Improving Customer Service in Park Grand London: Analysis and Recommendations

This study analyzes the service quality and gaps in Park Grand London and provides recommendations for improving customer service. It includes dimensions of service quality, understanding the four acid tests of service recovery, and a survey report with recommendations.

Customer service 5

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of service quality thorough the tools by focusing on dimensions and gaps.................3
Understanding of the four acid tests of service recovery within Park Grand London................4
LO4..................................................................................................................................................6
Survey Report..............................................................................................................................6
CONCLSUION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Customer service is the provision of services given to customers before, during and after
purchase (Zhang, 2017). Success is mainly depended upon ability of employees as they are
mainly responsible for their satisfaction and customers' interaction. This study is based on Park
Grand Paddington, located at Portobello road, London. It provides several effective and
advanced technological features of services to customers. This present study is going to show
effectiveness of service quality given to customers and how it makes employers able to
accomplish their goals. There is requirement of having knowledge of all 4 acid test of service
recovery to customer manager for improving customers' experience. It will further show some
areas on which hotels require focusing more for better improvement and increasing customers'
service. It will be found by survey to customers in which employers identity needs of customers.
LO2
Analysis of service quality thorough the tools by focusing on dimensions and gaps
SERVQUAL is the multi- detrimental research tools that specially designed to capture
exception of the guest and perception of the services along the five dimensions that are believed
to represent service quality. Park Grand Paddington can use this tool to understand what their
customers are expecting from them, and they will also able to measure what are the gaps in their
service quality, so they can improve and stratify their customers.
Dimensions of SERVQUAL and gaps
Reliability
The Reliability shows the ability to provide guest services accurately, credibly and on the
times. It is necessary for the Park Grand Paddington to commit their customers to provide
services on times and effectively to create good image in customers mind. There are some gaps
because their some staff are old age group, so they cannot work effectively and on time. They
should always commit with their customers and if they promise their customers to provide the
best possible services s or the room prices then they should provide this benefit to the customers
without breaking their commitment.
Responsiveness

Responsiveness measures the ability of the company to solve the problems of the
customers and dealing with the customers. Staff can improve this by taking the feedback from
the customers and if they are facing any problems then they can provide proper solution to them.
Tangibles
Tangibles are the images of the facilities, equipment, machines, attitude of staffs,
materials, manuals, and information systems of the Hotel. In others words, the tangibles refer to
the effect of physical facility, equipment, personnel and communication materials on customer.
This helps to create best experience for the customers, and they can satisfy their needs. Park
Grand Paddington can follow the new trends within the Hospitality industry and create better
experience for their guest thorough the new technology and it will be additional features for the
customers.
Assurance
The Assurance create a credibility and trust among the customers of Park Grand
Paddington. It can be considered thorough the excellent technical knowledge, professional
knowledge. Effective communication skills and Attitude and behaviours so that the customers of
Park Grand Paddington can believe in the quality of firm's services. There are some skill gaps in
staff who are working at the workplace of this hotel. Effective communication improvement can
provide assurance and Park Grand Paddington can bale to satisfy their needs, and they can take
competitive advantages in the market.
Sympathy
Sympathy can be defined as caring, consideration and the best preparation for the guest,
so they can feel as guest of the Park Grand Paddington and are always welcome at any times.
This core human factors can helps Park Grand Paddington to satisfy their customers and it can
also help them to create good image in the customers mind and company will able to gain loyalty
of the customers. Park Grand Paddington can create skill in their staff that how to behave with
the customers and how they can create trust among them through the training. They should
provide their employees p[roper training and teach them how to communicate effectively with
their customer's.
Understanding of the four acid tests of service recovery within Park Grand London
Service recovery is concerned with actions taken by company in response to a service
failure. Services recovery is aimed at identify customers with issues and then to address those

issues (Van Vaerenbergh and et.al., 2019). In order to understand service failure and cause of
service failure and in order to understand impact of service failure on understand there are
certain tests that can be done by Park Grand London.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction can be defined as measurement that determines success of product
and services in meeting customer expectation. This is one of the most important factors that is
emphasized by organization. This is one of the most important tests concerned with service
recovery in Park Grand London. Customer satisfaction is highly important and failure of service
result causes customer dissatisfaction. Understanding level of customer satisfaction is an
important element and test for service recovery. By analysing and understanding level of
customer satisfaction in Park Grand London can identify what are the things that are not well and
require response from Park Grand London. Effective customer satisfaction or comparatively high
number of satisfied customers suggests that customers are not facing any major issues while
dealing with Park Grand London (Wikhamn, 2019). Low level of customer satisfaction suggests
that customers are having issues and have complaints for Park Grand London or its practices and
this is why they are not satisfied with their purchase.
Customer Retention (Customer Loyalty)
Customer retention is making efforts by the organization to engage customers and
encourage them to buy products of the company again and remain loyal for Park Grand London.
This means that customers when have choice in Park Grand London and its competitors,
customer loyalty will encourage them to buy services of Park Grand London. Repeat customers
are more beneficial for Park Grand London and this is one of the reasons that organisations seek
to increase customer loyalty. This is an important test in service recovery, because service
recovery aims at identifying customers with issues, in such case identifying loyalty of customers
and customer retention can help in identifying issues of customers. High number of repeat
customers indicates that issues with customers are less and less number of repeat customers
indicates that customers are facing high number of issues that restrain them to buy services of
Park Grand London again.
Process Improvement (Any process improvement)

Process improvement is another test in service recovery. Process improvement is
concerned with practice of identifying, analyzing and improving existing business processes
(Van Vaerenbergh and et.al., 2019). This is done in order to optimize performance, meet highest
standards of practice and this also involve improving quality and the user experience for end-
users and customers. Process improvement involves identifying process and this help in
identifying process that is not effective and has scope for improvement. In several cases
ineffective practices cause issue to customers and by identifying such processes Park Grand
London can undertake service recovery. By improving process Park Grand London can resolve
and address issues being experienced by customers or guests of hotel.
Financial Performance
Financial performance involves analyzing cost of assets and process and revenue
generated by these costs. There are certain elements that affect financial performance of Park
Grand London these are customer satisfaction, customer retention, and cost of operations. In
order to undertake service recovery Park Grand London requires analysing financial performance
of Park Grand London. Failure of service is also linked with financial performance and increase
cost of the company (Dong and et.al., 2020). This is why analysing financial performance can
help in identifying factors that cause failure to service. Park Grand London can determine
response it can take to address issues and improve financial performance and respond to service
failure.
LO4
Survey Report
Background of the survey
Survey has been conducted to gain knowledge about how Park Grand London can improve
its customer service. In order to collect information about how to improve customer service this
survey has included customers.
Questions for the Survey
Q1: Your overall experiences about hotel Front Office operations, including Check-in and
Check- out and complaint handling procedures by the Guest Relations officer.
Q2: Your experiences about hotel’s Housekeeping performance.

Q3: Your overall dining experiences in the hotel’s Restaurants. (Breakfast, Lunch, afternoon tea
and Dinner).
Q4: What is your experiences about Hotel’s Maintenance department?
Survey Methodology
Survey has been conducted on the basis of exploratory research and for the purpose of
survey questionnaire has been utilised (Peytchev and Peytcheva, 2017). In this through
questionnaire responses have been collected from customers regarding different aspects of
hospitality services.
Recommendations
On the basis of responses collected from customers regarding different aspects of
hospitality services of Park Grand London some of recommendations are as follows-
Ineffective communication with staff is one of the problems and issue that was identified during
survey and in order to deal with this situation it is important that Park Grand London have
effective communication practices. This is important to inform customers regarding their
bookings and any additional changes that are made in their booking before they check-in. This is
because not communicating with them can cause customer dissatisfaction. Some of the things are
very important to communicate with guests like changes in bookings, cancelling their bookings
and communication of such information is very important.
Park Grand London also should place more emphasis on maintenance of their property because
ineffective maintenance affected experience of customers and led to unsatisfied guests and this is
why it is very important that hotel place more emphasis on maintenance of the property. Some of
the guests have issues with bathrooms and other elements not as good as their expectations and
noise around hotel rooms. These elements have negative impact on satisfaction of guests.
It is recommended that Park Grand London should improve its housekeeping performance
(Buhalis and Leung, 2018). This is because some of the customers have complaint with the
elements that are part of housekeeping services. Some of the guests says that their rooms were
not ready on their arrival and this reflects inefficiency of housekeeping and this is why it is very
important that Park Grand London works on effective housekeeping because it plays important
role in satisfaction of guests. In order to improve performance of housekeeping they can

undertake training and effective work management in housekeeping department. Doing this will
help Park Grand London in avoiding unsatisfied guests.
Enhancing room service is also an important recommendation for Park Grand London. Some of
the guests complains and said that room service of Park Grand London was not at all effective. It
is very important to have effective room service which involves identifying customer
requirements and serving them accordingly. In hospitality organisations these are very important
elements and this is why such factors and elements of the services should be well considered.
Other than these, one of the important recommendation is that hotel should create effective
coordination in place. This means that those to whom customers contact should contact with
other departments so that experience of guests does not get affected by ineffective coordination
of the Park Grand London departments (Jung and Yoon, 2018). This means that when guests
make request it is important that front office communicate with respective departments and also
when guests make complaints Park Grand London should communicate with respective
department. Through this they will be able to timely resolve complaints of guests.

CONCLSUION
On the basis of above study it has been summarized that customer' services play a vital
role in hospitality sector because it decides the success of hotels and also help them out in
accomplishing goals. It has discussed importance and reasons of maintaining service quality in
hospital sector as how it increases customers' satisfaction. It has also discussed requirement of
having knowledge related to 4 acid test and their contributions to customers' experience.
Improved quality is one of the main key of increased customers' retention and loyalty rate. It has
shown some areas which needs to be focused by hospitality sector for improving their customers'
service which they identified from survey.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Buhalis, D. and Leung, R., 2018. Smart hospitality—Interconnectivity and interoperability
towards an ecosystem. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 71. pp.41-
50.
Dong, Y and et.al., 2020. Supply base innovation and firm financial performance. Journal of
Operations Management.
Jung, H.S. and Yoon, H.H., 2018. Improving frontline service employees' innovative behavior
using conflict management in the hospitality industry: The mediating role of
engagement. Tourism Management. 69. pp.498-507.
Peytchev, A. and Peytcheva, E., 2017, December. Reduction of measurement error due to survey
length: Evaluation of the split questionnaire design approach. In Survey Research
Methods (Vol. 11. No. 4, pp. 361-368).
Van Vaerenbergh, Y and et.al., 2019. The service recovery journey: Conceptualization,
integration, and directions for future research. Journal of Service Research. 22(2).
pp.103-119.
Wikhamn, W., 2019. Innovation, sustainable HRM and customer satisfaction. International
Journal of Hospitality Management. 76. pp.102-110.