Service Marketing: Hilton Hotels Service Encounters and Analysis

This essay examines the service operations of Hilton Hotels in Australia, focusing on front stage and back stage processes and their impact on customer satisfaction. The front stage involves direct interactions with customers, while the back stage supports these interactions without direct custome...Read More

Running head: SERVICES AT HILTON HOTELS
Service marketing
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SERVICES AT HILTON HOTELS
Executive Summary
In this report aspects of service marketing and their influence to establish strong customer
relationships have been presented in context of hotel service business. The case business chosen
here is Hilton hotel that is operating in Australia and their service process has been discussed in
this report. They have two major service operations which are front stage and back stage. In front
stage direct service encounters are made between management of hotel and customers while in
back stage there is no direct or visible service encounters. The back stage process mainly
supports front stage service delivery process. Also service encounters are significant as they
stimulate thinking of customers and influence their purchase intentions. As such these are vital
for both hotel and management so effective measures are undertaken to improve and deliver
better service encounters to serve guest expectations.
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Contents
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................2
Contents......................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................4
Discussion....................................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
In this report service operation of Hilton hotels which is one of the premium category hotels in
Australia has been discussed through demonstration of their front and back stage service
operational processes. These service processes helps to deliver good service delivery so as to
meet expectations and satisfactions of customers. Hilton hotels are a renowned brand in
hospitality service and are present globally. Moreover in this report the significance of service
encounters and their implication on managers is presented for better understanding of service
marketing and relationship with customers.
Discussion
There are various elements of service design and operations within a hotel services industry such
as Hilton hotel, which are:
Customer behaviour and response: according to Teixeira et al. (2012) the customer behaviour
and response occurs when they receive full set of service activity during their stay and check-in
at Hilton hotels within the process of service delivery. Like for instance, customer behaviour and
responses initiates from the moment they step into the Hilton hotel establishment where they are
attended and welcomed during entry and escorted to reception services. Here the guests then start
conversation with the reception executives to confirm their check in details and make a check in
for stay. This front stage process at reception involves allocating a room for stay, systemizing
baggage delivers to rooms and handing over of keys to guests. In some cases the guests also seek
for information of transportation and travel services from hotel attendants. The guests also look
for recreation amenities like gym, pool and indoor sports courts etc as part of Hilton services and
for all such service assistance guests approach executives of Hilton hotels and seek for proper
information and support for services.
Visible touch point activities: according to Wang, Wang and Yang-Fei (2016) these include one
to one activities that occur during interactions amongst the customer and visible front level hotel
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executives. These visible touch point activities involves settling and responding to all form of
information seeking and query conversations from the guests so as to facilitate their customer
actions with appropriate responses and satisfaction. Some of the visible touch point activities that
occur at front level at Hilton hotel are front desk interactions, housekeeping services, dining and
recreational service interactions.
Invisible touch point activities: according to Beltagui, Candi and Riedel (2016) contrary to
visible touch point interactions the invisible touch point activities mostly involve invisible back
stage intercommunication among hotel executives and guests. This describes that in such
activities the hotel staffs do not interact directly with customers in any form of communication
and involves activities like telephonic calls, email exchanges between customer and hotel
executives of Hilton hotels. Although these do not include direct communication but they are
very significant part of service delivery archetype of Hilton hotels.
Support operations: these service routines occur back stages of service operations and do not
include straightforward communication or visibility with guests. But support operations are vital
to insure consistent implementation and rendition of services in Hilton hotels. For instance, these
operations include IT, HR or Accounting operations of hotel.
Physical ambience: according to Andreassen et al. (2016) these involve all things that are visible
and consumable by guests which can create an impression on their thinking and makes
significant implication on their decision behaviour about the service dispositions at Hilton hotels.
For instance the warm welcome that guests receive while entering the premises of hotel and body
language and smile at reception services are all physical ambience vectors that reflects hospitable
services and can impact guests reactions and thinking.
Front stage and Back stage service operations
According to Katzan and Katzan (2015) the operations of service businesses are widely
categorized into two elements i.e. front stage and back stage service operations. The front stage
operations include all activities or operations that are used to directly connect and communicate
with consumers. The executives of Hilton hotel who handle the front stage operations are
proficient with all forms of service encounters that are carried out within hotel services and have
adequate expertise to cope with customers responses to insure that a good service delivery
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archetype is delivered with seamless front stage assistance. According to Pereira (2012) the back
stage operations includes all those activities where hotel executives does not come in direct
contact or communication with consumers and these are mostly carried out behind and not
visible to guests. The back stage operation insures to support front stage service operations so as
to facilitate customer interactions and encounters. The success of Hilton hotel’s hospitality
delivery services is because of the fact that there is a strong cooperation between their front stage
and back stage service operations.
Front Stage Flowchart
Fig 1: Front stage process flowchart
Source: Author
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The illustrated flowchart depicts the front stage service operations that include the service
encounters among the consumer and hotel’s front level executives. As is evident according to
Clatworthy (2012) the front stage service operations accounts for mass of service delivery
operations and direct encounters with customers. The front stage operations of Hilton hotel starts
with major customer behaviour and visible employee responses. The fundamental part of front
stage process begins at front desk or reception of Hilton hotels and these involves welcoming the
guests with a pleasing gesture and assisting them in their check-in process by handling their
personal details, arranging for porter services to rooms, entertaining customer queries and giving
them assistance in case of any booking of transportation or travel services. All these activities are
related to front stage process and communications between customer and staffs of hotel.
According to Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena, McMillan, Pantin, Taller and Willie (2013) each
of the process in front stage renders physical evidence which impacts and makes impression on
guests and influences their satisfaction with service delivery. Hence front stage process of Hilton
hotel are given vital significance as they represent the hospitality aspects of hotel because of
being first point of reference where customers reach and contact and needs high level of
acknowledgement on part of employees to stimulate positive behaviour and perceptions of
customers. The front level employees need to be highly efficient and adaptive to quickly respond
to situations based on intuitions as they have to accommodate service delivery suitable to a
situation on hand. The front stag service operations are generally more work demanding as the
staffs need to be multi-tasking so as to effectively manage customer’s encounters, additional
staffs and their involvement for effective delivery of services.
Backstage Flowchart
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Fig 2: Backstage process flowchart
Source: Author
According to Liu, Xu and Ling (2017) the back stage service operations illustrates those
activities that are offered through support processes and do not have direct involvement or
communication with customers as back stage employees remain behind stage and are not visible
to customers. These are generally forbearer of front stage service operations within the service
delivery prototype cycle. Employees rendering back stage operations do not interact or manage
customers directly or face to face. In Hilton hotels the back stage service operations involves IT
operations, Sales and Marketing, HR or Accounting operations, Kitchen services, hotel
surveillance services and housekeeping. The customers do not encounter or experience any
activities of back stage process on direct level but all these are vital functions that support the
front level operations. For instance satisfactory housekeeping and cleanliness are integral to
insure satisfaction level of customers within their stay at Hilton. Moreover Sales and marketing
are also significant back stage operations as because they market services of Hilton hotel to right
set of customers and entrusts the brand value with their cooperation in regular operations to
attain good brand recognition in market and maintain profitability.
Significance of service encounters
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According to Lai, Lui and Hon (2014) Service encounters describe the point of interaction or
encounter between customer and staff of service business. These communications generally
creates a form of impression on the mind of customers or influences their feelings. As such
service encounters reflects and drives customers thinking or opinions for a service delivery or
brand awareness in general. The service encounters are significant for Hilton hotels service
delivery as they form a two way correlation between their customers and management of hotel.
Positive service encounters stimulates behaviour of customers and inspires them for positive
response to services of hotel and further drives their perceptions for repeat visit or positive word
of mouth communications to others. Thus this is significant to drive value proposition of hotel
and maintain positive image among customers to meet their satisfaction and expectations level.
At Hilton hotels every direct communication or invisible encounters between customers and
hotel management forms service encounters to create moments. These involves several guest
originated activities, employees originated activities and invisible activities. Like for instance
online services of Hilton hotels also forms of service encounters that impacts perceptions of
guests. The online booking facilities in the websites of Hilton hotel are user friendly due to
navigation convenience which makes the booking systems deliver better service encounters. Also
all front stage operations within hotel service delivery process specifically are critical elements
of service encounters. Service encounters are significant as they can be both pleasant and
unpleasant however it is vital to enhance satisfactory and positive service encounters to deliver
better service experiences to customers and meet their expectation level for the success of Hilton.
These service encounters insure that satisfied customers will return to hotel in future.
According to Anaya, Miao, Mattila and Almanza (2016) Satisfaction level of customers is
considered the most vital element or vector for the success of Hilton hotels services and as they
operate worldwide so high satisfaction level of customers and their service encounters are
essential to be maintained at par with international benchmarks across all providers. The prime
stimulus for satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction is: (Long-Tolbert and Gammoh 2012)
Market share: as Hilton is prominent hotel chain across the globe so the prime stimulus for their
success is market share or size that they hold in comparison to rivals like Marriot and Sheraton.
The bigger market share determines the high level of fulfilment of the customers because of
services delivered at Hilton.
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Profitableness: the larger revenue, income of Hilton and high sales figures are direct stimulus of
the high fulfilment level of customers who stay at Hilton.
Repeat visit: more number of repeated visits of customers is another direct stimulus for
satisfaction level of customers. The preference of customers for services of Hilton in Australia
and in other regions likewise whenever they choose to travel reflects high level of customer
fulfilment, delivery of brand promise and high level of service delivery.
Customer evaluation: this element is direct stimulus of customer fulfilment or un-fulfilment
through service delivery of Hilton. A rise in level of complaints is a red flag for Hilton and is
handled with immediate effect so that these bad service encounters do not impact brand image
and value awareness.
Customer referral: positive word of mouth communication and suggestions by satisfied
customers to their friends and relatives reflects high level of customer fulfilment while negative
communications reflects frustrations and resentment of unsatisfied customers. A larger level of
referral assures greater degree of customer fulfilment.
Managerial implications of service encounters
According to Sharma and Wu (2015) Service encounters are vital as they create impression long
time on service delivery. As such for Hilton hotels positive encounters are significant for
success. So managers tend to keep a watchful eye on service encounters and activities to insure
that service encounters are disposed at high degree of benchmarks through their employees so as
to meet customer expectations and satisfaction. As such service encounters are vital for managers
as negative encounters can lead to serious costs for business like compensating customer for poor
services or even ill such as encountering fall in consumer visits in future or losing a valuable
customer. Hence managers at Hilton vigorously assure that service encounters between their
staffs and customers meet up to the standards to deliver pleasurable guest experience. Managers
need to be vigilant of any negative encounters that may emerge in service delivery cycle and
must assure proper recovery actions to settle such encounters amicably.
Conclusion
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Thus it can be concluded that to maintain a good brand value in service business the providers
such as Hilton needs to focus their service delivery archetype on key areas like customer
communications, operations and management of employees. As brand promise of Hilton depends
on service encounters so any event of negative encounter needs to be addressed with instant
actions to regain confidence of customers and modify their impressions. This is due to the fact
that satisfied customer bring in more business as well as promotes goodwill and value to others.
So making encounters amicable is significant to retain customers and turn out negative
perceptions. Hence a compelling service delivery archetype helps in delivering success and
growth of services and helps to maintain customer relationships.
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References
Anaya, G. J., Miao, L., Mattila, A. S. and Almanza, B. (2016). Consumer envy during service
encounters. The Journal of Services Marketing,[Online] 30(3), 359-372. Available: [Accessed
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Andreassen, T. W., Kristensson, P., Lervik-Olsen, L., Parasuraman, A., McColl-Kennedy, J.,
Edvardsson, B. and Colurcio, M. (2016). Linking service design to value creation and service
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Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena, McMillan, D., Pantin, D., Taller, M. and Willie, P. (2013).
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[Accessed on 24 Sep. 2018]
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Long-Tolbert, S. and Gammoh, B. S. (2012). In good and bad times: The interpersonal nature of
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