Service quality

Service quality

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
A critical evaluation of the main theories and principles of managing service quality. Justify
the importance of measuring service quality...............................................................................1
A critical appraisal of the management of service quality for the given service organisation in
the case study, establishing the impact of its current service delivery practices on the
motivation and engagement of staff............................................................................................6
Customer feedback system..........................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
It is very important for company to provide high quality services to its customers in order to
meet with their needs and wants. Service quality can be describe as the comparison of customers
expectation from company with the actual performance of organisation (Dabholkar, 2015). High
quality services play crucial role in overall growth and development of business and help in
enhancing customer base. Customer prefer organisation that is able to provide high quality
services in order to enhance their experience. Organisation with high level of service quality is
significant and capable to meet with the expectation of customers and this will help company in
remaining economically competitive. This report is based on Park Avenue hotel. This is 4 star
hotel that is operating business practices in Central London since 2005. This hotel is located to
close to Bond street station and this hotel includes various modern and stylish en suite rooms.
This is well established hotel that is providing its effective products and services form number of
years. This hotel has enhance business operations and opened conference and banqueting suite in
order to provide event venue. Currently this hotel is facing issues in service quality management
and not able to provide services as per the requirements of customers. There is various issues that
will lead to decrease customer satisfaction and impact on business activities. In this report
different principle and theory of managing service quality has been determined along with the
importance of measuring service quality. It will include the impact on current service delivery
practices on motivation and engagement of staff member. Apart from this customer feedback
system framework that could be use by company for monitoring and improvement in service
quality has been produce.
MAIN BODY
A critical evaluation of the main theories and principles of managing service quality. Justify the
importance of measuring service quality.
Service quality management is important part of business and it will lead to have major
impact on overall performance or organisation (Kaura, Prasad and Sharma, 2015). Park Avenue
hotel is dealing in hospitality sector and there are many companies which are providing its
products and services in this industry. It is very important for respective organisation to increase
business quality services in order to attain more customers as well as gaining competitive edge
over other rival companies. Management of service quality is significant for understanding the
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need and want of customers as well as full filling it in best possible manner. Park Avenue
company is able to manage its services quality as well as provide high quality services to its
potential customer by identifying requirement of customer and understanding expectations of
customers from company. Management of service quality will assist organisation to determine
potential shortfalls in organisation and determining how they can be resolved in order to improve
quality of services (Hussain, Nasser and Hussain, 2015). High service quality is significant for
developing customer base and attracting more customers towards organisation. This will help
Park Avenue company to improve its overall performance and enhance profitability of business.
There are different theories and principles that is useful for managing service quality of Park
Avenue hotel. The theory of managing service quality as well as principle of service quality
management is mention below –
Gap model of service quality
This is one of the effective model that is significant for company to understand
customer satisfaction. Gap model of service quality is developed by A. Parasuraman, Valarie
Zeithaml and Leonard L. Berry in year 1985. The motive of developing this model is to
determine the gap in service quality provided by company and expectation of customers. The gap
model of service quality is significant for determining five major satisfaction gap that
organisation must address when seeking to meet customers’ expectations. This model state that
perception of customer has major impact on customer satisfaction level. If customers perception
regarding quality of services is successfully meet then customers is satisfied and if organisation
is not able to meet with the perception of customer then they will not be satisfied by company
service quality (Izogo and Ogba, 2015). This model is effective in determining different gaps in
customer expectation and quality services.
Gap 1 – Knowledge gap
This can be describe as the difference between the expectation of customers of the
services and provision of company for providing its services. Knowledge gap is majorly because
management of respective company is not aware about the requirement of customers and their
expectation with the company. Due to lack of knowledge about customer need and requirements
organisation is not able to successfully meet demand of customers.
Gap 2 – The policy gap
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The policy gap refer as the gap between understanding of management regarding customer need
and its translation into service deli very policies and standards. This is the gap with in
organisation due to lack of customer service standards. Respective company face this gap
because of poorly define service levels. Failure of company to update service level standards
lead to increase in policy gap.
Gap 3 – The delivery gap
This gap refer as the difference in delivery policies of services or standards of
company to actual delivery of services to customers (Dhar, 2015). The delivery gap increases
due to incapability of organisation to successfully provide or deliver its services to customers
which is as per the standards of company. Lack of human resource policies to correctly provide
services to customers and enhance their experience.
Gap 4 – The communication gap
This is the gap in services quality due to incapability of organisation to provide
services what is communicated through promotions. If company is not able to meet with the
expectation of customers developed because of promising through promotions and
advertisements is consider a communication gap.
Gap 5 – The customer gap
This is the gap in service quality due to difference in expectation of customer and
perception of customer regarding services. The customer gap increase because customers are not
able to understand what services is provided and has done for them and due to this they
misinterpret the quality of services provided by company.
Quality management principles
There are different principles that are related to quality management. It is very important for
respective company to consider quality management practices in order to successfully enhance
business services as well as meet with the needs of customers. Various principles of quality
management principles are mention below in detail – Customer focus – This principle state that company needs to focus on need and want of
customers as this will help in enhancing overall quality of services. Through customer
focus quality of services can be improved by respective company as well as customer
expectation can be successfully met.
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 Leadership – Leaders play crucial role in providing direction and guidance to employees
in order to improve quality of services. Effective leadership practices are significant for
improving capability and potential for employees to successfully attain quality objective
of respective company.
 Engagement of people – It is very important for Park Avenue company to enhance
employee engagement practices as it will lead to help in increasing overall performance
of employees and improve quality of company (Giovanis, Athanasopoulou and
Tsoukatos, 2015). Engagement of people will assist in enhancing potential to create
value.
 Process approach – As per this principle it has been analysed that consistent and
predictable results can be achieve through proper process approaches. This is significant
for managing quality of services and successfully performing business task in desired
manner.
 Improvement – This is important principle of quality management and enhancing
business practices. Improvement is important part of business and it will assist in
increasing performance and quality of services of organisation.
 Evidence based decision making – It is essential for respective company to take evidence
based decisions. This type of decision will help company to increase business process by
taking correct decision that will lead to growth of business. Evidence based decision
making principle is effective for improvement in decision making process of Park
Avenue company and taking correct decision at right time.
 Relationship management – It is important for company to develop strong relationship
with partner, suppliers, employees, customers and other parties with the motive of
increasing business quality services (Gupta, 2018). This is very effective and useful for
successfully accomplishing desired goals and meeting with the expectation of customers.
Importance of measuring service quality
It is very important for Park Avenue hotel to measure and determine the service quality
provided to customers. There are various benefits and advantages that could be attain by
respective company through correctly measuring the services quality. It is essential that company
is successfully analysed and evaluating the quality services in correct manner as it will lead to
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have major impact on over all performance and potential of company. There are different
measures which are significant for measuring quality of services offered by company as well as
increasing it in correct and appropriate manner. Different importance of measuring quality
services of respective company is mention below in detail –
 Determining service quality gap – Measuring of quality services is significant in
determining the gap in the services of company and expectation of organisation. it is
important for organisation to timely measure and evaluate the quality of services
provided to customers as well as what is the expectation of customers with the company.
Through this process Park Avenue organisation will be able to determine the actual
performance and quality of services. This is effective in taking better decision for
company along with this helps in identifying the potential and capabilities of company.
Measuring of quality services of respective company is significant for taking better
decision as well as improving performance in future.
 Improving services – Park Avenue company needs to measure and identify the actual
quality of services in order to improve services of business. It is important for company
to have correct information and understanding about the current services that is offered
by company to its targeted customers (Namin, 2017). Measurement of quality of services
is significant to identifying the actual position of company as well as expectation of
customers form respective hotels. This will help Park Avenue company to take correct
and accurate step to improve service quality. Measuring services quality is important for
enhancing quality of services as well as attaining desired goals.
 Increase customers values – It is crucial for respective company to measure quality of
services in order to improve value of customers. By measuring quality of services as well
as offering of company respective organisation is able to identify the areas in which
company need to improve. Measuring will help organisation to take correct and effective
decision to improve the quality of services provided and it is significant for increasing
customer values (Huang, Lin and Fan, 2015). Potential customers will be satisfied by
the quality of services offered by company and it will help in developing strong customer
base.
 Retaining customers – Quality of services provided by customers is very important for
meeting with the need and want of customers as well as retaining them for longer time
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duration with the customers. Measuring of quality services is consider to be important for
Park Avenue company for retaining customers as well as maintaining strong relationship
with them. This is helpful in increase capability and potential of company to successfully
increase business practices and retaining customers with the company.
A critical appraisal of the management of service quality for the given service organisation in the
case study, establishing the impact of its current service delivery practices on the
motivation and engagement of staff.
Park Avenue hotel is operating its services in Central London for many year and it is providing
high quality products and services to its potential customers in order to satisfy their need and
wants. The facilities of this hotel includes gym, spa, swimming pool and so on in order to
increase the over all visiting experience of customers. Employees of respective hotel was
effectively communicating with customers and providing services that will help in meeting with
the requirement of customers. Park Avenue hotel has expanding its business operation which
have impact over performance and profitability of business. With the increase in business
operation and services offered by hotel to its customer the revenues has been increased but there
is decrease is quality of service provided. There are various issues and problems faced by
company with have affected the services quality and impact over motivation of employees. It is
essential for respective company to analyse and evaluate the overall performance and quality of
services offered by company to customers in order to take better and effective decision. It is very
important that Park Avenue hotel is critically analysing and determining its services as it will
help in better decision making (Giovanis, Athanasopoulou and Tsoukatos, 2015). It has been
identified that with the increase in offering such as conferences, meeting area or weddings space
as well as other function there is improvement in room booking along with event bookings
combination. This lead to have impact over profitability of business. But manager has
determined that number of complains of customers has been increased. It has been identified that
in the last six months Trip Advisor has highlighted the different issues and problems faced by
customers of Park Avenue and it lead to have negative impact on business image.
Most of the complaint was related to quality of services offered by hotel to customers. Manager
has analysed and determined all the complaints of customers in order to resolve these issues.
Issues in services quality of respective hotel includes that Park Avenue is able to offer great
facilities to customer but there is poor services. Customers has to wait for longer time as front
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desk is busy. Due to lack of staff member in the Park Avenue hotel there is issues or problem
faced by customers. Callous attitude of waiter to solve the problem of customers and there is no
apologies from hotel side for the inconvenience provided to customers. it is essential for
respective hotel to increase quality of services offered by company in order to successfully over
come with the issues (Oh and Kim, 2017). This hotel was well known for the quality of services
offering to customers. Park Avenue hotel used to operate on high standards of services as well as
assurance of good quality of services. respective hotel includes personalized approach with the
motive of enhancing experience of customers as well as develop long term relationships. But
with the increase in hotel occupations and staff turnover issues respective company is not able to
upheld the standards.
Currently Park Avenue company is not able to successfully provide its products and services
to customers. This will lead to have major negative impact over performance of company and
affect its customer base. Manager of hotel has determine that there is increase in customer
complaints and respective organisation is failing to providing high quality services to customers.
This is directly affecting business practices and organisation is not able to achieve desired goals
and objectives (Priporas and et.al., 2017). It has been determined that there is negative impact of
current service delivery practices on motivation and engagement of staff members. Due to
increase in customer complaints morale and performance of staff member is decreasing. This
lead to have direct impact over capability and potential of employees. it is very important for
respective company to motivate employees and improve employee engagement practices in order
to increase the overall performance of staff member as well as motivate them to conduct business
activities in significant manner. Park Avenue hotel has enhanced business practices with the
development of conference, banqueting suite. This has assist in increasing room and event
booking combination. Due to increase in business practices there are different issues and
problems faced by company such as customer complaints has been risen within this period.
Current services of Park Avenues have increase the workload of employees and impact over
potential to conduct task in significant manner. This has directly influence motivation and
engagement practices of company. There is lack of motivation in employees of Park Avenue
hotel as there is no rewards scheme or active empowerment of the staff member. Respective
company is not conducting any practices for motivating employees or increase their potential to
conduct business task in more effective manner. Due to no rewards system of schemes in this
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hotel employees are not willing to enhance their performance or provide effective quality
services to customers. Park Avenue hotel is based on bureaucratic style of management and in
this empowerment is lacking. In bureaucratic style of management respective company is not
considering the ideas and view point of employees. In this style respective company is providing
direction to employees and staff member will have followed it. This lead to create very strict
working culture and there are various rules or regulation for employees. This will decrease
motivation level of employees and lead to lack of employee engagement practices. Due to
current service delivery practices there is not recognition of the work performed by employees
and company is not appreciating extra efforts put by staff member to meet customers
expectation. This lead to de-motivate employees and reduction in performance or potential of
employees. Performance of employees is decreasing and company is not able to attain desired
goals and objectives. It is essential for respective company to enhance motivation and employee
engagement practices for improving overall performance of company as well as reducing
complains of customers. Park Avenue organisation needs to successfully provide timely training
to its employees so that their capability and potential to conduct business task in improved. It is
crucial for respective company to focus on personal and professional growth of employees
through effective and efficient training practices. This will help in boosting moral of employees
and motivating to conduct business task in more effective and efficient manner. It will have
positive impact on overall performance of respective company and improving customer base.
Customer feedback system
It is necessary for the organization to manage the customer feedback in an appropriate
manner so that it can achieve its objectives related to maintenance of customer for longer period
of time. Customer feedback management can be defined centralized which can be used by the
company to take its core customers complaint ideas suggestion and request in relation to the
products and services offered by firm. In reference to Park Avenue hotel, can use different kind
of approaches a related to customer feedback management. It is mandatory for the organization
to develop a proper process related to customer feedback so that it can identify the queries of
customers and can take a corrective action. Customer feedback management system can be
manually managed within the organization. There are different kinds of software which can be
used by the organization to manage the feedbacks of customer. In relation to Park Avenue hotel,
is facing difficulty in managing the customer feedback because of improper software and system
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in an organization. It is mandatory for the organization to use a proper system which will help in
managing the customer feedback and improving customer experience. This will also impact on
productivity and profitability of the organization. For managing the feedbacks of customer there
is a particular process which can be used by Park Avenue hotel. ACAF customer feedback loop
is a method which can be used by the organization to manage the feedbacks of the customer. The
four steps system which are combined in a loop and can be used by the organization. All these
steps are discussed below:
Ask: This is directly linked to the organization where it can ask from the customer about
the feedback related to production services offered by the firm. There are different kinds of Max
which can be solved by getting the openings for the customers as well as using system related to
feedback management. In relation to Park Avenue hotel, it can use emails file complaints
walkthrough feature request opinions and various other methods to ask the customer about the
feedback related to the service offered to them. Organization can also use communication tools
in service as a feedback collection system which will provide information regarding problems
faced by the firm and consuming the services offered by the organization. It is better system for
your organization because it helps in identifying the feedbacks from the customers by generally
asking them. In relation to organtional this is mean in gives direct asking system from its
customer care they can provide feedback related to the services any form of feedback letter
questionnaire and survey. This will help the organization in identifying the actual needs and
requirement of customers buy directly asking about the services offered to them.
Categories: After asking the feedback from the customer it is a stage which is related to
categorizing the feedback into different categories. It is mandatory for the organization to
categories the feedback in different categories according to the level of feedback. In relation to
Park Avenue hotel, manager has to feedback categorizing them in three stages. First stage
involves feedbacks which are related to services offered by the organization to the customers.
Second category upload feedbacks related to the management staff. Third stage will include the
feedback related to both services offered to the customer’s management staff and it also includes
other categories of feedback. This will help the organization in managing the feedback corporate
manner as well as identifying the complaints of customers. Also improve the customer
satisfaction because by categorizing the feedback in different category organization can easily
identified a particular sector unit where has to improve. In relation to the present scenario of Park
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Avenue hotel, also use different kind of categorizing approaches where it can use to categories
feedbacks in different categories. It can categories the feedback in product feedbacks customer
service feedback and marketing and sales feedbacks. This will help the organization and
identification of feedback related to vertical department and utilizing the information in an
appropriate manner. Organizations working within the hospitality industry where it is important
for the firm to categories its feedbacks and some groups as well as in real-time customer
feedback solution systems so that it can plan, collect, share and organize the information and
data in an appropriate way to reach at the solution of a customer feedback.
Act: After completion of categorising stage under the feedback management system, now
there is turn of acting on a particular feedback. After all the data is is properly completed into
different group it is important for the organisation to share the data with the product customer
support marketing sales teams and relevant team for solving the queries of the customers. This is
because there is no logic behind asking about the feedback from the customers if organisation is
not going to solve the issues of the customer and not using it for organisational and customer
benefits. In context of Park Avenue hotel, it is working in appropriate direction where
organisation in use system to help the departments and identification of their feedback. Here,
after categorising allocation is important so that appropriate response can be given on the
queries. This will bring customer satisfaction as well as proper solution to the customer’s
feedback for improving the relations with the customers and maintaining them for a longer
period of time but solving their queries and feedbacks.
Follow up: It is the most important stage under this process of feedback management
where organisation has to follow the feedbacks of the customers in an appropriate manner as
well as provide the appropriate suggestions for monitoring and control. This is related to
following the process in a regular way so that organisation can achieve a separate image within
the market by minimising the rate of feedbacks. This stage also state that, organisation can
regularly follows the processes where the management staffs tries to reduce the rates of feedback
learning from the previous ones. This is helpful to the organisation in managing the feedback
system as well as achieving a separate image in the market by getting a competitive edge on its
competitors. In context of Park Avenue hotel, it is also operating within a hospitality industry
where it is mandatory for the firm to follow a particular process in relation to feedback
management. The current system organisation has to follow the stages in an appropriate way
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where it can monitor and control the performance and can improve the working by reducing the
feedback rate within the organisation.
It can be evaluated from the above mentioned information that it is important for the
organisation to use appropriate system for managing the feedbacks of customers. This is helpful
to the organisation in retaining customers for longer period of time because by managing the
feedback in a successful manner organisation can improve the satisfaction level as well as the
current performance of the firm by analysing the drawbacks and different areas. This will help
the Park Avenue hotel in managing successful business operations and fulfilling that need the
requirement. Organisation can use the process achieving competitive ads by utilising the
resources.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above mentioned report that there are different kind of theories
and principles which can be used by the organisation to managing the service quality as well as
improving and identifying the importance of service quality. It is important for the firm to
improve the quality within the services of the firm so that it can achieve a competitive edge
within the market and can use the resources within the society in an efficient manner. It can also
concluded that managing the service quality is important for the organisation where it will help
the firm like park avenue in improving its current services delivery practices and motivation
within the employees so that they can engage on their work. This is also helpful to the
organisation in increasing the staff interest by motivating them toward the working and
improving the quality services for increasing the customers. it can also see from the above
information that it is important for the organisation to manage the customer feedback system
which help the firm in monitoring and continuously improving the service quality by following a
particular process in relation to customer feedback.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Dabholkar, P.A., 2015. How to improve perceived service quality by increasing customer
participation. In Proceedings of the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual
conference (pp. 483-487). Springer, Cham.
Kaura, V., Prasad, C.S.D. and Sharma, S., 2015. Service quality, service convenience, price and
fairness, customer loyalty, and the mediating role of customer satisfaction. International Journal
of Bank Marketing.
Hussain, R., Al Nasser, A. and Hussain, Y.K., 2015. Service quality and customer satisfaction of
a UAE-based airline: An empirical investigation. Journal of Air Transport Management, 42,
pp.167-175.
Izogo, E.E. and Ogba, I.E., 2015. Service quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty in
automobile repair services sector. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management.
Dhar, R.L., 2015. Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of
organizational commitment. Tourism Management, 46, pp.419-430.
Giovanis, A., Athanasopoulou, P. and Tsoukatos, E., 2015. The role of service fairness in the
service quality–relationship quality–customer loyalty chain. Journal of Service Theory and
Practice.
Gupta, H., 2018. Evaluating service quality of airline industry using hybrid best worst method
and VIKOR. Journal of Air Transport Management, 68, pp.35-47.
Namin, A., 2017. Revisiting customers' perception of service quality in fast food
restaurants. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 34, pp.70-81.
Huang, E.Y., Lin, S.W. and Fan, Y.C., 2015. MS-QUAL: Mobile service quality
measurement. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 14(2), pp.126-142.
Priporas, C.V. and et.al., 2017. Unraveling the diverse nature of service quality in a sharing
economy. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Oh, H. and Kim, K., 2017. Customer satisfaction, service quality, and customer value: years
2000-2015. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
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