Service Quality Enhancement: SERVQUAL, Recovery at Brown's Hotel

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of customer service at Brown's Hotel in London, focusing on service quality and service recovery strategies. It utilizes the SERVQUAL model to assess the five dimensions of service quality—reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness—and identifies potential gaps between customer expectations and perceptions. The report also examines the four acid tests of service recovery: apologize, review, fix and follow up, and document, highlighting their importance in converting dissatisfied customers into loyal ones. Furthermore, it includes a tailor-made questionnaire designed to gather customer feedback and provides recommendations for enhancing customer service based on the survey results. The analysis aims to help Brown's Hotel improve its service delivery, address customer concerns effectively, and foster long-term customer loyalty. Desklib offers similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Customer service
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Analyse service quality (SERVQUAL) with specific focus to dimensions and gaps.................3
SERVQUAL Model....................................................................................................................3
Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the four acid tests of service recovery
.....................................................................................................................................................7
within the hospitality organisation..............................................................................................7
Prepare a survey report with recommendations for better customer service, after analysing
.....................................................................................................................................................8
tailor made questionnaire............................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERNCES:................................................................................................................................12
Books and Journals:..................................................................................................................12
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INTRODUCTION
Hospitality is a broad industry and focus on providing best services to the customers. It is
necessary to note that they must focus on providing quality services to their customers in order to
gain competitive advantage (Köseoglu, Yick and Okumus, 2021). This report is based on
Brown's hotel that has its headquarters in London. They work to provide best services to the
customers in order to engage them. There is discussion related to analysing the service quality
with the help of a model so that the gaps are identified and hotel is able to fill the gaps.
Afterwards, there is discussion related to importance of service recovery and the ways they are
used by the hotel. In the end questionnaire is formulated that helps enhance the services offered
by the business organisation.
MAIN BODY
Analyse service quality (SERVQUAL) with specific focus to dimensions and gaps.
It is important to note that each and every business makes efforts to complete the
assigned work in an effective manner. It is seen that provide best quality service to the customers
is necessary. The hotel must make 100% efforts in order to provide best to the customers. If a
hotel will not work in an effective manner they have to face various gaps. These gaps may cause
problem for the customers and may reduce the brand image of the hotel. It is necessary to note
that there are various number of things that a hotel has to note in order to provide best to the
customers (Sadangharn, 2021). In relation to Brown's hotel they work in such a manner that
helps to provide best quality of service to the customers. It is importance to use the 5 dimensions
of service quality that are stated in SERVQUAL Model.
SERVQUAL Model
It is a multi-dimensional process that that measures the scores between the expected and
perceptions of service quality of the customers based on five dimensions. It helps to measure the
expectation of the customers. The five dimensions are stated below:
Reliability: It is seen that there are some expectations of the customers. The Brown's
hotel work to analyse them and then provide them the same in an effective manner. It can be
defined as the ability of a hotel to provide the service as it was promised. It is necessary for
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Brown's Hotel to deliver the service accurately. For example providing food and beverage to the
guest at the time it was promised (Hudson and Hudson, 2017). It helps to enhance the
satisfaction level of customers.
Assurance: It is the skills and ability of the employees that help them to build relation
with the customers. They are able to gain trust of the customers and then provide them quality
services. By providing good services to the customers help to gain customer loyalty. The
excellent service that are provided by the hotel must also be provided by them in past years.
They must always work on enhancing the quality of service they offer to the customers.
Tangibles: The equipments and other service facilities are tangible in nature. It is seen
that quality service must be provided to the customers that includes used of tangibles as well.
The environment that is provided to the customers and the food are the tangible points that must
be provided to them (Anwar, 2017). The Brown's Hotel provide best quality food and beverage
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and maintain cleanliness in the hotel in order to retain the customers. It helps to provide best to
the customers so that they make repetitive visit in the hotel.
Empathy: It is necessary to understand the needs and wants of the customers. It helps to
provide them with best services. The Brown's Hotel work in such a manner that helps to
emphasise the requirement to customers and provide best to them. It is necessary to give high
emphasis on the needs and wants of the customers so that they are provided services according to
their preferences.
Responsiveness: The service provider must focus on being helpful. It is important to
provide services to the customers. They must be listen to the problem of the customer and
provide them proactive solution (VO, Chovancová and Tri, 2020). They must provide them bets
solutions so that the needs and wants of customers are fulfilled. The provide 24*7 compliant
handling service to the customers.
Gap model of service quality- This is an effective model which focus on the pricess of delivery
for effective services. It helps in identifies the hurdles an consequences companies need to face
while delivering services. The company could take decsion after identifying all the gaps that
creates problems for using organisation services for customers. Mianly there are five gaps which
are identified below:
GAP 1- difference among managers and customers perception while taking decision.
It is the main gap which faced by many companies. As managers are unable to identify the actual
perception of customer(Mezgebe, 2020). This gap occurred due to poor management and
relationship with customers. As managers need to understand them well by researching the
market appropriately.
GAP 2- Difference in providing quality service and management specification.
It is the gap which occurs among the management and service department. Due to lack of
concentration and decision making, the managers would not be able to analyse the need for
improvement in services.
GAP 3- Gap between service quality specification and service delivery
This gap generates in the process of providing specific services. The managers analyse the actual
demands of customers but due to delivering issues, they would not make effective handover of
services. The employees are not effective as they do not have proper knowledge about the work.
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This gap could create a lot of trouble for the Brown's hotel if there were not effective. Improper
training and poor hiring impact on the organisation as the employees are not suitable for the
specific job role. It shows that, the employees could not provide effective supply as per the
demand so that different arrive in maintaining these two concepts. Employees could not make
the skills improve for providing better services.
GAP 4- Difference among communication and service delivery.
This gap influence on the misunderstanding created in the mind of customers. Wrong delivering
of services and its features through advertising will affect on the sales of company. As
advertisements are necessary to creates awareness among audience but it also must be
authenticated and relevant which should not harm the values of society. The main cause is
wrong information which companies advertise products and services by showing extra features
which are not presented in real products. This affects the trust of customer on the company and
leads to poor service delivery (Serohina, Petryshchenko and Andrlic, 2019). Therefore, the
browns hotel need to showcase their products and services as it is. Loosing customer trust is the
main gap that eliminates communication and separation of customers.
GAP 5- Gap between experienced service and expected service
The gap of experience services is that what actually customer are experiencing from organisation
products. the expected services are what they have expected to get in money worth value.
Sometimes, customer expect much more than the organisation and misunderstood their work
practices. The brown hotel provide services of customer care and responsibility, but they may
thought of disturbance and interference in person life. This creates a lot of trouble for
organisation as customer would not like to come again in the hotel.
Demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the four acid tests of service recovery within
the hospitality organisation.
Service recovery can be defined as strategic actions that are taken by by the service
provider in order to overcome the mistake that they have done. This is a procedure that is being
followed in order to cope with the situation of mistake. It is necessary for the hotel to understand
the mistake and then take best suitable actions (Shi, Shi, Weaver and Chavez, 2021). It helps the
Brown's hotel to convert the dissatisfied customers into loyal customers. It is necessary for the
hotel to take desired actions that help the hospitality organisation to gain loyal customers. It is
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important to note that appropriate service recovery strategy helps to change the image of hotel in
front of customers. The hotels focus on providing nest strategies to the customers but if they
have done any mistake then they have to take corrective actions. It is necessary to understand the
difference between right or wrong and then taking the actions that will help to gain loyalty of
customers.
Four acid tests of service recovery
It is seen that it is one of the best techniques that are being used for service recovery. It is
important to take actions according to all these steps so that a business is able to attract
customers and satisfy them in an effective manner. The following are discussed below:
Apologize: It is important to apologize before service recovery
. It is seen that there is need to understand the problem and provide the best solution. It is
important to say sorry for the mistake they have done and then take actions that will help. It
helps the customers to realise that the service provider have understood their mistake and are
ready to take actions to correct them.
Review: It is important to take collaborative review that helps to know about the desired
actions that can be taken (Mahafzah and et.al., 2020). It is necessary to listen about the
opportunities. It is necessary to review the problem that is faced by them so that best actions are
being taken by them. It is important step that is followed by the Brown's Hotel as a step of
customer recovery.
Fix and follow up: It is the step in which real actions are taken so that they are able to
solve the problem. Follow up actions are taken by the service provider. In this stage The Brown's
Hotel work to find out the solution and fix one among them. The fixed solution is then follow up
in order to provide best to the guests. Solving the issue is important but at the same time
satisfaction level of the customers is also important. It is necessary to provide best solution to the
problem of customers so that they are happy again.
Document: It is the last stage in the process. The task here is to record the mistake and to
document the actions that are taken by the hotel. All the causes, factors, people involved and the
departments are noted down so that they can be refereed in future. It helps to understand the
trend of mistake and does not repeat it again (Choi, Choi, Oh and Kim, 2020). It is necessary to
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provide best solutions to the issues so that they can also be used in future. The pattern helps to
not repeat the situation in future and to keep everything in record.
It is seen these are the steps that can be taken by an hotel in order to provide best to the
customers (Phi and et.al., 2018). It is seen that doing a mistake is acceptable if steps to recover
the same is done. It is necessary to provide them all the suitable actions that are helpful and will
solve the issue faced by the guests.
Prepare a survey report with recommendations for better customer service, after analysing
tailor made questionnaire
It is important for Brown's Hotel to know about the point of view of the customers. It is
necessary to work on the quality of services as per the feedback given by the customers. In this
regard Brown's Hotel prepared survey questions that they asked from 100 customers. It will help
to improvise their services. The questions and their responses are discussed below:
Questionnaire
1 How much do you like the food and beverage offered by Brown's Hotel?
 Like 55
 Neutral 30
 Dislike 15
Interpretation: It is analysed that 55% of total respondents like the quality and taste of food
that is offered by the hotel. The other 30 feel that it is neutral and the rest 15 dislike the food.
2. According to you how is the quality of services given by Brown's Hotel?
 Good 65
 Neutral 20
 Bad 15
Interpretation: It is analysed that 65 customers say that quality of service offered by the the
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hotel is good. But there are around 15 customers that do not like the services offered by them.
3. How is the environment and cleanness of the Brown's Hotel?
 Good 80
 Neutral 10
 Bad 10
Interpretation: The environment of Brown's Hotel is good as per 80 customers. The other 10
say neutral and other 10 say it is bad.
4. How much are you satisfied by the customers handling and problem solving procedure of
Brown's Hotel?
 Satisfied 85
 Neutral 5
 Dissatisfied 10
Interpretation: The customer handling process of Brown's Hotel is good as 85% of the
customers are satisfied only 10% are dissatisfied by the services offered by the customers.
5. Overall rating to the Hotel.
 1 5
 2 5
 3 5
 4 40
 5 45
Interpretation: It is analysed that 45 of the employees rate the hotel as 5. The other 40 say that
it should be given 4.
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Recommendation
The following are the points of recommendation that must be followed by Brown's Hotel.
These points are analysed by the survey and responses of the customers:
 They must work on enhancing quality of food offered by them. They must use
organisation food products in order to provide best to the customers.
 The hotel should work maintain cleanliness in the hotel. It helps to work on the quality
service that the hotel offers.
 The customer handling process of the organisation is good. They must make efforts to
maintain the same.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it is concluded that customer service plays a vital role in
hospitality industry. It is seen that there are various customers that ant quality service that is the
reason hotels are able to enhance customer satisfaction. There is discussion related to gaps that
can be avoided by using SERVQUAL Model. It is necessary to study about service recovery and
take suitable actions to solve the problem. In the end of this report questionnaire is formulated
that helps to give recommendation in order to provide better customer service.
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REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Anwar, K., 2017. ANALYZING THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF SERVICE QUALITY AND
ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH GUESTS’SATISFACTION: A STUDY OF HOTELS IN
ERBIL. The International Journal of Accounting and Business Society, 25(2), pp.1-16.
Choi, Y., Choi, M., Oh, M. and Kim, S., 2020. Service robots in hotels: understanding the service
quality perceptions of human-robot interaction. Journal of Hospitality Marketing &
Management, 29(6), pp.613-635.
Diffley, S., McCole, P. and Carvajal-Trujillo, E., 2018. Examining social customer relationship
management among Irish hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management.
Hudson, S. and Hudson, L., 2017. Customer service in tourism and hospitality. Goodfellow
Publishers Ltd.
Köseoglu, M. A., Yick, M. Y.Y. and Okumus, F., 2021. Coopetition strategies for competitive
intelligence practices-evidence from full-service hotels. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, 99, p.103049.
Mahafzah and et.al., 2020. Impact of customer relationship management on food and beverage
service quality: The mediating role of employees satisfaction. Humanities & Social
Sciences Reviews, 8(2), pp.222-230.
Mezgebe, A., 2020. Effect of electronic marketing on customer satisfaction: the case of four star
hotels in Addis Ababa. Int. J. Manag. Account, 2(4), pp.74-95.
Phi and et.al., 2018. Effects of service quality on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty: A
case of 4-and 5-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Business and Economic
Horizons (BEH), 14(1232-2019-848), pp.437-450.
Sadangharn, P., 2021. A Multidimensional Analysis of Robotic Deployment in Thai Hotels.
International Journal of Social Robotics, pp.1-15.
Serohina, N., Petryshchenko, N. and Andrlic, B., 2019. Digital marketing in hotels.
МАРКЕТИНГ І ЦИФРОВІ ТЕХНОЛОГІЇ, 3(3), pp.35-42.
Shi, F., Shi, D., Weaver, D. and Chavez, C.E.S., 2021. Adapt to not just survive but thrive:
resilience strategies of five-star hotels at difficult times. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management.
VO, N. T., Chovancová, M. and Tri, H. T., 2020. The impact of E-service quality on the
customer satisfaction and consumer engagement behaviors toward luxury hotels.
Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 21(5), pp.499-523.
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