Service Quality Management in Hospitality Industry

The provided project report emphasizes the significance of offering good quality services to customers in the hospitality industry. It is essential for businesses to gather feedback, make modifications, and resolve issues to gain trust and satisfy visitors. The report concludes by stating that it is the responsibility of staff members to satisfy customers and resolve their problems. Various references from books, journals, and online sources are cited to support the importance of service quality management in the hospitality industry.

SERVICE QUALITY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
1. Importance of managing and measuring service quality, recommending the adoption of
appropriate service quality management methods.................................................................1
2. Current service delivery practices and its impacts on front line employees......................6
3. Customer Feedback System that can be used to monitor and continually improve service
quality...................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
To manage the service quality is important for a company because it attract the
consumers to buy their products or services. It can be deliver in that manner so that customers
can be satisfied and helps to maximize the profitability of corporation (Chen and et. al., 2012). In
this report, chosen organisation is Sunderland International Hotel and it is situated at East
Landon. It provides additional facilities such as: gym, swimming pool, spa etc. It opened a
conference and banqueting suite of three event venue spaces which is appropriate for hosting
conferences, meeting, wedding and other functions. The main aim of this hotel is to satisfy the
people by giving its quality services. It is the responsibility of quality management consultant to
ensure that persons are getting effective and quality service in hotel. This report covers the
following topics such as: importance of managing and measuring service quality and its
management methods, current service delivery or practices and its impact on the front line
employees, their engagement and also managerial implications. Apart from this it also discuss
about to produce customer feedback system framework that the organisation can utilise to
monitor and continually improve service quality.
MAIN BODY
1. Importance of managing and measuring service quality, recommending the adoption of
appropriate service quality management methods
Persons visits to the hotel and restaurant with the expectation that they get better service.
Service quality is associated with how effective a service is delivered, compared to consumer
expectations. It is the responsible of organisation to deliver the best and quality service to their
customers. Delivery time can be minimum and as per the desire of consumers so that they can
satisfy. The importance of service quality has increased for various organisation such as :
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hospitality and service industry, marketing and sales industry, banking sector etc. It is important
for a company to manage the service effectively so that persons can satisfy and they attract
towards the corporation. Sunderland International Hotel can manage the service quality
effectively so that more number of persons come in the hotel and get the benefit of superior
service. Importance of managing service quality are as follows:
To satisfy the consumers: It is important for an organisation to provide better services to
its consumers so that more numbers of persons can attract towards the company. It is essential
for and organisation to deliver quality service to their consumers so that they will visit the hotel
again and again. It is the responsibility of quality management consultant of Sunderland
International Hotel, that it ensure the hotel is able to provide the food, beverage and other
facilities as per the needs of customers. To improve the delivery of service it can provide the
training to their employees so that they can able to satisfy the persons and fulfil their
expectations. If hotel can provide effective and quality products and services that people can feel
satisfy and they want to visit hotel again and again as per the their requirement. Customers also
suggest their friends and relatives to visit Sunderland International Hotel (Thaichon, Lobo and
Mitsis, 2014).
To increase profitability of organisation : It is important for the company to deliver
quality service to their consumers so that they feel satisfy. It an organization is able to meet the
expectations and provide the products and services as per the need and wants of customers than
they always prefer that specific hotel whenever they want to come. It is the responsibility of
quality management consultant of Sunderland International Hotel, that effectively manage
quality service and fulfil the desires of persons. When ever a consumer give the order than staffs
should try to complete that order within stipulated time period and as per the wants of person. So
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that consumers like to visit the hotel and also do word to mouth publicity to their neighbours,
colleagues and relatives about that specific hotel. If more numbers of persons visit than image
and reputations can be increase which leads to maximize the revenue and profitability of
organisation.
It is important for an organisation to measure the service quality so that it can know the
what services company is provided they are as per the expectations of consumers or not. It is the
responsibility of quality management consultant of Sunderland International Hotel, to ensure that
hotel is able to deliver services as per the needs and wants of organisation. To satisfy the desires
of customers it is essential to fulfil the wants of them so that they can satisfy. The importance of
measuring service quality are as follows :
To improve the quality services : It is importation to measure the service quality so that
organisation can know what type of services are needed by the consumers. There are various
ways thorough which company can measures its quality services such as : follow up servery,
social media monitoring, feedback of various persons, comments and views at review sites.
Through it organisation can the area of improvident so that persons can satisfy. It is the
responsibility of quality management consultant of Sunderland International Hotel, to measure
the services so it can understand what are the areas in which services of hotel can be improve and
it able to deliver better and quality services to their customers. So that persons will feel satisfy
and always prefer the hotel when customers want to visit. It help the organisation to improve its
services so that more number of people can attract towards the company. If more persons will
attract towards the organisation than its brand image can be increase as a result it profits can be
maximize (Hekmatpou and et. al., 2012).
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To deliver customize services : It is the objective of every organisation to deliver the
batter services to their consumers and fulfil the needs of them. So that customer can be satisfy. It
is essential for a company to provide the products as per the needs of consumers so that they
attract towards the organisation. It is the responsibility of quality management consultant of
Sunderland International Hotel, to provide that services which are demanded by the people. For
example, if a consumer order something and demand a specific ingredients should be included in
the food so it is the duty of its staffs to deliver food as per the wants of customer. So that they
feel happy as a result persons always want to prefer that particular hotel only and more number
of consumers can attract towards the organisation if it deliver customize and quality services. So
it is important to measure the service quality so that hotel is able to deliver the products and
services as per the desire of people and they can get satisfy with the organisation.
To manage the quality of products and services is essential to ensure that the organisation
is able to satisfy the consumers and it helps it accomplish the goals and objectives. To provide
the services effectively there are various quality management methods which help the
organisation to satisfy the needs of consumers. Sunderland International Hotel can generate more
revenue by using various methods of service quality management.
Methods of service quality management are as follows :
Pot service rating : It is the quality service management method which can be used by
the organisation to enhance the quality of services. It is important for a company to ask
consumers to rate the service right after it's been delivered. This method can be recommend by
quality management consultant of Sunderland International Hotel, so that it can know the view
of persons about the products and services of organisation. If persons feel that hotel have to
improve the service quality management than it can take necessary steps to improve it. For
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example, hotel can use it application through which they can know the ratings and feedbacks
which are provided by the consumers at the particular application of that hotel. It helps the
organisation to understand the drawbacks so that in future it can focus to maximize the service
quality management.
Social media monitoring : Now a days it is going to be very popular because all
organisations have it page at social sites and there are various social sites such as : Facebook,
Instagram, twitter etc. This method can be recommend by quality management consultant of
Sunderland International Hotel, so that it can know the ideas, comments and views of various
consumers and they give by using social media. Different reviews and feedbacks from various
persons help the hotel to know the loopholes which are needed to be improve in their service
quality management.
App survey : This is the method which can be used by the organisation to improve its
service quality management. Now a days it is very popular because most of organisations are
using their own app to know the views and comments of consumers. This method can be
recommend by quality management consultant of Sunderland International Hotel, to use app
their mobile app and know the ratings which are given by the persons to the hotel in context to
its service quality management. It helps the organisation to know the understand areas of
improvements which are needed to be enhanced in their service quality management. If hotel
improve it and provide better services as per the needs of consumer than more number of persons
can attract towards the organisation and its image can be improve in the market (Methods of
service quality management, 2018).
Follow up survey : This method can be used by the organisation to enhance the service
quality management in the organisation. It help to analyse the reviews and comments of persons
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so that company can know it and if improvement is require than it can be done as per the
expectations of consumers. This method can be recommend by quality management consultant
of Sunderland International Hotel to ask their customers to rate their service quality through an
email survey for example via google forms. Through it hotel can take benefit over the post
service rating because it can know the perceptions of consumers and according to that it will try
to provide quality services to them. It help to improve quality service management in the hotel as
a result more number of persons show their liltingness to visit the hotel.
2. Current service delivery practices and its impacts on front line employees
The Sunderland International Hotel is operating its business in Canary Wharf, London,
UK and it is a three star hotel. As it is near to the railway station, hence it is asy to reach place
for the tourists (DAILY, KIEFF and WILMARTH JR, 2014). It is providing good facilities to its
customers. Some of its positive and negative service delivery practices are as follows:
Good practices:
 Facilities are very good: The hotel is providing good facilities to the visitors that helps
to satisfy them. It also help to gain their trust and establish good relations with them. As
the hotel is related to hotel industry hence it is very important for all the organisations
who are operating business under this industry to provide good services to the customers.
 Refurbishment in the hotel: Hotel is able to attract business and leisure guests that helps
to increase profits. To gain more monetary benefits the hotel is planning for renovation so
that it can attract more visitors. The refurbishment has resulted in a huge increment in the
booking of hotel rooms and events. Manager instruct the hotel staff to refer all the customer complaints to him: The
staff members of Sunderland International Hotel have instructed by the managers to
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directly inform them about the issues of customers so that they can resolve them
appropriately. This can help the managers to guide hotel employees to improve their
service quality and provide best services to the customers when they visit next time.
Bad practices:
 Poor services: The customers are not satisfied with the services that are rendered by the
hotel staff and it is very important for the managers to deliver good services. Visitors of
Sunderland International Hotel complaints about the services as they are not of good
quality (Wilson and et. al., 2012).
 Delay in checking the reviews of visitors: The managers of Sunderland International
Hotel check the reviews of customers one time in a month which cannot aware them
about the service delivery system and the issues of customers. It is very important for the
managers to check the reviews on daily basis so that all the issues can be dealt effectively
and changes can be made in delivery system.
 Higher waiting time: Customers have to wait for check in and it frustrates them because
there is no proper management in the hotel. If visitors face such delays than they mostly
prefer to visit another hotel rather than waiting (Oyman and Singh, 2015).
 Issues of staff members: There are various issues of staff members that are related to
their wages, no reward scheme or active empowerment and managers have no value of
them. All the problems have resulted in low work quality of employees and decreasing
staff turnover.
 No planned approach in recruitment: The managers are selecting employees with no
specific approach for recruitment as they just want to increase their staff turnover so that
continuous check ins can be managed. It creates issues for the hotel as well because
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sometimes such candidates are recruited by the managers who are not able to handle the
problems effectively.
 Lack of proper training: The new hired employees do not get proper training so that
they can be aware of their job responsibilities. It create problems for them while
delivering services as they have not received proper training from the supervisors.
All the above mentioned service delivering practices have been identified by the service
delivery consultant of Sunderland International Hotel and all the practice can affect the
employees and their engagement. Staff members are concerned with delivering services to the
visitors hence it will affect them.
Impact of service delivery practices on front line employees and their engagement:
As the service delivery practices are concerned with employees directly hence it will
definitely leave impact on employees and their engagement (Kongstvedt, 2012). All the positive
as well as negative impacts are as follows:
Positive impacts:
 Enhancement in service delivery system: As the facilities provided by the hotel are
great hence it will help to enhance the service delivery system because this can help to
gain trust of the customers. It is very important for the hotel staff to deliver good services
the customers so that they can be retained by Sunderland International Hotel. Effective communication with managers: As the managers of Sunderland International
Hotel instruct employees to refers them when any customer is having issue. This will
increase effective communication among managers and staff members about problems
that are faced by customers. It can also remove the barriers that employees have to face
while interacting with top executives of Sunderland International Hotel.
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Negative impacts:
 Reduction in number of customers: In Sunderland International Hotel visitors have to
wait for checking and the waiting time is very high they also get poor service which is a
big issue. When customers are facing various kinds of problems which using services of
the hotel than they will not prefer same place to visit again. This may reduce number of
visitors and reduce profitability of hotel (Dye, Reeder and Terry, 2013).
 Reduced work quality of employees and less involvement in their job
responsibilities: When staff members of Sunderland International Hotel are not getting
appropriate wages and they have a thought that manager do not value them. This will
result in decreased engagement of them in the work and they will not fulfil all their
responsibilities at job. If they are not considered as a valuable part of the organisation it
will affect their work quality.
Managerial implication: These are the actions that are taken by the managers of the
organisations to deal with the problems that results adversely. As Sunderland International
Hotel's customers and employees are facing different problems that are related to service quality,
waiting time and wages. Following are the implications that are going to be affected by the good
and bad service delivery practices:
 Inappropriate appraisal to the employees: When managers wont interact with the
employees than the actual performance of them cannot be recorded by the management
of the organisation. This will also result in decreased effectiveness and engagement of the
employees. Managers will not be able to appraise all the staff members appropriately.
 Less effective decision making: Bad service delivery practices will affect the decision
making process of employees as they will not be able to form appropriate decisions
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regarding the issues that customers are facing. When appropriate decision are not made
by the managers than this will affect overall profitability of the organisation because they
will not be able to find solutions for customer's problems.
 Lack of support from the staff members: If staff members are having issues with
management regarding their wages and value this will create problems for the
management of the organisation because the employees wont support them. Management
is responsible to direct and instruct staff members so that they can perform all the tasks
appropriately and when they are not supporting the management than it is not possible to
operate all the executional activities appropriately.
All the above described impacts are identified by the service quality consultant of
Sunderland International Hotel. It has been suggested to the managers to establish good relations
with their employees and give them value so that all the issues of the customers can be resolved
appropriately.
3. Customer Feedback System that can be used to monitor and continually improve service
quality
Consumer Feedback System: A System which is used to collect information directly from
consumer about satisfaction and dissatisfaction they feel with a product and a service is known
as CFS. Comments and complaints that are given to business are important resource to serve
consumer by addressing their wants. In today's changing scenario consumers satisfaction is
preferred at first position by every business. As it is believed that a satisfied consumer will
always turn as an asset for business. In this case, Sunderland International Hotel is serving large
number of consumer and they personally take reviews of guests after 15 minutes of check-in.
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Consumers are not attended by hotel staff properly and to resolve issues guests needs to
wait for hours. Due to bookings on continuous basis staff is not able to attend guests properly
and no opinion is shared by them. Sunderland International Hotel now also available with
conference hall facility, meetings and venue for weddings and other function facility. As area to
provide service has increased and bookings are at 200% then before. But in comparison to this,
no extra focus is made in providing satisfactory services to consumers. This leads to dissatisfied
consumer group and negative image of hotel is created. Technology plays very important role to
provide information to interested visitors about quality of service is provided by Sunderland
International Hotel. Trip advisor provides reviews to hotel that includes various issues that need
to be resolved. Also guests of hotel are mentioning their comments on Facebook page of hotel
and no reply is given to them (Oriol, Marco and Franch, 2014).
To solve various issues relating to quality of service provided by hotel, reviews of
consumers must be in needed and various methods to get consumer feedback are as follows-
At the Hotel Itself
The earliest and most effective method to collect reviews of hotel by their guests is at the
time when guests are present in hotel. Best part about this feedback is to transport a negative
feedback into positive one by handling issue at same time and satisfying guests about issue
involved. If a guest is unhappy with some services then can be provided with better services at
same time.
At hotel, manager and staff members can approach consumers about their feedback through-
 Feedback Card- This is one of the oldest way, but remarkably effective. Cards are
provided to consumers in their rooms, at hotel lobby, in restaurant and at reception. Every
guest should be asked to fill that card and provide their reviews regarding what
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improvements are suggested for better services. Feedback such as “Great facilities but
Poor services” creates a negative impact and providing feedback card stops this type of
comment to spread more. Problems are resolves and compensation is provided on the
spot (Emerson, McGill and Mansell, 2013).
 Feedback Via Phone Call- Consumer relationship manager at hotel personally call to
their guests and check how they are enjoying their stay. Their feedback for any other
service is also needed to be taken. Despite of feedback having a conversation with guests
about their stay will make them feel that hotel staff really cares about them. In
Sunderland International Hotel front desk is busy and guests can not interact with
managers this call facilitates consumers to gather required information on phone call
only.
 Personal Interaction- Hotel staff is reluctant to speak to their guest, thinking they are
disturbing their privacy. Personal interaction must be done at right time and do not
interact while guests are in middle of something or in rush. Guests are quite friendly at
breakfast table,in pool area and in activity areas. Guests should be interacted in such
manner that it did not look like any investigation. Issues like 1 hour check-in time and
accommodating wedding guests attracts attention when guests are personally asked for
quality of service provided.
Social Media:
Use of social media is continuously increasing and in today's world online feedbacks are
available on social media. Travellers all over the world made online bookings for their stay and
reviews at social media have huge impact on their decision. It is seen that increase in positive
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online reviews is proportional to increase in reservations. Social media is considered as a right
channel to get consumer feedback.
 Online Interaction With Guests- Having Hotels Facebook, Instagram and twitter page
and encouraging consumers to tag hotel in their posts. Providing reviews in comments
box at hotels page and posting their experience helps to know about consumers
suggestions. As Facebook page of Sunderland International Hotel is getting negative
feedbacks and no revert is provided to them. This creates negative image of hotel to
online consumers and in current situation most of bookings are done online so Facebook
reviews must be taken seriously.
 Handling Disgruntled consumers online- Social medial has become an engaging
platform when it comes to expressing views and opinions. Feedback on Facebook page of
hotel is very common and a hotel staff should always check this page on regular basis.
Any grievances should be resolved before situation become out of control.
 Online Reviews- Online travel review website gives insight of what travellers have to
say about property. Consider each review equally important and any negative feedback is
to tack seriously and steps are taken to resolve them (Bowling, 2014).
Feedback Email
Send email to outgoing consumers with an attachment to fill reviews about consumers.
For this method mailing address of consumers are required.
Consumer feedback loop:
Consumer feedback loop is considered as one of the most effective method to improve
quality of service provided by Sunderland International Hotel as per consumers need. This
feedback loop helps to constantly collect, learn and apply suggestions that are provided by
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consumers. In a research it is concluded that approximately 79% of consumers like to make
another purchase if experience to enjoy that service was good. In this competitive world 89% of
consumers switch to other competitor if service is not satisfactory.
Consumer Feedback Loop is a strategy for constant improvement in services based on
users suggestions and opinions. It is based on the naturally recurring pattern “mutual casual
interaction”. In this action of both the parties have a mutual impact on each other. On negative
feedback by consumer company will react and on every positive step of hotel consumers react
positively.
Using feedback loop will brings many benefits. It is a foundation of consumer
engagement process. Through this feedback system Sunderland International Hotel's
management staff will be up to date with needs and complaints of consumers. Following this
method that focuses on more satisfied consumers will uncover more opportunities to have good
relationship with consumers. Quickly reacting to needs of consumers will reduce consumers
complaints. This consumer feedback loop have three stages that are followed to improve quality
of service by Sunderland International Hotel these steps are as follows-
 Gather: To solve any issue, first of all that issue must be known to hotel. There are
variety of ways that are discussed above to collect feedbacks of consumers. This is one of
the most effective method to collect issues that are required to solve to improve quality of
service provided by Sunderland International Hotel.
 Analyse: Once data is collected it has to be analysed. Only collecting problems is not
sufficient but also a valid solution is required to solve each problem. After collecting
various feedbacks and noting different issues such as-
- poor services and more waiting time to check-in
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- front desk is busy to make any inquiry and staff is not properly responding to different
issues of guest
- guest at wedding are not attended properly and manager took weeks to resolve any
issue.
All these issue are analysed under this loop and a pattern of issues will be created. Identify
causes and points of this issue and also various steps are drawn to resolve these issues one by one
(Hermann and Flecker, 2013).
 Apply: When management is available with solution to theses problems its time to fix all
these issues. A good starting point is a most critical issues. Consumers must be kept
updated with improvements that are provided in hotel services. Its very important to
inform consumers that their feedbacks are very important and all possible steps are taken
to solve them.
Big issue relating to non availability of manager for a week and problem is not solved on
the spot. Instead of this refund if provided to consumers which was not necessary as negativity
reviews is created. And providing refunds after long time doesn't make any sense. Sunderland
International Hotel must follow consumer feedback loop to attract more consumer by providing
better quality services.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report it has been concluded that for all the business entities who
are operating business under hospitality industry it is very important to offer and render good
quality services to the customers. This will help to gain trust of clients and gather their feedback
so that modifications can be made in service delivery system. If customers are not satisfied with
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the services of an organisation than it is the main responsibility of the staff members to satisfy
visitors and resolve all their issues.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Chen, H. G. and et. al., 2012. The impact of financial services quality and fairness on customer
satisfaction. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal. 22(4). pp.399-421.
Thaichon, P., Lobo, A. and Mitsis, A., 2014. An empirical model of home internet services
quality in Thailand. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics. 26(2). pp.190-
210.
Hekmatpou, D. and et. al., 2012. A survey on the quality of medical services in teaching
hospitals of Arak University of Medical Sciences with SERVQUL model in Arak,
2010.
DAILY, J. E., KIEFF, F. S. and WILMARTH JR, A. E., 2014. Introduction. In Perspectives on
Financing Innovation (pp. 13-16). Routledge.
Wilson, A. and et. al., 2012. Services marketing: Integrating customer focus across the firm (No.
2nd Eu). McGraw Hill.
Oyman, O. and Singh, S., 2015. Quality of experience for HTTP adaptive streaming
services. IEEE Communications Magazine. 50(4).
Kongstvedt, P. R., 2012. Essentials of managed health care. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Dye, C., Reeder, J. C. and Terry, R. F., 2013. Research for universal health coverage.
Bowling, A., 2014. Research methods in health: investigating health and health services.
McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Oriol, M., Marco, J. and Franch, X., 2014. Quality models for web services: A systematic
mapping. Information and software technology. 56(10). pp.1167-1182.
Emerson, E., McGill, P. and Mansell, J., 2013. Severe learning disabilities and challenging
behaviours: Designing high quality services. Springer.
Hermann, C. and Flecker, J. eds., 2013. Privatization of public services: impacts for employment,
working conditions, and service quality in Europe. Routledge.
Online
Methods of service quality management. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.userlike.com/en/blog/measuring-service-quality>
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