Customer Service in the Hotel Industry: Practices, Policies, and Strategies

This report discusses the importance of customer service in the hotel industry and provides recommendations for improving it. It covers hotel customer service practices, policies, and service quality vision, hotel service guarantees and complaint handling procedures, and recommendations for better customer-focused services. The report is based on the example of Queens Hotel in London.

Customer Service

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
Hotel customer services practices, policies and service quality vision.......................................2
Hotel service guarantees and complaint handling procedures....................................................4
Recommendation on appropriate customer focused services to improve the satisfaction of
guest and in what way it can become the part of hotel culture and strategy...............................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Customer service can be defined as taking care of customers and solving the issues which
they are facing while taking the services of any organisation. It is the way by which full help and
support is provided to consumers(Garri., 2021). Offering the best services to the consumers must
be the responsibility of the management of a hotel where they have to provide excellent services
to them. The hotel industry is a customer centric business in which it is very important to keep
the consumers happy and this can be done only when they provide the best service. It is the only
method by which the consumers can be satisfied and would like to come again to take the
services. It is very important for the success of a hotel and also ensures the brand loyalty of the
customers towards them. Queens Hotel is in London which is just a walk away from Finsbury
Park Station. This hotel provides all the amenities covering the English breakfast, continental
foods and many more. which is required by a consumer This report will cover customer service
practices, policies and service quality vision, hotel service guarantees and complaint handling
procedures and recommendation on on better customer focused services to improve guest
satisfaction and in which way it can become the part of hotel culture and strategy.
MAIN BODY
Hotel customer services practices, policies and service quality vision
Hospitality industry is all about providing best in class services to the customers of the company.
In order to survive in the market, it is important for the company to make sure that they are
satisfying the needs and demands of the customers. It is essential for the company to work
accurately and according to the dynamic environment of the industry(Faller and zu Knyphausen-
Aufseß., 2018).
Conference rooms: The hotel offers conference room facilities to their customers and
delegates. Conference rooms is important for the business guests of the company as it helps them
in organising their meeting and can carry on their business activities. In case of Queens Hotel, it
provides a perfect opportunities for them to attract business population in their hotel. The
company has around 13 flexible meeting rooms and 15 conference rooms which can serve
around 500 people.
Rooms and accommodation: The hotels main facility is providing accommodation and
room services to their customers. In context to Queens Hotel, the hotel has four floors with
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around 78 bedrooms. It includes twin, king size and accessible rooms in which can perfectly
cater to the needs of a small family with parents and two children.
Policies of Queens Hotel
Company's commitment: The hotel is committed to serve the customers in the best manner
possible. They are committed to provide exceptional services to their guests which can help
them in satisfying the expectations of the customers. They are consistent with principles of
dignity, independence and equal opportunities.
Communication: Open communication between the official of hotel and customers are
promoted so that problems can easily reach to the management and can be solved effectively
and timely. Open communication helps the company in creating a environment where accurate
understanding about the concerned activity is achieved by the hotel.
Feedbacks: The hotel welcomes feedback which can help them in improving their services and
quality. It is important fir the hotel to make sure that the customers are satisfied with the
performance of the hotel and with the services and products provided by the hotel.
Assistive devices: These devices helps the guests of the customers in getting assistance as and
when needed without waiting for the wait staff. The hotel makes sure that all the employees of
the company are having proper training about the assistive devices and its operations so that
they can help customers in using devices efficiently.
Appropriate documentation, procedures and policies as well as standards are available for
customers on request.
Service quality vision of Queens Hotels.
Service Quality vision is expectations of the hotel from their employees that they will
provide appropriate services to their customers. It is important for the organisation to make sure
that their employees are able to satisfy the needs and demands of the customers of company. It is
important for the company to clarify the expectations to the employees beforehand and to make a
specific code of conduct for the internal management of the company which can help the
employees in getting a clear idea about the rules and regulations of the company(Kletz., 2018). It
is important for the company to create a learning environment which can help the employees in
improving their performance as well as their productivity. In case of Queens Hotel, the company
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make sure that they are providing proper training to their employees as it will help them in make
their employees completely understand the standard of services that the company expects from
their employees.
Hotel service guarantees and complaint handling procedures
A guarantee in a hotel will mean that all the services will be provided to customers on time
without any delay. It covers all the policies which has to be made in which it will imply that the
rules are followed and with this customers will also be happy. Complaint handling procedures
will mean that service of a hotel where the complaints which are provided to the customers are
being undertaken(Chaffey, Edmundson-Bird and Hemphill., 2019). This service has to be
provided to the management of a hotel because with this they would also identify the weakness
which is existing in the hotel and also the way they will found out as to which will work the best.
Queens hotel have also provided different types of services to customers in which the foremost
includes complaint handling department where all the things are handled precisely.
 Listen- It is very important that the hotel complain department is listening to all the
issues which have been identified by the customers and which created a lot of problem in
their stay. It can cover any of the issue covering the room service, food quality, timely
delivery of services. Queens hotel staff takes care of all the things which the consumer
have said to them in order to work for these problems effectively(Taheri-Moghadam,
Razmi and Baki, 2019).
 Empathise- Empathy is a very important measure in which the management of a hotel
shows their concern and try to understand the problem which is faced by the consumers.
If such factor will not be shown to the customers that they will not feel their importance
and which will hinder the success of a hotel. Queens hotel try to understand the problem
which is faced by the consumers and listens to them attentively so that they do not leave
any of the consumers.
 Apologise- Apologising a person for the mistakes that have been made is very important
and so with the hotel industry. In this, identifying the mistakes which have been carried
out and making apologies for it is the best way which the hotel can provide to them. This
will show the concern of a hotel towards the consumers(Semeen and Islam., 2021).
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Consumers will also feel that the management of a hotel have identified the mistake on
the basis of which they are making apologies.
 Take action- Taking a right action is the another step which is the most important and
crucial one because the complaints are provided because consumers find out problematic.
This will mean that it is the weakness of a hotel and if it is not being cured at the right
time then it can create problem to the hotel itself. Queens hotel takes care of all the things
and the feedbacks which are provided by the consumers so that they can make the
changes on that basis.
 Follow up- Follow up means that the complaint is being identified by the hotel and
because it they are ensuring that the problem is solved. For this they can contact to the
consumers who have arrived and have made a complaint to them. This will provides the
surety to the consumers that the hotel is working on the complaints which helps them in
developing a good image of hotel in the market(Ma and et. al., 2021).
Recommendation on appropriate customer focused services to improve the satisfaction of guest
and in what way it can become the part of hotel culture and strategy
Providing an appropriate customer service to the consumers is the effective way to attract more
consumers because with it only the chances of developing more customer base will be increased.
But the hotel has to make changes timely and have to ask the feedback also as to which problem
are faced by the consumers and what actions they can take to make the improvement so that the
guest can be satisfied. There are some of the recommendations which have been discussed which
can be helpful to the Queens Hotel-
 The hotel must offer some of the discounts and offers to the consumers so that the
chances of making a selection of the hotel gets increased. It has been seen that when the
consumers are provided with the extra services without the cost then they like to chose
that hotel(Lieberman, Rieger and Banker eds., 2020). Queens hotel if they want to make
the attraction of consumers or want to make the increase in their customer services then it
is very important they provide the consumers with extra services. This increases the
loyalty of the consumers and this the effective strategy which will also help in increasing
the mouth-to-mouth publicity of a hotel.
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 Many of the consumers finds it really very difficult to make a contact with the room
service or with any of the other services of a hotel. This not only makes them irritated
which can create further problem to the staff of the hotel. Queens hotel is a large one so
this factor plays really very important role because if the consumers would not be able to
contact with the staff of a hotel then it can create many other problems. There are
different applications which can be used by the hotel so that the consumers can make a
contact easily.
 Tracking the guest preference is the other important thing which is crucial for the success
of a hotel. Hotels do not run with the preferences on their own but it is run on the basis
what will the consumers want(Luo and et. al., 2019). When the preferences of consumers
will be identified then all the planning will be made according to this the preferences and
likeability of consumers. Queens hotel have made all the things which will be liked by
consumers and which will be preferred by consumers the most. The management of a
hotel knows that from where the consumers comes and what will be the things that will
be liked by them. According to them only they make and set all the things so that none of
the consumer goes dissatisfied from the hotel.
 Addressing the guest personally is also the feature of a successful hotel because they will
feel the importance that their complaints are handled on a personal way. This is what
required by the consumers that there problems are listened and effective solutions are
provided to all the problems which they are facing(Gong and et. al., 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that it is very important to provide the best
services to the customers because with it only the customer loyalty will be increases towards the
brand and will also help in increasing the revenue of a hotel. Reputation of a hotel will also be
increased because the success of a hotel industry is based on the customer services which is
provided to them. It is the duty of staff also to provide them the best services because the first
interaction which is made by the customers is with only the staff. Proper training can help a lot in
improving the services if it is faced by any of the hotel.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chaffey, D., Edmundson-Bird, D. and Hemphill, T., 2019. Digital business and e-commerce
management. Pearson UK.
Faller, C.M. and zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, D., 2018. Does equity ownership matter for corporate
social responsibility? A literature review of theories and recent empirical findings.
Journal of Business Ethics, 150(1), pp.15-40.
Garri, M., 2021. Coopetition, value co-creation, and knowledge-enhancement in the UK alpaca
industry: A multi-level mechanism. European Management Journal, 39(5), pp.545-557.
Gong, X. and et. al., 2019, September. Customer service automatic answering system based on
natural language processing. In Proceedings of the 2019 International Symposium on
Signal Processing Systems (pp. 115-120).
Kletz, T., 2018. An engineer’s view of human error. Routledge.
Lieberman, H., Rieger, M. and Banker, G.S. eds., 2020. Pharmaceutical dosage forms: Disperse
systems. CRC Press.
Luo, J.G. and et. al., 2019. Co-creation and co-destruction of service quality through customer-
to-customer interactions: Why prior experience matters. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Ma, B. and et. al., 2021, July. Distant Supervision based Machine Reading Comprehension for
Extractive Summarization in Customer Service. In Proceedings of the 44th International
ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (pp.
1895-1899).
Semeen, H. and Islam, M.A., 2021. Social impact disclosure and symbolic power: evidence from
UK fair trade organizations. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 79, p.102182.
Taheri-Moghadam, A., Razmi, J. and Baki, M.F., 2019. Designing and planning a sustainable
supply chain network considering economic aspects, environmental impact, fixed job
opportunities and customer service level. International Journal of Process Management
and Benchmarking, 9(1), pp.73-100.
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