Comparative Analysis of Customer Service in Hilton and Marriott Hotels

This report provides a comprehensive comparison of customer service practices between Hilton and Marriott Hotels. It examines their customer service policies, employee training programs, service guarantees, and complaint handling procedures. The report delves into the specifics of each hotel, analyzing their approaches to surveys, conflict management, technology integration, and customer engagement. It highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each hotel's strategies, offering insights into how they maintain customer loyalty and improve service quality. Furthermore, the report concludes with recommendations for developing and improving customer-focused services, emphasizing the importance of technology, rewarding loyal customers, creating a positive environment, and providing excellent greetings and guidance to enhance the overall customer experience in the hospitality industry.

Customer Service in Hospitality
Management

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
Comparison of the two hotel’s customer service practices and policies and service quality
vision......................................................................................................................................2
Marriott Hotel London.....................................................................................................................3
Comparison of the two hotel’s service guarantees and complaint handling procedures........4
Marriott Hotel London.....................................................................................................................4
Recommendation on the development for appropriate customer focused services...............5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Customer service is defined as the service to the customer before, during and after purchase
of a product or a service by the firm. This is a very important tool in any business for
maintaining long term relationships with a customer for brand and customer loyalty (WHY
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS IMPORTANT IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY,
2020). In this report, business considered is hotel industry. Two hotels are taken, first is Hilton
hotel founded in 1919 and second is Marriott hotel founded in 1927. They both are the leading
international brands in hotel industry which are expanded all over the world. The following
discussions are made on the comparisons of both the hotels in terms of customer service,
policies, culture, strategies, procedures and service guarantees. Moreover, recommendations are
also made from the developing and improving the customer service point of view.
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MAIN BODY
Comparison of the two hotel’s customer service practices and policies and service quality vision
Hilton Hotel London
 Surveys: Hotels used to survey the customers for their service feedbacks and some
improvement needed in the hotel room servicing and or any other things related to
cleanliness or behaviour (Baker and Kim, 2018). It is done by online forms, physical
forms, chit systems, normal paper and many other forms that helps the firm in it’s
surveys. Training to employees: It is important to train the hotel’s workforce to handle the
customer’s activities and deal with them politely. Hotel provides proper training and
development to their workers in order to maintain customer and business relationship for
a long term. This benefits the firm in different ways like customer and brand loyalty. Dealing with customers: This practice decides that where the firm can go in future, either
could get succession or failure. Because until and unless the dealing with customers
cannot be in proper etiquettes and in relaxing or calm way then won’t be possible for the
hotel to gain attention from new customers as well. Hotel has looked into this practice
and now it is a leading brand. Problem solving behaviour: Disputes are the part of every business so it cannot be
considered a serious problem unless an employee knows how to handle it. Hotel must
have the quality of problem solving behaviour so that dispute handling can be in an
appropriate manner so that customer servicing could also be more effective. Holiday offers: Every customer hopes from the hotel that it should provide some
discounts or offers on some extra purchasing or on occasion basis. Hotel has many offers
regarding holiday packages, discounts, repeated customer offers, loyalty cards and many
more offerings to the customers which lead to gain the attraction from the customers
(Johnson, Park and Bartlett, 2018). Technology based: Technology is essential in today’s world. Old as well as new
generations are using technology at a very great pace. Hotel took an advantage of this
technical trend and start using advanced technology for customers servicing. This has
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assisted the firm to gain more sales and profit generation due to this regular dynamic
technical environment of the firm.
Marriott Hotel London Training to employees: This practice is similar to the Hilton hotel. Because this policy is
very essential that every firm adopts not only in hotel industry but also in every industry
just to train the employees according to the firm’s operations and to generate productivity
for the hotel. Development of workforce is important for the firm as well as for the
employee’s personal growth also (Kasemsap, 2017). Commitment to customers: Some firms promises most of things at the time of promoting
and advertising it’s services which they fail when it comes to really execute their
promises. Making commitment is easy but following that is difficult. Hotel made this
promise and kept it at the time of serving the customers. They achieved their commitment
to it’s customers for their loyalty for the long term. Values and ethics: These are the things which every customer focuses on while entering
into the hotel. It is important for every firm to maintain it’s values and ethics while
serving the customers and production part in terms of raw materials, quality of food and
various values, ethics and even laws that are followed by the firm. Surveys: This practice similar to the Hilton hotel. Because this is given first preference
when it comes to the better servicing to the customers. Every firm wants to gain customer
loyalty which can be achieved by market and customer surveys so as to analyse the
positive and negative compliments and interpret the scope of improvements according to
the feedback recorded (Kim and Baker, 2019). Conflict management: This practice is a skill which is needed in every organization for
the smooth functioning and operation of the firm. Hotel adopted this that is why it is one
of the leading hotel around the world. Problem solving behaviour, dispute handling and
conflict management are key skills that is compulsorily required by the firm. Service with advancements: This practice is related to the creativeness, innovation and
up gradation of the servicing to the customers so that customers also feel something new
every time while being served this can attract new as well as existing customers more and
this practice is adopted by this hotel for effective servicing to the customers.
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Comparison of the two hotel’s service guarantees and complaint handling procedures
Hilton Hotel London Apologize: It is the very important thing to manage and handle complaints from
customers. Because apologizing is a primary step to handle such issues. Customers feel
more good if they hear sorry after being the victim of some bad service. This makes sure
that the customer will definitely visit again to the hotel (Kuo, Chen and Tseng, 2017). Listening to them: If the customer is complaining about some food item or some poor
service, it is better to be silent for some time and listen to them silently and observing the
complaints that what they are trying to say about the servicing so that the next time it is
easy to improve the same. Moreover, customer also feels nice that the workers are
listening to them by concentrating on the talks of what they are complaining about. Minimal arguments: It is an essential step to handle customer complaints because
customer don’t like if employees argue with them at any cost while they are complaining.
It is the responsibility of the workers to listen to them carefully without arguing on
anything and start speaking when they finish saying their word. This impresses the
customers and can take their bad servicing lightly if it handled correctly by the workers. Giving some offerings in place of poor servicing: If hotel seems that they are not able to
manage the complaints by the customers. Then they offers something good in place of
bad servicing like next time discount, special offers, extra meal, unlimited food, free pool
service and many more offers which relaxes the customer who is complaining so that
they visit next time for sure to recover those poor services and hotel makes sure that next
time everything must be perfect for that customer so that hotel can gain loyalty through
that (Shen and Tang, 2018). Keep it professional: It is important to be more professional because taking the problem
personally can convert the complaints into big conflicts which can be very difficult to
manage. Therefore, handling and managing these types of situations in a professional
way can benefit the firm more rather than taking it personally because it generates
egoistic situation which is not good for any firm.
Marriott Hotel London Respond instantly: This complaint is related to the social media and online handling of
complaints. Online delaying in reverting back can make the customer angrier so hotel
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tries to keep it as fast as possible for the full customer satisfaction. This can lead to the
hotel in gaining good reputation online and rankings of the hotel with brand loyalty. Mistakes acceptance: This is the first step of handling customers complaints. Everyone
don’t accept their mistakes, but acknowledging the mistake impresses the customers, they
think at least the workers had accepted their mistakes otherwise accepting is the big
problem in any firm because it clearly shows the etiquettes that the staff is containing in
them (Teng, 2019). Taking follow up: While the customer is complaining about the bad service, it is
important to take follow up or feedback instantly so that customers realizes that the staff
itself is favouring them in counting of the mistakes and assures that next time it will not
happen at all, special care must taken next time so that the customers could be satisfied at
their level of easiness. Isolation of guest: It is necessary for the hotel’s staff to isolate the customer who is
complaining in another room or other non-crowded area so that the other customers who
is enjoying the meal would not get distracted about the complaints. This is done to save
the hotel’s image in front of the other customers so that they would not change any
perception about the hotel by hearing or watching such negative comments on the hotel. Favourable conclusion: After listening to the customers, making them believe that next
time it will not repeat the same mistake, by offering them some good things in place of
bad servicing and more convincing part, it is important to conclude this part in a positive
manner by the staff of the hotel so that exiting makes customer more comfortable and
excites them to visit again.
Recommendation on the development for appropriate customer focused services Using more technology: Today’s generation is fonder of technology rather than physical
features. Firm needs to create user friendly website so that is can be easy for them to
navigate and search for the desired item. This can increase the search engine optimization
ranking of the hotel which can benefit the firm in a large way (Ye, Lyu and He, 2019). Reward to loyal customers: It is important to offer some discounts, special offers or
some gifts and rewards to loyal customers so that their loyalty could be maintained for a
long term and it can also benefit in gaining the attraction of new customers towards the
hotel. This practice helps the firm in better sales and revenue generation.
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 Try to achieve overall experience better of the customers: Firm must not wait for the
feedback or complaints from the customers for improvement. But they should themselves
analyse that what needs to be improved for better experience of the customers. This
makes the customers to visit again and again to the hotel to see new improvement by the
staff in servicing or anything else (Zhu, Lyu, Deng and Ye, 2017). Maintain positive environment: Try to create the good aroma and maintain decorum in
the hotel. This generates positivity in the environment of the hotel which directly
impresses the customers by staying there for long hours and making them believe that
this positive environment can touch their soul by best servicing by the staff of the hotel. Greetings and guidance: Customers always search for the proper respect in a hotel with
best attending service by the staff of the hotel. So greetings are the first step to achieve
this practice and second is guidance because customers want the staff to guide them in all
aspect either in selecting food item or staying in the type of room in a the hotel. Spaces for coworking: Now a days many business meetings and conferences are
organized in the hotels for proper environment and simultaneously having lunch or dinner
itself in the hotel. Therefore, it is important for the hotel to construct the separate area for
business deals and meetings, this is mainly done for the discipline or sophistication
among business people (Zhu, Lam and Lai, 2019). Keep track of customer preferences: The customers who are visiting frequently and are
ordering same thing every time, then it is essential to keep records of those customers that
what they generally order, what they like and what not. This helps the customer in
gaining positive mind set about the servicing of the hotel whenever they visit again in the
hotel.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that customer service is very important part in any business and especially in
hospitality industry. Here two different brands are taken in this report and discussions are made
about the servicing and improvement in the customer relationship management part. Comparing
both of the brands in context of customer service practice, policies and further innovations and
that is why they are considered as the leading brands in hotel industry by making customer
services their priority.
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REFERENCES
Books and journal
Baker, M.A. and Kim, K., 2018. Other customer service failures: emotions, impacts, and
attributions. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. 42(7). pp.1067-1085.
Johnson, K.R., Park, S. and Bartlett, K.R., 2018. Perceptions of customer service orientation,
training, and employee engagement in Jamaica’s hospitality sector. European Journal
of Training and Development.
Kasemsap, K., 2017. Mastering customer service, customer experience, and customer orientation
in the hospitality and tourism industry. In Handbook of research on holistic
optimization techniques in the hospitality, tourism, and travel industry (pp. 115-140).
IGI Global.
Kim, Y.S. and Baker, M.A., 2019. Observer reactions to other customer incivility. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Kuo, C.M., Chen, L.C. and Tseng, C.Y., 2017. Investigating an innovative service with
hospitality robots. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Shen, J. and Tang, C., 2018. How does training improve customer service quality? The roles of
transfer of training and job satisfaction. European management journal. 36(6).
pp.708-716.
Teng, H.Y., 2019. Job crafting and customer service behaviors in the hospitality industry:
Mediating effect of job passion. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 81, pp.34-42.
Ye, Y., Lyu, Y. and He, Y., 2019. Servant leadership and proactive customer service
performance. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Zhu, H., Lyu, Y., Deng, X. and Ye, Y., 2017. Workplace ostracism and proactive customer
service performance: A conservation of resources perspective. International Journal
of Hospitality Management, 64, pp.62-72.
Zhu, J.N., Lam, L.W. and Lai, J.Y., 2019. Returning good for evil: A study of customer incivility
and extra-role customer service. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 81, pp.65-72.
Online:
WHY CUSTOMER SERVICE IS IMPORTANT IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY .
2020. Available Through< https://www.ahaworldcampus.com/b/customer-service-
important-hospitality-industry>./
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