Comparative Analysis of Customer Service in Two London Hotels

This report presents a comparative analysis of customer service practices at Norfolk Tower Paddington Hotel and Royal Lancaster Hotel in London. The report begins with an introduction to customer service in the hospitality industry and its importance for business success. The first section compares the customer service practices, policies, and service quality visions of the two hotels. The second section focuses on comparing the service guarantees and complaint handling procedures of each hotel. Finally, the report provides recommendations for Norfolk Tower Paddington Hotel on developing customer-focused services to improve guest satisfaction, including prioritizing customers, implementing contactless services, and enhancing customer engagement. The report emphasizes the importance of customer-centricity and adapting to current challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Customer Service
(Assessment 1)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
Identify and compare the two hotel’s customer service practices and policies and service
quality vision..........................................................................................................................3
Identify and compare the two hotel’s service guarantees and complaint handling procedures.. 5
LO3..................................................................................................................................................6
Recommendation on the development for appropriate customer focused services to improve
guest satisfaction for the hotel................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Customer service is a fundamental activity of hospitality industry and all the related
service sector organisations. This is due to the nature of their business to serve and keep people
happy by offering them the best form of services they desire and wishes to enjoy in day to day or
occasional basis depending upon the situations (Tabaku and Cerri, 2016). Customer service
provided by the hospitality service providers is the key for their success, future purchases, long
term relations with buyers and most importantly customers loyalty towards the brand. Customer
service is thus defined as interactions took place, the services and assistance provided and the
product offered by the business to the end customers who are willing to buy and leads the firm
toward success and the pre determined goals. The present assignment is a comparative essay of
Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel, London and Royal Lancaster Hotel London. The essay
conducts a comparative study between the two chosen hotel's customer services polices and
practices engaged in their service quality vision. Moving along both the hotel's guarantees and
complaints handling phenomena's are compared as well. Lastly, recommendations are provided
to Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel for about better customer focused services in order to
improve the service quality and satisfaction level of diversified customer base. Norfolk Tower
Paddington, Hotel is a four star holding Hotel on the prime location in Paddington a location
which is quieter and away form hustle-some life of London.
LO1
Identify and compare the two hotel’s customer service practices and policies and service quality
vision.
The customer service practice works on six pillars which include interest, attitude, verbal
language, tone of voice, body language and action. The hospitality industry must work to meet
the expectation of the customers by complying with their needs by meeting standards of service.
The customer service practice and policies of the the two hotels are provided below for better
comparison (Sánchez‐Franco, Navarro‐García and Rondán‐Cataluña, 2016).
The Norfolk Towers Paddington Hotel is a four star hotel dealing mainly in
accommodation and food and beverages. It offers services like room facilities like club rooms,
executive rooms, small single rooms, deluxe rooms and suits, restaurant and bar facility, etc. It
targets middle and upper class people so services are offered accordingly.

While the Royal Lanchester Hotel is a five star hotel dealing mainly in accommodation
and food and beverages. Its services include room facilities in wide range like classic, deluxe or
superior deluxe corner, superior deluxe or park view, executive or accessible executive and suits
in wide range like spires suit, Lancaster suit, studio family, park, royal and studio suit. These are
designed according to the purpose of customer like business or pleasure.
Service quality vision of a hospitality business is a result produced for the customers. The
company must set its vision on which it shall work according to the service it offers to its
customers so that it can work according to the set vision and target. The vision of a company
must state the following, firstly the core services it offers, like Norfolk Towers Paddington Hotel
offers room facilities, restaurant and bar with other hotel facilities, while Royal Lanchester offers
services like room facility, bar, restaurant, cafe, gym, spa, etc (Sanchez-Franco, Cepeda-Carrion
and Roldán, 2019).
Secondly, the supporting and facilitating services it offers like Norfolk Towers
Paddington Hotel offers services like air conditioner, heating, telephone, TV, daily news paper,
tea and coffee machine, etc. in rooms and hotel facilities include continental breakfast, pay
parking, restaurant, salon, currency exchange, etc. while Royal Lanchester offers services like air
conditioner, heating, TV, WiFi facility, in room spa treatment, car parking, gym facility, blow
drying service, etc.
Thirdly, how basic package accessible to the customer is to be made like for Norfolk
Towers Paddington Hotel, it targets middle and upper class people so its offers normal to high
prices with regular offers and discounts for availing its service while Royal Lanchester offers
package to attract high lass elite people where celebrities and high business class personnel also
visit it. So their package is made keeping in mind the target customers and their needs.
Fourthly, how customer interaction is to be maintained like for Norfolk Towers
Paddington Hotel, it has opened its website and phone number for customers to interact and ask
queries regarding anything and everything with its front line staff available 24*7 while Royal
Lanchester welcomes interaction with emails, websites, toll free number, etc. so that they can
learn about the new demands of the customers timely and can work hard to fulfil them so that
customer loyalty is maintained.

Identify and compare the two hotel’s service guarantees and complaint handling procedures.
Service generally means anything which has the following attributes like inseparable
which means that it cannot be separated from its providers, intangible which means it can't be
heard, smelled, felt or tasted, perishable which means it cant be put for later use or sale and
variable means quality dependents on one who provides it and when, how and where it is
provided (Romero, 2017).
The service guaranteed of the Norfolk Towers Paddington Hotel includes easy refunds
facility subject to conditions to its customers. It also provides discounts on long stays to the
customers with comfortable check ins and outs. While Royal Lanchester's service guarantee is its
commitment to always care for the customer's demand and need and flexible check in and outs
for maintaining healthy relation with customers. Other service guarantee depends upon the
package which the customer avails like executive room includes breakfast in its booking.
Another service guarantee is flexible cancellation policy before 24 hours of check in.
The complaint handling procedure refers to the mechanism where complaints of the
customers are handled and resolves so that they have better experience in availing the service.
The Norfolk Towers Paddington Hotel provides official email id and phone number to the
customers to complaint regarding any service. There is no proper procedure being followed here
but only complaint is addressed on email or phone number and it is resolved through this
medium only. The officers are appointed on this behalf to handle the complaints so that
customer's problems are solved timely and accurately (Chen and et. al., 2017).
While Royal Lanchester provides toll free number, office number and email id to the
customers so that they can raise their complaints freely on the provided portal. The hotel also has
front line officers who are available for the customers 24*7 so that their problems are solved
effectively with immediate effect. This is a luxury hotel whose vision is to always care for its
customers so it has a proper procedure for addressing the complaint which includes the following
step, like firstly the complaint is raised through any of the medium provided to the customers.
Next the officer appointed mark the complaint and take evidence and records for solving the
complaint. Next the solutions are given to the customers and at last feedbacks are taken as to
whether they were satisfied by the solutions given. This whole proper procedure makes the
service of the Royal Lanchester effective and efficient.

LO3
Recommendation on the development for appropriate customer focused services to improve
guest satisfaction for the hotel.
Customer Service Strategy is a policy that provides a blueprint for providing
appropriate customer service culture within the organisations. The customer service strategy is
made by integrating the service vision of the company and the core product offering. The
development of customer service strategy is the responsibility of Customer service manager who
is also designated as Guest Relations Manager (Orlowski, Bufquin and Nalley, 2020).
The managers are assigned the task to develop the most effective and beneficial customer
service strategy for the hotel. The strategy is developed in the most effective manner and with
relevance to preferences of people when the standards to which the hotel's service vision is
reflecting to reach in relation to its products, employees, facilities and lastly safety and security.
With the same notion some recommendations are provided to Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel
as hotel's Guest Relations Manager which is customer focused and suggested for improving the
satisfaction level of Guests by incorporating it with hotel's work culture.
The Hotel believe in bringing ease, quality and comfort together for their guests who are
visiting their property with separate purposes (Kao, Tsaur and Wu, 2016). The hotel has around
85 rooms which are designed and decorated in such manner to give a soothing and smoothing
feeling to all who are staying and render the best and highest quality of services within rooms
and hotel amongst any other competitor in whole Paddington area. The hotels value statement
clearly states its core action towards the safety and security of guests and their enjoyment while
their stay in Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel. Some of the specific recommendations are
Putting Customers first, Stay connected with contact less services and Customer
Engagement.
Firstly, Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel needs to make changes is in placing customers
on priority and their preferences in the upper hand. Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel should
have a culture which is more customer centric and focuses first on them and their needs then
over other aspects of business. The customers are the one who brings the hotel revenue in short
and long term thus, their preferences and needs have to be kept above everything (Kasemsap,
2017).

Secondly, a major cultural value that is needed to be followed is to stay contactless as the
global pandemic of COVID19 is spreading and vicious enough to take life of a human being.
The hotel staff and customers safety is a prior aim today which bring out to practice of staying
connected with contact less service. This aims at offering people they want and desires in such
scared surroundings with keeping and placing major security procedures within practice.
Employees should be trained for their safety first then to take care of customers safety. The
training sessions should be used for making them informed about the safety measures they need
to take while working and serving the customers. For instance, no room will be used for 48 hours
after one customer leaves and after 2 days period the room will be cleaned and properly
sanitized. The staff have to wear masks the whole time, maintain distance and use disposable
gloves for their personal safety and for keeping the environment and things clean and safe from
the infection (Ko, 2020).
The third suggestion which needs to be part of service culture of Norfolk Tower
Paddington, Hotel is customer engagement. The hotel make use of customers feedbacks for
better service in future. But it would be better for employee and hotel's performance if the guests
are more engaged in the service patterns and at the time of deliveries. Much of a customised
approach is suggested for higher service standards and enable in developing long term relations
with the guests that leads to better customer relationships and future purchase of buyers.
CONCLUSION
The above report concludes the importance of customer service and its accuracy for the
success and goals achievement for the organisation. The customer service aspects is fundamental
and very sensitive for the firm as it reflects upon the general needs of customers which they
expect to be fulfilled while paying for them to the hospitality service providing firm. The report
constructs a comparative analysis for the service deliver vision of the organisations in order to
find out the leakages and develop better values for the guests of the hotel. Moreover one the
comparison is performed few recommendations like staying connected with contactless services
and customer engagement to be added in the core work culture of the organisation for better and
higher service offerings.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chen and et. al., 2017. Business co-creation for service innovation in the hospitality and tourism
industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Chen and et. al., 2017. The impact of high-commitment HR practices on hotel employees’
proactive customer service performance. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. 58(1). pp.94-
107.
Kao, C.Y., Tsaur, S.H. and Wu, T.C.E., 2016. Organizational culture on customer delight in the
hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 56. pp.98-108.
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.
Ko, C.H., 2020. EXPLORING HOTEL CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE. International
Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online). 13(2). pp.270-277.
Orlowski, M., Bufquin, D. and Nalley, M.E., 2020. The Influence of Social Perceptions on
Restaurant Employee Work Engagement and Extra-Role Customer Service Behavior: A
Moderated Mediation Model. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, p.1938965520910119.
Romero, J., 2017. Customer engagement behaviors in hospitality: Customer-based
antecedents. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. 26(6). pp.565-584.
Sanchez-Franco, M.J., Cepeda-Carrion, G. and Roldán, J.L., 2019. Understanding relationship
quality in hospitality services. Internet Research.
Sánchez‐Franco, M.J., Navarro‐García, A. and Rondán‐Cataluña, F.J., 2016. Online customer
service reviews in urban hotels: a data mining approach. Psychology &
Marketing. 33(12). pp.1174-1186.
Tabaku, E. and Cerri, S., 2016. An assessment of service quality and customer satisfaction in the
hotel sector. In Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Opatija. Biennial
International Congress. Tourism & Hospitality Industry (p. 480). University of Rijeka,
Faculty of Tourism & Hospitality Management.
Online:
Norfolk Tower Paddington, Hotel, 2020. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.norfolktowershotel.com//>
ROYAL LANCASTER LONDON, 2020. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.royallancaster.com/>