Hotel Camlux: Service Quality Management and Improvement Strategies

This report analyzes service quality management at the Hotel Camlux in Hong Kong. It explores methods for measuring and managing service quality, including the use of mystery shopping and the SERVQUAL model. The report also examines the impact of leadership and service culture on front-line employee engagement. A customer feedback system framework is designed to continuously improve service quality. The report covers various aspects such as service standards, customer expectations, and the importance of employee satisfaction. It emphasizes the need for continuous improvement, training, and adapting to changes in the hospitality industry. The report also discusses the role of competitors and benchmarking in achieving higher service quality standards.

Running Head: Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
Service Quality
Camlux Hotel

Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Managing and measuring service quality...................................................................................3
Service quality management methods........................................................................................5
Impact of leadership and service culture on front-line employees engagement........................8
Impact of leadership...............................................................................................................8
Customer feedback system framework....................................................................................10
Inner circle............................................................................................................................12
Outer circle...........................................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
Introduction
The Hotel Camlux has been selected for the completion of the project report. The
Hotel is situated at Kowloon Bay in Hong Kong. The quality of service has been focused in
the entire report and for that concerns the measurement and management of service quality is
been done and different tools have been selected to correctly ,measure the service, services
are something that cannot be measured in terms or units, it is intangible and could only be
experienced. One of the tools to select the adequate method of service quality system
measurement is mystery shopping where the anonymous person scrutinize the services of
Hotel acting as the ordinary person and then corrective actions are implemented later on
(Hahn et al., 2017).
The report includes the measurement and management techniques of service quality
followed by the investigation over the service quality management method in which the
mystery shopping model has been used as it is most suitable model for the concerned
industry. The impact of leadership on the front-line managers has been discussed as well
along with the service culture that the front-line manger should follow to encourage
employee engagement. Lastly, the customer feedback system framework has been designed
so as to continue the improvement in the quality of services and monitor the working of Hotel
and in what manner the standards will be met.
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
Managing and measuring service quality
The Camlux Hotel is initiated in May 2017 at Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong. The hotel is
situated at 15 minute distance from MTR which is the Kowloon Bay Station and the guests
could utilize the free shuttle services. The hotel comprises of 185 rooms which consists of all
the amenities and fully fledged with the latest technology and equipped with free Wi-Fi
facility with better connectivity (Cocks, 2017). Service quality is the specified standards that
need to be followed to maintain the quality of services. These are the expectations that the
customer holds with the service provider and mostly in the hospitality industry where
services are the only source to attract the customer and increase the consumer base and
expanding the business with the growing consumer loyalty. The quality of services are
important as they depict the actual standards and due to this the expectations and actual
services could be compared and the points where the company lacks is identified and
thereafter the corrective measures are taken to immediately resolve the issues and increase
the standard of the service provider and increasing the customer satisfaction (Camlux Hotel,
2017).
The measuring of service quality designs certain standards and accordingly the
activities in the hospitality industries are carried over. The standards are the benchmark that
the hotel builds up to see to the failures and expand the level of business accordingly moving
ahead step by step by setting the new level of standard after achieving the one. The feedback
could be gained from the reviews of the customer who experienced the services in the hotel
and these reviews could be collected from the trip advisor and other similar sites to know the
actual positioning of the company (Nscpolteksby, 2017). There are small things that matter
and quality is established through them only. The adequacy is measured by the means of
gestures that the employee shows while serving the customers, it is the employees who
represents the hotel at the first sight and gave the impression to consumers through there calm
and patient services (Business Queensland, 2017). The examples of maintaining standards
and thereby attaining the optimum quality are discussed hereby.
The bar in restraint has the fixed estimation of consumption yet they maintain the
storage of fine wine and other drink so as to deal with the causality that occurs. This depicts
the standardisation of the hotel that they predict the future and accordingly keep up the back-
up plan if needed in any case or to deal with the adverse situation if it occurs at any point the
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
future. Another example is the estimation of food and cutlery to be arranged and the tables to
be previously prepared. The standards could be estimated from the daily turn-up of customers
visiting the hotel and accordingly the tables are pre-set and silverware are used and napkins
are arranged and folded accordingly, it is the presentation that matters a lot and depict about
the ambience of the hotel. The quality could be measured by the customer from the
presentation, ambience and soothing environment within the hotel (Yang et al., 2011). Also
the extra preparation has been made well in advance if the projection in case went wrong and
more customers and guests visit the place, thus, to avoid discrepancies and situation of failure
the preparation for the extra presence is already made and still if some lacking is there the
things should be managed accordingly which will automatically show up the management of
situation in the professional and ethical manner therefore attracting the guests which might
result in increased referrals and positive word of mouth publicity. Through such the gesture
shown by the visitors the success and quality of services provided by the customer could be
predicted and measured accordingly and positive steps are encouraged as well. Also the
measurement of service quality could be done using the SERVQUAL model which explains
the detail of gap between the customer’s expectation and the actual services they are given,
there are 5 gaps that depict the difference between customer expectations and what the hotel
perceives about the customer expectation in the different forms (Hartline & Jones, 1996).
The service quality could be managed by recording the feedback of the customers
and timely interacting with the existing visitors to know about the quality of service they
desire for and at what rank does they find the services that are actually offered to them. For
this concern after delivering their services the staff must make their guests to fill the feedback
forms and share their precious views and leaving back the comments on the services that they
got and on what scale they would rank the hotel, its ambience, staff behaviour and many
more (Milton & Johnson, 2012). Quality is not just in the terms of food and the rooms it is
based on the overall experience that the customer had in the hotel. From the entry till the
check-out procedure each step comprises of the quality and satisfaction. Also the survey
could be made and the research and development department should be rendered with the
adequate training so that better research could be made and accordingly the various aspect of
success could be figured out. The identified steps are studied upon and the best suitable
change that could lead to the success could be implemented. Also to manage the quality of
service appropriate and timely training should be provided to the employees working in
different departments (Tari et al, 2017). Their knowledge should be groomed up and the
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
changes are demonstrated to them well in advance so that they could welcome the challenges
in the positive manner instead of worrying about the upcoming challenges (Chang, 2016).
Since the hospitality industry is broad one and in the hotel like Camlux which is the new
opening there are great changes to implement changes time to time thus the recruited staffs
need to be competent enough to face the dynamism and positively revert to it by ensuring the
growth. To manage the quality of the services there is the need to focus on the internal
relationship and build up the positive relations with the staff so that generosity could be
spread in the organisation. Along with the customer satisfaction it is of high importance that
attention should be paid on the satisfaction of employees as well. When the employee is
satisfied and equally motivated the affirmativeness gets reflected through their behaviour as
the employees are the first person to deal with the customers either on the call or by serving
face to face. There is a need of feeding discipline among the employees so that efficiency and
effectiveness could be maintained in the services that are rendered by the employees and
monitoring should be done by the supervisor overt the subordinated work and figuring out the
gaps that have occurred and measures are taken to fill up these gaps by applying the
corrective actions and increasing the performance level of the staff (Nikolaidis et al., 2016).
Service quality management methods
Measurement is the sign that the company wants to progress and for that the standards
are been made which states that quality has been maintained and efforts are been made to
even improve the shortcomings as well. Some of the materialistic things could be easily
measured but things like service quality cannot be measured in terms of units. The service
quality and customer satisfaction correlates with each other and are most of the time treated
to be the related terms but both are entirely different aspects. There are numerous methods
using which the service quality management could be done and the services could be
measures accurately (Augustyn, 1998). These methods are: SERVQUAL method, mystery
shopping, post service rating, follow-up survey, in-app survey, customer effort score, social
media monitoring, documentation analysis and objective service metrics. The most suitable
method in context of service quality management and appropriate measurement is ‘Mystery
Shopping’ method.
The mystery shopping is the method which is popularly used in banks, restaurants,
hotel services, shops, travel agents and similar service centre. In mystery shopping the
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
anonymous person is taken as the mystery guests and the checklist is designed. The mystery
person went to these places and acts to be the normal person and analyse the things
mentioned in the checklist and evaluate the surroundings and other things accordingly
(Pascal, 2016). This guest is well trained and therefore on visiting the stores, restaurants and
hotels they observe the activities deeply and prepare the evaluation report. This report and the
feedback of the mystery person help in deciding the score of the hotel and what all
amendments are need to be made are decided and methods to implement such changes are
derived and accordingly. Due to such reviews and feedback the improvisation takes place and
standardisation is maintained (Djs research, 2017).
The aim of mystery shopping is to measure the quality that the hotel is providing to
the customers and fulfilling the incomplete requirements and meeting up the benchmark of
quality. The mystery guest need to focus on the specific quality standards and the guidelines
need to be learnt from time to time so that the required changes could be analysed and the
service quality could be rated on the scale of quality. Also, this mystery guest should analyse
and evaluate the competitor’s strategy as well and marking the checklist in context of
competitors to evaluate the business and services rendered by them, to learn about the pricing
and promotional strategy (Koseoglu et al., 2016). Through the competitors also the
benchmarking could be done and the better things that have been observed could also be
implemented in the current business. Through their standards also the comparison could be
made and things might be set according to it so that a level up could be achieved and thereby
expansion of hotel is made possible. Competitors are also considered as the benchmark as
comparison with the high rank competitors results in achieving the heights because
benchmark need to be such which proves to be the difficult in achieving, when such a level is
crossed the hotel will become competent to reach the other level and achieve the new heights
(Jacob et al., 2016).
The other motives of mystery guest is to measure the appropriateness of training been
provided to the employees in the hotel and what kind of training programmes should be
undertaken. The trainings also consists of different parts, it differs from department to
department and there are certain trainings that are common in nature like safety, grooming
and learning related to organisational structure, culture and policies. Also the check over the
behaviour is scrutinized in mystery shopping which keeps a watch over the activities of the
employees and the managers and see to it that equal treatment with the employees are done
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
and no member of staff is bullied on the basis of colour, caste, region and religion (Brito and
Rambocas, 2016). Each and every person need to be respected and all must be given the
chance to express themselves and present their views and suggestion they feel worth to be
shared with the top hierarchy. The results of the mystery shopping could be implemented and
the study over it shall be conducted to reach the adequacy and appropriateness. Through the
mystery shopping the interaction with the staff and managers is improved, they share the
views and complaints with one another and steps are taken to resolve such complaints so that
employee satisfaction is achieved and therefore the quality of services get improved. Also,
through communication the expectations of consumers and employees are gained and
manager balances both the expectations and find out the mid-way to satisfy both the
employees as well as consumers and achieve the new heights in the hotel industry by getting
more positive reviews and better word of mouth publicity (Hill, Fombelle and Sirianni,
2016). Through the evaluation report discrepancies that could arise in the near future are
preliminary detected and the actions to solve such issues are made so that when in future any
challenge and dynamism occurs the hotel and the staff are ready to face it and turn that
change into the better opportunity to extract the best result out of it along with maintaining
the standard of quality. Along with the report construction the attention should be paid on the
training programs as well and with the passing time those programmes need to be improved
and advanced technology should be adopted so as to manage the pace with the outer world.
The issues that are of premium quality need to handle first and accordingly the solution
should be rendered so that improvement is focussed and vision of the hotel is achieved
(Kushwaha, Ubeja& Chatterjee, 2017). To encourage the employees for behaving in the fine
manner and for that the appreciation should be done, this will lead to sincerity in the nature of
the person. The mystery shopper, also known as the researcher analyses the internal and
external environment of the hotel and the relationship that the staff carries with them. By
observing and researching on the hotel and restaurants the knowledge expansion of the
researcher takes place. Also the billing at the stores, restaurants, hotels and other utility shops
are also observed this depicts the management of the stores and discipline that is been
followed in the organisation, the systematic working is encouraged to ensure the calculative
growth. The mystery shopping is done in order to find out the weak point of organisation
which could not be figured out in the general manner and only experiencing the service could
give this information. Through mystery shopping the views of other customers and the
employees problems could be studied and measures are taken afterwards to solve the issues
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
and adding on the point that will led to expansion of organisation by exploring the new
opportunities that the mystery shopper found out during the research (Zorica et al., 2017).
Impact of leadership and service culture on front-line
employees engagement
Impact of leadership
Leadership is the activity that helps in controlling the staff and monitoring the
activities that are taking place. The leaders take part in decision making process of the
organisation as they are the one that closely view the activities taking place within the
organisation and could analyse the problems with the organisational structure and the issues
that the employees are facing within the organisation. This is quite the general technique that
leadership training is provided to the executive level people and the top level managers but
the actual fact is that executives are the less approached people; the staffs interact most with
the front-line managers most and they are the one that knows most about the organisation.
The studies show that around 70-80% of the workforce contact to the frontline managers for
the facilities or any other requirement needed by the subordinates (Simonsen, 2016). Thus,
measures need to be taken to provide better training to the front line managers so that
efficiency of the leader is improved and they could better guide the employees. The
leadership training should be imparted to the front-line manager so that they could estimate
the usage of resources and render the permission to the subordinates accordingly. It is the
responsibility of the front-line manager to allocate the resources in the optimum manner and
carry effective communication with the peers and subordinate to make them work efficiently
(Lin, 2004). In the corporate culture it is generally believed that for the development of the
organisation there is a need of a good leader who manages everything in the appropriate
manner and understands the problems and reach in depth to study the root cause of the
problems that are arising.
For the growth of the organisation the thing that is highly required is the employee
engagement within the organisation. For that the better coaching should be given to the
subordinates. The coach trains the team to stay united and share the experience with one
another so that appropriate working could take place (Baileyu et al., 2017). The coaching
opens up the employees and the potential gets reflected, it helps in discussing the problems
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
and getting solutions from the employees and in this process they get to know about the latent
talent within the person. The good leader helps in driving the organisation in the correct
direction by analysing the external market situation and motivating the workforce to work
together and move forward to achieve the common goal. They build up the highly efficient
workforce and ability to train the people gets improvised. Thus, when the leader is good and
efficient enough the performances of the employees get to improve and therefore the quality
services are rendered by the employees to the customers. This is highly important in the
hospitality industry to groom well and encourage the team work by increasing the
coordination and cooperation among the employees so that the individuality and group
working both could be learnt accordingly (Sousa and Dierendonck, 2017). The leaders must
undergo the 360 degree evaluation where the feedback from the peers, superiors and
subordinates are collected and the leaders are told about the performance and what all
changes they should implement so as to improve the performance and subordinate gains even
better support and knowledge as the good leader will definitely deliver something better to
their employees (Vidya and Amborse, 2017). It is the right of the employees to work with the
potential leader and learn lot more from the experience they carry and offer them the fresh
ideas which they carry within them so that the new ideas and experience combine and results
in something magnificent for the organisation (Gallant, 2017).
Corporate culture is the culture that prevails within the organization which depicts the
working to be carried on by the organisation. They are the values, beliefs and traditions that
the organisation withholds. The study states that the organisational culture differs from
organisation to organisation and competitors might copy the strategies and the innovative
techniques that the organization adopted but nobody could ever steal the culture that sustains
within the organisation and the manner in which the work is been done. The culture is
symbolised as the immune system of the company and in the hospitality industry it is the
culture which is paid off (Menguc et al., 2017). In the hotel the culture is been depicted from
the first till the last move. The culture is the protective layer for the hotel and it is the thing
that represents the etiquettes that is been followed in the organisation. That hotel which
comprises of the best culture has the chances to grow in the better manner as the strong
culture and structure of the organisation is more powerful than the low culture of the hotel
industry. The culture depends upon the good quality of leadership as the perfect leader proves
to be the role model for the employees and they try to imitate them and follow the path that is
been selected by the leader. It is the culture of the industry to learn from the mentor and
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
follow the path chosen by the leader. When the healthy culture has been followed there are
more chances that employees get engaged with such an organisation, the culture depicts
working environment and the soothing environment automatically encourages the employees
and the motivated staff proves to be the asset for the hotel, their gestures get improved and
they reflect positivity in the ambience and with the customers who then give away the star
ratings and positive reviews on the trip advisor and other travel sites (Alcala, 2017). Another
factor that plays the crucial role in employee engagement is the emotional intelligence. In the
emotional intelligence the workplace applause and successful life is gained. It proves about
the intellect that the employee in particular carries. The emotional intelligence depicts the
self-improvement and the interpersonal skills get to improve through it. Through EI the
reasoning skill polishes up and the employee gets to manage themselves in an adequate
manner. The organisational relationship turns to be healthy and long lasting and team
working is encouraged where people exchange the ideas and thoughts with one another and
reaches towards the fruitful results (Panat, 2017). For the front-line managers the self-skill of
emotional intelligence consist of high importance, they need to understand the emotions of
the staff as many times there are situations where the employee is not able to speak up
directly and the manager should understand the hidden reason or the emotion that is been
carried over. The manager could help the employees to open up and speak about the issue
they are facing and measures should be taken in the emotional manner so that things correctly
fall in place and they meet the expectations of the employees as well as the customers thereby
fulfilling the objective of the hotel and moving forward to accomplish the vision as well
(Elbaz and Haddoud, 2017).
Customer feedback system framework
When the service industry is been discussed the first thing that comes in mind is the
hotel industry. In the Camlux hotel to observe the working of the employees and to keep the
watch on the activities of the staff there is need to design the framework where the reviews of
customers are there and the mangers could handle the working accordingly based on the
customer feedback, if some problem or dissatisfaction from the employees are noticed the
root cause has been figured out and accordingly the solutions are rendered. This will
improvise the decision making power of the managers and leadership qualities get to grow in
the better way. In the feedback framework the training is provided to those employees in
whom the deficiency has been noticed and thereafter the monitoring is made to record the
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Managing quality of services in Hotel Camlux
betterment that took place after initiating the necessary changes (Cama et al., 2017). The
customer feedback system framework is divided into two formats which are in the circular
form. The first circle is considered as the inner circle in which training to the employees are
provided. It is based on the customer reviews where the NPA and KPIs are measures and
thereafter the score is analysed. The customers are called back to collect the reactions and
note the positive and negative points and do further analysis upon it thereafter the final action
is initiated and coaching is provided to the employees accordingly. The outer circle focuses
on the improvement of the organisational structure. In this, first of all the root cause of the
issue is analysed thereafter the actions are suggested to improve the situation and the
solutions are suggested as per the priority of the problem. The immediate and major problems
are solved with the highest priority (Brown et al, 2017). The final improvement in the
structure of the hotel or other organisation is initiated and lastly the information of the
changes made has been given to the employees and the customer so that they could review
the same and evaluation could made. The outer circle and the inner circle are connected with
each other (Ibrahim et al., 2017).
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