for Hospitality and Tourism,2020
Managing Human Resources Local and Global Perspective: (Outcomes-base Learning), 2015
Girish, Revathy, Tourism Management, 2015
Evans, James R.Total Quality Management,2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_quality
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-marketing/chapter/service-quality/