Effective Service Quality Management and Operational Issues

The provided text discusses various operational issues facing hotels, including increased costs, lack of skilled employees, excessive waiting times for customers, and inconsistent food quality. To effectively deal with these issues, managers apply operation management theory such as Six Sigma to improve service quality and satisfy guests better.

Hospitality Operations Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................1
Issues face by Crowne Plaza Hotel........................................................................................1
Theory use for overcoming operational issues: ..............................................................................6
Six Sigma: .............................................................................................................................6
SIX SIGMA Improvement Model: ........................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Operations Management refers to an area that associated with designing and controlling
production process & redesigning operations of business in production of products or services. It
is the administration of practices in order to ensure maximum efficiency within an organisation
(AbouRizk, 2010). Operations Management is one of the main functions of company which is
responsible for controlling cost of production and ensures optimum utilization of resources. In
the present assignment, chosen organisation is Crowne Plaza which is a multinational hotel chain
of United Kingdom. This report covers identification of operational issues that influence
performance of company and the way it can be improved by application of operations & service
management theory.
TASK
Company Overview:
Crowne Plaza is a leading multinational chain of upscale hotel, located in United
Kingdom. It was founded in the year of 1983 and presently practice its business operation in
more than 52 countries with over 400 hotels. All of its hotels are mainly situated in the heart of
city, coastal towns or near major airports which makes them highly popular. It caters its services
to business travellers as well as to meeting & convention markets. It is a part of Inter-Continental
Hotels Groups which also include Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts and Inter-Continental Hotel &
Resorts. It aims at providing true hospitality for every one. It believe in making their guests feel
valued and welcomed. As it operates in over 52 countries with 400+ hotels which means each of
its chain caters to visitor in its own distinct way.
Since it is a five star hotel, customers or guests have high standard of expectation. But
there are some operational activities in which Crowne Plaza lacks such as employee turnover,
increase cost etc. Any operational issue put direct impact on overall performance & profitability
of Hotel (Ageron, Gunasekaran and Spalanzani, 2012).
Issues face by Crowne Plaza Hotel
Being a part of providing 24*7 facilities to numerous guests, hotel industry is
experiencing many critical issues and that too on daily basis. Right from handling business
operation to serving visitors, hoteliers needs to deal with many bottlenecks that adversely affect
its overall performance. For instance: At certain times, guests have to wait for longer duration
due to deficiency of right technology that speeds up the process of check-in. Hotel Operation is
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relatively a complex affair. From front desk to back-end, from housekeeping to attendant each
division is required to keep running in a state of sync to guarantee faster automation. However,
this can only be achieved after identifying various operational issues faced by respective Hotel
and formulate strategies & policies accordingly. Following are the issues faced by Crowne Hotel
which are listed below:-
Increase Cost:
Being rated as a 5 star hotel, it is quite natural that services offer by Crowne Plaza is little
bit expensive in comparison with other hotels. Like in any other sector, saving or controlling cost
is must for hotel industry. But in case of hotel, it is somewhat tricky. Yet they cannot merely cut
costs & compromise with providing quality of services. High cost of operation and maintenance
makes impossible for an organization to carried out its activities smoothly. As it directly affect
firm's profitability as well as performance (Ashby, Leat and Hudson-Smith, 2011). The major
variables due to which its operating cost increases includes inefficiency of staff members, failure
to examine utility usage, increasing number of unoccupied rooms etc. If the expectation of guests
are not fulfilled by hotel, it will dissatisfy them which results in service recovery that cost the
money and time of hotel.
In order to overcome these issues, Crowne Plaza can adopt latest HVAC system unified
with providing such solution that save energy, water and cost on vast level. Adequate training
and development session for employees can be arranged which leads to improve their skills &
efficiency. With Internet of Things (IOT), hotels can actually compute and adjust water and
energy usage by observation everything and that too continuous basis, right from monitoring in
temperature of unoccupied room to the amount of water utilized in cleaning linens.
Excessive waiting time for customers:
In service industry, one of the major operational issue is excessive waiting time for
customers. Hotel Crowne Plaza face this problem as their customers have to wait for longer time
to avail its services. It directly affects operational performance of company as expectations of
clients are high (Chowdary and George, 2011). After travel a long way, guests expect to check
in their room instantly to get relax and freshen up. But, the arrival rooms of resort are not
complete or well managed before check in time of guests. It directly puts negative impact on
image of hotel and leads to decline in their revenues and profits. Waiting time often results from
bottlenecks as even efficient processes have checkpoints where it gets slow down. If expectations
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of guests are not meet, they gets dissatisfied and have negative beginning to their holiday. It
leaves bad impression of hotel in minds of customers.
“At the point when desires are surpassed, benefit is seen to
be of outstanding quality”. So, in order to resolve the issue of excessive waiting time, Hotel
Crowne Plaza needs to emphasize on expectations of guests. They must have enough resources
in terms of room attendants, experienced housekeeping staff etc. so that expectations of
customers can be meet. Dissatisfaction of guests may arise due to gap between their expectation
and perceptions. So in order to eliminate or minimize this gap, Service Quality Gap Model can
be implement by firm (Closs, Speier and Meacham, 2011).
Service Quality Gap Model:
This model is an important framework for customer satisfaction. Application of service
quality gap model helps manager of Crowne Plaza Hotel in determining gaps between
expectations of customers and actual services that are provided by hotel at distinct stages of its
delivery to guests. For improving their administrations, it is required by management of firm to
close the gap & enhance service. This model identifies 5 major gaps that are face by hotel
seeking to meet expectation of guests. These should be measure, manage & minimize by
administrators. 5 service quality gaps are defined as follows:
The customer gap: Gap between guest expectation and perceptions
It is the gap between what guests expect and what administrators think they expect. In
order to fill this distance, it is required by manager of Hotel Crowne Plaza to clearly understand
needs and expectations of their guests. This will help them in delivering high quality service and
provides the best possible way to close gap.
The knowledge gap: Gap between guest expectation & management perception
It is difference among expectations of guests and service provision of hotel. In this,
administrators are not aware about requirements of customers regarding provided services. If this
gap exist, it means hotel is trying to meet non existing needs of clients. In order to close this gap,
a comprehensive market research will be required to conduct by manager of Hotel Crowne Plaza
regarding expectations of guests for service and administrator's perception of its delivery
( Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 2013).
The policy gap: Gap between management perception & service quality specification
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This gap reflects about incorrect translation of service policy by management into
guidelines and rules for employees. Various difficulties are experienced by Hotel Crowne Plaza
in translating guest expectation into particular service quality delivery. It can involves failure to
maintain & constantly update provision of customer service, poor service design or lack of
standardisation. Policy gap depicts that guests seek similar service better elsewhere (Galindo and
Batta, 2013).
The delivery gap: Gap between quality specification & service delivery
This gap determines about weakness in performance of employees. Organisation with this
gap may define the service needed to support guests but have failed to provide training to their
human resource, put good guidelines and processes in action. It results in inefficiency of
employees to manage needs of guests. If delivery gap exist, some problems that experience by
Crowne Plaza hotel are:
 Hotel have poor policies regarding human resource.
 Lack of service knowledge by employees and have difficulty in managing issues and
questions of customers. Lack of cohesive team & inability to deliver.
The communication gap: Gap between service delivery & external communication
In some cases, organisations made promises through communication and advertising
media which increases expectations of clients. At the time when over promising does not meet
actual service delivery, a communication gap is created. Because of not getting expected service,
service users are disappointed and may consequently seek substitute sources. In order to close
this gap, it is required by Hotel Crowne Plaza to fill it by communicating all the services
effectively to guests (Hamilton and et. al., 2011).
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(Source: Gap Model of Service Quality, 2017)
Employee Turnover:
The most common operational issue faced by Crowne Plaza is employee turnover. Jobs
under this sector are not as typical Monday to Friday office hour job rather it is around the clock
hour job in which staff needs to perform task irrespective of considering whether day or night.
Thus, it is primarily important for the Hotel to find long term personnel who flexibly work with
rotational shifts. Apart from giving a bed to sleep to guests, Hotel business also render numerous
other services, it's a service industry. The person employed under this sector must have good
personality and communication skill to cater the type of consumer which a Hotel generally
targets or attracts. Additionally for discovering right candidate, high labor cost is related with
employee turnover that posses an influence on entire hotel business. It has been computed that
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Illustration 1: Service Quality Management

the cost of an employee turnover in this sector is 30% of their annual salary. This indicates that
high labor cost related with employee turnover can influence operational issue (Matta and et. al.,
2014).
In order to deal with high turnover rate of employees, Crowne Plaza can provide
adequate training and development to its workforce. Instead of spending large amount on finding
competent person it is better to improve the efficiency and skills of existing staff members. This
can be done by scheduling different training programs for them such as personality and
grooming classes, seminars, workshops etc.
Ineffective communication between teams:
Ineffective communication between various departments of an organisation may
negatively impact its operations and activities. In Hotel Crowne Plaza, communication between
maintenance team, housekeeping, management & other staff is a big challenge. Coordination
between members of all the departments is not good due to which hotel face various issues in
delivery of effective services to customers. This will increase operational cost of organisation
and leads it towards declining profits. It directly influence image of hotel and leaves a bad
impression of hotel in eyes of customers. Ineffective communication creates mismanagement
among all the functional departments which results in decreasing performance of staff members
as well as hotel. Due to this, employees are not able to cater guests in proper way and providing
them effective service delivery.
For resolving the issue of ineffective communication, it is essential for managers of Hotel
Crowne Plaza to use effective communication channels so that proper communication takes
place within various departments of hotel (AbouRizk, 2010). This will assist administrators in
performing all the activities and operations in proper manner as well as enable employees to
perform their duties well. By this, employees allow to provide effective services to customers
and satisfy them.
Theory use for overcoming operational issues:
Six Sigma:
It refers to the set of tools and techniques that is primarily used by Crowne Plaza for
process improvement. The theory was introduced in the year 1995 by General Electric.
According to this theory, strategies are formulated with an aim of improving the overall quality
of process and eliminates the cause of error and minimize the degree of variability arises in
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business processes. It exercise a set of quality management methods that help in carrying out all
operational activities and function in a cost-effective and timely manner. Basically it is a
continuous improvement methodology that help in identifying and remove defects arises in
product, process or services (Ageron, Gunasekaran and Spalanzani, 2012). Sigma indicates the
population standard deviation, a measure of variation in total set of data gathered for a common
purpose. However if any defect is find, then this theory has a process that is going to eliminate
the deviation or error from nearest specification limit The main advantage of applying six sigma
in business operations is that it is customer driven. It refers as the limit of 3.4 defects per 1
million service processes or products, where the thing that is not acceptable to clients is
considered as defect.
Application of this theory is important in the given report as it laid stress on enhancing
the quality of services renders by Crowne Plaza. By implementing this methodology, given hotel
can cope up with its various issues that are discussed above. For example: The main operating
issue face by chosen Hotel is increase cost due to lack of skilled employees, rapid increase in
number of unoccupied room. The main benefit of this theory is, it results in provide long term
satisfaction to employees and build loyalties. It enable selected Hotel to accomplish its defined
objectives that ultimately results in carrying out all business operation in an effective manner.
SIX SIGMA Improvement Model:
It can simply be define as a process of solving problem in an effective manner. It usually
consists of five key phases that mainly include define, measure, analyse, improve and control
(Closs, Speier and Meacham, 2011). This method is also known as DMAIC Principle.
Application of this model is discussed below:
DMAIC Model of Improvement: It is a data driven quality strategy that is mainly used in order
to improve the process and consider as an integral part of firm's SIX SIGMA QUALITY
APPROACH.
 Define: This is the most crucial stage where problem is defined. If it is characterised in
more specific manner, than chances of obtaining greater measurement increases. As a
result, defined problem can be solved in an appropriate manner. For example: Various
Issues have been identified in Crowne Plaza that affect its overall efficiency and
performance. Here the problem identified are increase cost of operation, employee
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turnover, ineffective communication between team & excessive waiting time for
customers.
 Measure: When problems are identified, management of Crowne Plaza needs to
formulate decisions and strategies in order to quantify the problem. In the chosen Hotel,
factors are measured that leads to increase the cost, reasons are identified in context of
why employees are not retaining with the Hotel for longer run.
 Analyse: At this stage, it is possible to identify whether the problem is valid, random
event or not causing any impact on overall performance of the company. Feedback from
employees and customers are collected at this point (Chowdary and George, 2011).
 Improve: Solutions are developed at this stage which eliminates all possible issues that
are identified in the above stage. Providing adequate training and development can help
in making them more skilled and competent and retain them for period with the firm.
Cost can controlled by adopting latest HAVC system that saves energy, water and cost at
vast level.
 Control: After execution of solution, number of controls are required to be put in place
in order to take measurements to ensure that solution is valid and recurrence can be
prevented. Manager of Hotel Crowne Plaza exercise complete control over operations so
as to ensure that effective services can be deliver to guests.
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(Source: DMAIC Model of Improvement, 2017)
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that operations management
involves the process of improving quality of production along with minimizing cost and proper
use of resources. This function highly contributes in long term growth and success of
organisation. Various operational issues are facing by hotel such as increased cost, lack of skilled
employees, excessive waiting time for customers and inconsistent food quality. All such issues
adversely impacts performance and profitability of company. In order to effectively deal with all
such issues, manager of firm apply operation management theory such as six sigma which helps
them in improving quality of services and enables them to satisfy guests in more better manner.
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Illustration 2: DMAIC PRINCIPLE

REFRENCES
Books and journals
AbouRizk, S., 2010. Role of simulation in construction engineering and management. Journal of
construction engineering and management. 136(10). pp.1140-1153.
Ageron, B., Gunasekaran, A. and Spalanzani, A., 2012. Sustainable supply management: An
empirical study. International Journal of Production Economics. 140(1). pp.168-182.
Ashby, A., Leat, M. and Hudson-Smith, M., 2012. Making connections: a review of supply chain
management and sustainability literature. Supply Chain Management: An International
Journal. 17(5). pp.497-516.
Bozarth, C. B. and Handfield, R. B., 2016. Introduction to operations and supply chain
management. Pearson Higher Ed.
Carter, C. R. and Liane Easton, P., 2011. Sustainable supply chain management: evolution and
future directions. International journal of physical distribution & logistics management.
41(1). pp.46-62.
Chowdary, B.V. and George, D., 2011. Improvement of manufacturing operations at a
pharmaceutical company: a lean manufacturing approach. Journal of Manufacturing
Technology Management, 23(1), pp.56-75.
Closs, D. J., Speier, C. and Meacham, N., 2011. Sustainability to support end-to-end value
chains: the role of supply chain management. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science. 39(1). pp.101-116.
Fitzsimmons, J. and Fitzsimmons, M., 2013. Service management: Operations, strategy,
information technology. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Galindo, G. and Batta, R., 2013. Review of recent developments in OR/MS research in disaster
operations management. European Journal of Operational Research. 230(2). pp.201-
211.
Hamilton, J. and et. al., 2011, January. Ice management for support of arctic floating operations.
In OTC Arctic Technology Conference. Offshore Technology Conference.
Matta, A., and et. al., 2014. Modelling home care organisations from an operations management
perspective. Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal, 26(3), pp.295-319.
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Online
DMAIC Model of Improvement, 2017. Online available through <https://blog.iil.com/dmaic-
process-six-sigma/>
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