Service Marketing & Relationship Marketing: A Case Study of Accor Hotel

This article discusses the service blueprint, front stage and back stage flow chart, significance of service encounter and managerial implications of Accor Hotel. It is a case study on service marketing and relationship marketing.

Service Marketing & Relationship
Marketing
Accor Hotel

Table of Content
Brief Introduction.......................................................................................................................2
Flow Chart-Service Blueprint....................................................................................................2
Front Stage Flow Chart..............................................................................................................3
Back Stage Flow Chart...............................................................................................................4
Significance of Service Encounter.............................................................................................4
Managerial Implication..............................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

Brief Introduction
Accor group of Hotel is one of the pioneers of the hotel industry which has over 4500 hotel
under its wings and employees over 250,000 people. The group functions under different
brands such as Banyan Tree, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure and many others which significantly
boast its standing in the hospitality sector (Li, Fang & Huan, 2017). Accor group is
considered to be a remarkable brand which has been pushing the envelope of service offering
to its esteemed clientele by its innovative and creative practices. Services in hospitality sector
plays a pivotal role, thus brand engage them to create a service blueprint and function
according to the blueprint created (Ren, 2018).
Service marketing emerged out of nowhere in the 1980s, when a lot of companies were
creating more or less undifferentiated product, thus, service marketing rose to the occasion to
help the brand differentiate them. Service marketing is an entirely new concept, quite
dissimilar to product marketing. The reason for the same is due to element of intangibility,
inseparability, heterogeneity and perishability. Service encounter on the other hand can be
understood as the transactional interaction a customer has with the service employees or the
representatives. The reflective essay here will focus on the Accor group of Hotels and create
a flow chart of its back-stage and front end operations. The essay will further provide an
analysis of these operations and the significance of service encounter. Towards the end, the
essay will also discuss some of the implication for the manager working in the service
industry(Lovelock & Patterson, 2015).
Flow Chart-Service Blueprint
A Flow Chart or a Service Blueprint can be understood as a technique which was initially
created and designed for service innovation and design, later this flow chart also found great
utility in improving the operational efficiency of the hotel. These can also be seen as pictures
of maps which describe how the service process in the hotel or the service organization is
built up. Flow Chart gives a clear idea of delivery of services which can be further used for
evaluation of services with the objective of improving the operational efficiency
(Gummesson, 2014).

(Source: Yang, 2015)
The Figure above shows a Service Blueprint of Customer Check in Process at the hotel,
illustrating both the Back stage and Front Stage operations process.
Front Stage Flow Chart
The Front stage is the area where the customer for the first time interacts with the Hotel
(Assuming the customer just checked-in at the hotel). Thus, Accor group of hotel ensures a
warm and accommodating welcome, giving pleasantries to the customers and keeping staffs
which are filled with warmth, empathy and readiness to help the customers at the front stage.
At Accor group the front stage operations are mostly linked to making reservations, providing
check-in information, preparation of waiting zone and handling other customer complaints
and queries related to the hotel and their stay. Thus, the front stage of Accor group of Hotel is
the first stage of service encounter for the customers. For instance as it can be seen from the
blue print that the hotel has mapped each and every possible customer action with a service
touch point at its front stage(Durna, Dedeoglu & Balikcioglu, 2015).

For instance, Action such as the Arriving at the hotel, giving bag to the bell person, Check in,
going to the room, call room and service, sleep and shower and check out and leave are able
mapped by the hotel in the form of Greeting and taking bags, Registration process, Delivering
the bag into the room, delivering the food and check out. If we see clearly, all the operation at
front stage requires the extensive support of the back stage team; else the entire process
comes to a stand -still. For instance, it is the duty of the backstage team to provide food to the
guests, clean the room, and deliver the bag and other such things. Along with the support of
the backstage team, physical evidence such as Food Menu, Bill Desk, and Concierge etc. also
plays an important role. It is due to this effective handling and management of the front stage
operation, Accor group is able to establish its leadership position in the service
industry(Bowie et. al., 2016).
Back Stage Flow Chart
One of the strongest pillars of service organization is the presence of a strong back stage
support team and a process which can ably meet the expectation of the front stage and ably
cooperate in delivery excellent services to the customers. Backstage is called the backbone,
as it is the team which supports all the internal operation and procedures in the organization
and provides customer with high customer satisfaction. The backstage team at Accor group
comes handy in doing plethora of tasks such as; cleaning, housekeeping, document
fulfilment, food delivery, bag delivery and many others. Backstage team of Accor group also
ensures that the group is able to comply and meet with all the international standards set
across by the Hotel industry. Accor group of hotel keeps it’s backstage flexible to
accommodate new changes or innovative practices to further up the service delivery to the
esteemed customers(Jani & Han, 2014).
Significance of Service Encounter
As explained earlier, service encounter is the transactional interaction the customer has with
the representative of the organization, or the people who are involved in delivery of services
to the customers. Service encounter can also be understood as the first point of customer
interaction with the representative of the organization. Thus, the objective here is to ensure
that the outcome of the service encounter is positive and satisfactory; else it leads to customer
dissatisfaction. Accor group of Hotel gives special emphasis to its service encounters and

keeps reviewing the same to better the interaction of the customer with the representative of
the organization. Accor group is primarily involved in managing service encounter at three
stages, primarily Remote encounter, and Phone encounter and Face to face encounter. In this
section I will talk my service encounter with one of the prime properties of Novatel Hotel.
Remote encounter occurs without getting in direct contact with any human representative of
the organization. The customer here interacts with the web services or any other allied
services of the hotel. My first remote encounter was whilst I was looking for a hotel in
Australia to book for my family. I visited the website of Accor group in search for a hotel in
Melbourne. I was really amazed to see how well the group has segregated its different brands
into the group website. For me it was definitely a very warm gesture from the hotel, without
even having a human contact. The website was neatly designed; it has all the element of the
information as required by a customer. In such kinds of remote encounters, the tangible
evidence of the service and the quality of the technical process and systems become the
primary basis for judging quality. Thus, based on all these factors, my remote service
encounter was satisfactory with Accor group of hotels. It is important to deliver a pleasant or
a satisfactory service encounter to ensure that the client stays with the organization(Luo &
Qu, 2016).
The second encounter which I faced with Accor group was Phone encounter. The phone
encounter in Accor group is in the form of customer-service, general enquiry or for the
purpose of taking orders from the customers. This type of encounter is predominantly
different from remote encounter because it is the first time a human interacts with the
customer. Thus, it is important to assign a person who has all the skills it takes in delivery of
excellent customer service. Tone of service, knowledge of the employee, assurance the
employee provides and the efficiency in handling the customer calls are some of the
important criteria in judging quality of this kind of service encounter. In my opinion my
Phone encounter with Accor group was delightful, as my concern was solved in an estimated
time of 2 minutes, which was pretty delighted(Dhar, 2015).
Face to Face encounter is the one which is the most significant one and also calls for
maximum attention by the service organization. Face to face encounter is the kind of
encounter which occurs between the main customers and the representative of the service
organization. Unlike Phone encounter this type of service encounter happens face to face, and
the customer can directly convey his feeling of good or bad directly to the service executive.

Staff at Accor group is extremely customer centric, well-mannered and behaved and also
have high values of empathy in their behaviour. Accor group conducts long training hours for
all its employees and explains them the rationale of good customer service. Moreover, it is
extremely important to know the customer pain points and happy points, which is more
effective while doing a face to face encounter with the service organization(Snyder et. al.,
2016).
Thus, all the above points describe in depth, my service encounter with Accor group and
what were the points of their service delivery which made my service experience with the
group, unforgettable.
Managerial Implication
Service encounter holds great significance for the Hotel or the management because it helps
the service organization to identify the lacunae in their current business practices and
processes. For instance, if the customer rates the Phone encounter very poorly, the
implication for the manager here is to improve the customer support system(Jauhari &
Bharwani, 2017). This can be done by providing better training to the employees, keeping the
staffs which have experience in customer support through chat and call and many other
things. Thus, one big implication for managers is to make changes in the existing system or
the structure with the intention of improving service delivery to the customers(Vargo &
Lusch, 2016).
Another major implication for manager here is to collect the feedback from the customers and
realize what the pain points of the customers are. The feedback can be collected either via
survey, questionnaire or face to face interview, which has to be then analysed in criticality to
improve the service design or the flow chart of the front stage or back stage operations of the
hotel. The managers have to assess the feedback, rate it and classify it into clear cut operation
process, and convey the feedback to the employees. The managers are also required to create
an action plan to clearly lay out the steps which would help in improving the customer
satisfaction with the service organization(Akaka & Vargo, 2015).
Another important managerial implication of the service encounter is establishing effective
communication channels with the customers. Effective communication is an important aspect
of service delivery and service encounter, it is the duty and the responsibility of the

employees to effectively communicate with the customers and help them with their concern
or query. The manager here plays the role of a facilitator who closely observes the way or
monitors the employees remotely on how they are communicating with the customers. On the
basis of which the manager is able to identify the lacunae in the current service practices and
suggest recommendation and improvement for improving the process of service encounter
and make it highly satisfactory for the customers. It can thus be said that the managerial
implication in context of service encounter is primarily related to improving the existing
service landscape, and identifying lacunae or gaps in the current service design and provide
customers with exceptional customer service(Oliver, 2014).
Conclusion
The importance and need for a separate branch of study, Services, came up in the early
1980s. It was the need of the hour as businesses were mostly creating homogenous products
and services were the only way to bring differentiation into products and services. The
assignment here discuses about the Front stage and Back Stage flow chart of Accor group of
hotel, this flow chart or service Blueprint helps the hotel to function in a systematic manner,
and delight the customers in every single service encounter. Service encounter is basically
when the customer interacts with the hotel, or its representative either through Phone, Web or
Face to Face. The service encounter is significant because it helps the management
understand the lacunae in the current serving practices which can be further improved by
assessing the feedback or the service encounter of the customer with the hotel. It is most
important to give focus to services because unlike products services are heterogeneous,
intangible, perishable and inseparable which makes it difficult for a customer to assess the
services in the way customer does with products. Accor Hotel is one of the premiers in
providing excellent service to its customers.

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