The Employee's Role in Guest Experience: Grand Hyatt Melbourne

This report provides an analysis of guest experience within the context of the Grand Hyatt Melbourne, exploring the critical role of employees in shaping customer satisfaction. It delves into the concept of customer experience, its evolution, and the importance of employee contributions to service culture. The report discusses the consequences of poor customer service, and proposes strategies for enhancing the guest experience, including cost planning, training and development, and constructive feedback mechanisms. The study emphasizes the significance of delivering positive guest experiences to improve the brand image and foster business growth through an expanding customer base. The report also examines the evolution of guest experience, factors influencing it, and the characteristics of hotel services. The report concludes with a discussion of how to measure customer satisfaction and use feedback to improve service quality.

Hotel and Guest
Experience

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In this report, there is discussion about role of employees in providing good experience to
consumers. Employees are the asset which act on the behalf of association and make them aware
about new services offered. There is requirement of different assistance which is specific and
relevant in context of understanding changes in better and effective manner. This assignment is
based on Hotel Grand Hyatt in Melbourne, Australia. This is one of the largest hotel chain
serving in different parts of country. As compared to older days, there are many reasons for
which consumers visit hotels such as business purpose, outing, family get together, wedding, etc.
Hence in this report, there is discussion about different strategies through which consumer
satisfaction can be enhanced, overview of consumer experience, employee's contribution in
positively affected consumer experience, etc. If consumer has bad experience from services of
Gad Hyatt, then its outcome are also discussed such as loss of market share, increment in training
expenses, negative behaviour of top level management, conflict in working hours, etc. At last
there is discussion about ways through which consumer experience can be improved such as
planning related to cost, effective approaches of training and development, constructive
feedbacks from consumers, etc. With delivering best quality services and improving consumer
experience brand image of Grand Hyatt improves and scope of business growth improves
because of increasing consumer base.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
TITLE: “The employee involvement in service and the guest experience in a hotel context”. A
case study on Grand Hyatt Melbourne, Australia. ..........................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Concept of customer experience and development of professionalism within hospitality and
tourism industry......................................................................................................................1
Overview of guest experience and how it has evolved..........................................................3
The importance of employees, their contribution and empowerment as per relation with
service culture.........................................................................................................................6
Consequence of poor customer services for The Grand Hyatt Hotel.....................................8
A range of strategies which hotels can take to improve the experience of potential customers
..............................................................................................................................................10
Importance of delivering positive guest experience in The Grand Hyatt Hotel...................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
......................................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

TITLE: “The employee involvement in service and the guest experience in a hotel context”.
A case study on Grand Hyatt Melbourne, Australia.
INTRODUCTION
In contemporary hospitality industry, achievement of best customer experience is
essential to gain high loyalty of guest. Customer experience refers to perception of clients related
to services offered by a company. This would directly impact on brand image of organisations
either in negative or positive manner (Oskam, Dekker and Wiegerink, 2017). Therefore,
companies that deal in hospitality industry, mainly focuses on serving the guests best service and
managing business to meet their expectations. The aim of present assignment is to provide a
description report on – employee involvement in service and increasing guest experience in a
hotel industry. Here, concept and development of professionalism within broader tourism is also
explained. Furthermore, correlation between customer experience, culture and business
experience is discussed to analyse the impact of poor experience on brand image of a hotel.
For this purpose, an investigation is done on The Grand Hyatt Hotel, which is
headquartered in heart of Melbourne city and shopping district. It is one of the finest hotel of
Australia that has been awarded with a number of accolades to provide unparalleled services and
facilities to guest. In order to provide best customer services, this hotel mainly focuses strongly
on quality of services and way of serving to customers (Radde, 2017). For this purpose, it strives
to maximise its human capital by improving the level of their engagement, because employee
contribution helps more in delivering best customer service and retaining guests for longer
period (Sabiote-Ortiz and et. al., 2016). As customer experience is the only way to gain loyalty
of tourists within hospitality industry, therefore, a range of strategies is accessed within this
report for improving the services of The Grand Hyatt Hotel.
MAIN BODY
Concept of customer experience and development of professionalism within hospitality and
tourism industry
According to the article given by Jay Kandampully (2017), it has been analysed that in
hospitality industry, organisations are mainly concerned to increase customer experience in
positive way, by delivering them best services (Customer experience management in hospitality:
A literature synthesis, new understanding and research agenda. 2017). This concept of customer
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experience can be defined as perception that a guest makes while consuming services of a hotel.
It can be measured by analysing how long a customer avail services of a company where lasting
impression related to experience shows their happiness and satisfaction level. Similarly, poor
customer experience take potential consumers away from a business (Worsfold and et. al., 2016).
Probably they felt angry, annoyed, upset, frustrated and other aspects of negative emotions. This
would impact adversely on brand image of a company and affect its reputation in respective
industry. Therefore, it provides evidence why creating and focusing on a great customer
experience within hospitality industry is so important (Masiero, Pan and Heo, 2016) .
As per opinion of Jason Bordeaux (2019), customer experience can also be defined as
impression that a company leaves on mind of customers about its brand, at each stage of their
journey (What Is Customer Experience? (And Why It's So Important). 2019). There are multiple
factors present that create customer experience such as performance of workers and attention
provides to customers on individual basis, for completing their desires in required way. Both
factors reflect the experience gained by targeted audience, which is critically important for
sustaining growth of business. In context with hotel industry, organisations dealing in such sector
are needed to ensure the positive customer experience, so that potential guests can evangelize
hotel services and promote business through mouth publicity (Kim and et. al., 2017). Therefore,
positive reviews of potential consumers will help organisations in retaining revenue as well as
gaining attention of new customers. In context with The Grand Hyatt Melbourne, this hotel is
located in the heart of Melbourne City as well as shopping district, it also emphasises more on
increasing experience of targeted audience, by delivering best services. It offers a range of
accommodation facilities and luxury services including 547 guest rooms, 24 hours reception
service, conference facilities, babysitting, hairdresser, Tennis Court, health and fitness etc. Here,
it is convenient for guests to go at art libraries, parks, casino, theatre and convention facilities
(Luo and Qu, 2016). Along with this, they also get options to choose a Grand Club room which
is located in upper levels of this hotel. Here, they can enjoy a range of complimentary evening
cocktails, mocktails, canapes and breakfasts in the privacy of club lounge.
As hotel industry contributes a major role in developing and increasing economy,
therefore, in order to give best services to customers, The Grand Hyatt Melbourne focuses more
development of professionalism (Hwang and Seo, 2016). For this purpose, it provides effective
training to all associated staff members for delivering professional services to its guests. It
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includes basic skills like communication, knowledge of different languages and manner to make
interaction with potential tourists (Kensbock and et. al., 2016). Hereby, present hotel mainly
provide training on the basis of teamwork and diversity because all associated staff-members are
perceived as one unit, to deliver professional services to clients. Learning to work together
within hotel industry is essential for people belong to different cultural background, so that
effective services can be provided to targeted audience. This would also help in developing
effective culture at workplace where if employees work in collaboration and share skills with
each other then it ultimately lead to increase amazing experience of customers (Masiero, Pan,
and Heo, 2016). Moreover, having professional employees or developing professionalism in
business, also aid to The Grand Hyatt in delivering best services to its clients and completing
every demand of them in short-duration of time.
The Grand Hyatt Melbourne mainly targets to tourists belongs to business class and high
status, thus, offer luxury services more as per demand and preferences of them (Oskam, Dekker
and Wiegerink, 2017). Along with this, to measure if targeted customers gain positive experience
or not, management of respective hotel used to conduct customer satisfaction survey on regular
basis to analyse effectiveness of own services. For this purpose, managers of The Grand Hyatt
Melbourne uses Net Promoter Score to measure how tourists after getting services promote
business through word of mouth. This would help in analysing customer journey by allowing the
guests to share their feedback on company's websites and other applications of social sites like
Trip-advisor (Masiero, Pan and Heo, 2016). It will enable in identifying areas where hotel needs
to make improvement and to which customers, managers need to connect and engage them in
advocacy.
Overview of guest experience and how it has evolved
Today, creating an excellent customer experience becomes the main key objective within
hospitality and tourism industry (H&T). As per survey report, it has been analysed that
companies which are dealing in such sector have put a large effort for providing best customer
experience. But, only few customers reported for having a superior experience (Ahrholdt,
Gudergan and Ringle, 2017). It shows the declining of sales performance of H&T industry.
Therefore, hotels, travel companies and other hospitality organisations consider to design
attractive customer experience. According to opinion of Li, Wong and Kim (2016), customer
service can be defined as a practise of delivering effective services to targeted buyers via
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provision of appropriate services and efforts of staff members (Kim, Li and Brymer, 2016).
Herein, the factors which may enhance customer experiences in The Grand Hyatt Melbourne,
include physical infrastructure, service and service culture, mechanics and humanics, interaction
between guests and staff-members etc. This hotel offers a remarkable service experience to
tourists through providing luxury facilities such as – magnificent views, rain showers and
Jacuzzis, transportation and more.
According to the historical overview, it has been analysed that customers more likely to
spend in purchasing products of those companies that offer excellent service (Font and McCabe,
2017). For this purpose, to increase experience before availing services, they focus more on
reviewing history of a company which has offered positive customer service experiences. As per
the above statistical figure, it has been interpreted that over 68% of customers are willing to take
services of those organisations which have a history of excellent guest experience (Setiawan and
Sayuti, 2017). While more than 74% of people like to spent on those companies that have
provided positive customer experience.
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From this figure, it has been analysed that from 2010 to 2014, there is a downfall in
percentage of people that states that hotels have succeeded in meeting their expectations. This
would defines the reasons behind declining in customer service (Fernandes and Cruz, 2016). It
includes failure of hotels and other hospitality industries in understanding how to deliver high
quality and consistent guest service on an on-going basis. In this regard, characteristics of guest
experience in hotels can be defined in terms of intangibility, inseparability, perish-ability and
heterogeneity.
 Intangibility: As service products of hotels cannot be tasted, seen, felt or smelled,
therefore, delivering services on time without any delay is taken as priority by The Grand
Hyatt Melbourne (Liat and et. al., 2017). In this regard, to develop mind for purchasing
services, customers mostly seek for tangible evidence that provide entire information
related to history of excellent or positive customer experience offered by them.
 Inseparability: Hotel services cannot be delivered without the actual presence of
targeted customer. For example: The Grand Hyatt Melbourne is known for its
outstanding services and the way to deliver products to its clients, but if employees do not
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Illustration 1: Customer service experience

give their efforts in same, then customers will not enjoy the overall luxury experience
(Chen, Murphy and Knecht, 2016). In this regard, through word of mouth, it may create
negative publicity and also affect brand image as well.
 Perish-ability: As hotel services cannot be stored or sold immediately after creating,
therefore, to maximize revenue it is essential for organisations like The Grand Hyatt
Melbourne to concern on increasing and managing capacity as well as completing
demand of customers on time.
 Heterogeneity: Lack of consistency is considered as a main factor within hotel industry
that leads to customer dissatisfaction. So, by concerning on improving and developing the
consistency, hotels can meet level of satisfaction of its clients.
But now, hotel industries apart from above characteristics, are characterised by limited
promotional cost, severe competition, low product differentiation and more. Organisations that
deal in hospitality and tourism industry concerns more on designing the customer experience by
reshaping interaction between staff-members and customers (Kim, Li and Brymer, 2016). They
also pay attention towards end-to-end experience and devote to on-boarding, billing, service calls
and more. Hereby, knowing the guests, their demands and preference level, helps in
understanding needs of targeting audience and make hotels able to anticipate demands of them
without taking much delay (Ahrholdt, Gudergan and Ringle, 2017). All these processes lead to
enhance customer service that ultimately helps in increasing experience of them as well.
The importance of employees, their contribution and empowerment as per relation with service
culture
In hospitality and tourism industry, a holistic view related to customer experience is
considered as highly valued, that mostly comprises with multiple stages. It includes pre-
experience, during experience and post-experience, where all stages pinpointed dynamic and
accumulated process of tourism experience (Font and McCabe, 2017). It also consists
expectations of guests before, during and after arrival that ultimately influence revisit intentions
of them for next trip. Here, in regards of increasing customer experience, role of employees is
essential here gather customer acquisition (Setiawan and Sayuti, 2017). The employee and
customer transactions is considered as a determinant of customer experience, whereby,
delivering
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an excellent experience to clients can only be achieved when a hotel has well-trained and high-
skilled staff. For this assistance, The Grand Hyatt Hotel of Australia measures experimental
intelligence of its staff workers on the basis of four dimensions (Fernandes and Cruz, 2016). It
includes creativity and innovation; centricity of customer experience; generosity and last one is
professional behaviour. All these factors state that employees having such intelligence are able to
provide more excellent customer experience. Moreover, authenticity of emotional
display of staff members is taken as of great importance within hospitality and tourism industry
to deliver services to customers in best way. Hereby, considering the
tremendous and amazing growth of internet as well as social media applications in lives of
people, the
online customer experience also becomes crucial within hotel industry. According to the
research carried out by Sabiote-Ortiz and et. al. (2016), it has been evaluated that online
transactions is mostly occurred within tourism only, where tourists spend more time for
reviewing history of hotels and other associated tour related services to measure customer
experience offered by them. Thus, websites of hotels are taken as critical platforms in order to
provide information to targeted group about positive customer experience, which satisfied the
promises of brands.
They give high commitment to organisations to concern and complete every demand of
customers, via making effective interaction with them (Li, Wong and Kim, 2016). Through
effective interpersonal skills and high communication abilities, staff of hotels make business able
to deliver services in desired way to their potential guests within short-duration of time.
Therefore, The Grand Hyatt Hotel concerns more on introducing and retaining best talented
workforce, having intelligence skills in delivering positive customer services (Chen, Murphy and
Knecht, 2016). For this purpose, its managers concern more on increasing employee engagement
in business to enhance customer experience. Here, they organise effective training and
development program for developing interpersonal skills of workers and increase their
capabilities. Management of respective hotel also focuses on completing basic necessities of staff
members, such as adequate amount of salary, positive environment, working hours flexibility
and more. Along with this, The Grand Hyatt Hotel also empowering workers to give
commitment for delivering services to customers as per service culture (Liat and et. al., 2017). It
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includes improvement in customer convenience, generate traffic, enhance brand image of hotels,
establish the competitive edge and more.
As per the given figure, it has been interpreted that when employees put extra efforts in
enhancing customer experience, then over 70% of guests make mind to visit again in such
organisations again in future. While more than 50% of customers recommend their family
members and friends to take services of hotels that enhance customer experience of them. This
would lead to promote brands of hotels via word to mouth publicity. While near about 40%
people spend more time to avail services of hotels that deliver great customer experience.
Consequence of poor customer services for The Grand Hyatt Hotel
Grand Hyatt hotel is one of the most reputed hotel firm in all over the world. Its customer
services are wondering and speaks on about the quality existences at the major sides. Good
customer services arises when, business utilises their available resources such as man, manpower
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