Case Study: Improving Guest Satisfaction at Imperial Hotel

This case study examines the Imperial Hotel, a 4-star establishment in London, facing challenges related to poor guest satisfaction. The analysis delves into the likely causes of these issues from both management and operational perspectives, including problems with check-in/check-out processes, room quality, and staff behavior. The core of the assignment proposes a three-point plan to improve service quality. This plan incorporates strategies such as recording guest feedback using Six Sigma methodology, making actions proactive by applying Henri Fayol's principles of management, and investing in staff training through the Total Quality Management approach. The goal is to reduce negative feedback, enhance employee behavior, and ultimately improve the hotel's financial performance. The report concludes with the importance of implementing these strategies to enhance customer satisfaction and overall business success.

Assessment Case Study

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................................1
a) Discuss the problem’s likely causes from a management and operational perspective..........1
b) 3 point plan for improving quality of service with the help of management and operations
theories........................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Hotel is one of full fledged organisation, which is aimed to satisfy customer needs and
wants & offers with their beyond expectation services in return of money paid by them. In hotel
based entity, role and purpose of a management & operational perspective is to gather efficiency
and increase productivity to grow & sustain in separate business competition (Zhangjiakou and
et. al., 2015). Customer is one of the centric focus in hotel organisation and operates to achieve
customer's wants in term of an accommodation. It is the one of the superior task to gather what
hotel firm is being committed to offer to their customer's and what price being by them. Hence,
this assessment will be carry on discussion in context to Imperial hotel. This detailed report is
having discussion on poor guest satisfaction which their prior general manager has been realised
into the Imperial hotel. Imperial hotel is one of the well known 4 star hotel based in London and
consists of total 500 bedrooms and operates in all around 25 cities of the UK. In this hotel, entire
report is being covering the problem related to the poor guest experiences and how it is threats
for operation of the imperial hotel and ability to earn higher profits. Apart from this, hotel is
considered as one of the lowest in 4 star hotel. Hence, major aim of this report is continuous
centric solving problem related to the poor guest services to develop managerial and operation
aspects to grow business profitability. Moreover, report plan will cover solving issues being
related to alter quality service, staff morale, enhances operational ability and rising financial
position of this hotel. Furthermore, this concise assessment will cover context of management
and operational theories.
MAIN ANALYSIS
a) Discuss the problem’s likely causes from a management and operational perspective
In this assessment, consideration will have to be the given to problem causing in imperial
hotel which is related to the poor customer and guest experience. Hotel is one of the necessary
part of an emerging hospitality industry deals with providing accommodation as their potential
products to the people who arrives from other location and receives services in return of the price
paid (To and et. al., 2015). Expectation is high of the customer in respect of flourishing room
service, hotel checking in or out, being of time wastage etc. of talks about of Imperial hotel,
customer has continuously complained on problem of keep stand or wait in queue for checking
in or out, quality of the room is not up to the mark and issues has been realised of their arrogance
1

of their staff. When hotel was measured on benchmark grading system, Imperial hotel stand for
60 percent which is less than industry frame of 78 percent. Critical difference has shown that
hotel is much less than average service path (Luo and Qu, 2016). Also, customer has told that
hotel front office is being charging undisclosed income and they are even with out information of
the hotel management. If talks in a perspective of management & operation, this all kind of
issues are danger for operation of the imperial hotel..
b) 3 point plan for improving quality of service with the help of management and operations
theories
Poor Guest Satisfaction is one of the biggest challenges in hotel industry nowadays. It is
worse because this creates negative publicity, word of mouth and customer switching in market
easily. Service quality in hospitality industry is one of most important factor to gain customer
satisfaction and competitive advantage. Imperial Hotel is facing this issue and affecting their
Brand Image, goodwill and market share. Monthly surveys shows poor guest experience in terms
of inappropriate staff behaviour, unhygienic bathrooms, over billing and other issues resulting in
negative feedbacks. Corrective actions needs to be taken and for that 3 point plan is developed
by Manager of Imperial Hotel, are as follows:
1. Recording Guest feedback - First and foremost step is to record guest experience through
detailed, systematic questionnaire at time of checkout to record feedbacks to move
forward in plan (Pan, 2015). Collecting and comparing feedback can also be challenging
because of unwillingness of customer to fill it, need to determine all areas for
improvement and quickly address related issues. Create customer-focused survey so that
their perspective and needs or wants so received will help to fill gaps in overall customer
experience.
 For this step to be carry out properly we can use Six Sigma as quality control
methodology which emphasis on cyclic improvements while reducing defects. It
focuses on management ideology to address customer's requirements, retention and
brings improvements in business processes (Nieves and Segarra-Ciprés, 2015). It
follow an approach named DMAIC which stated as Define, Measure, Analyse,
Improve and Control. A team of people will be assigned by manager to carry out this
method firstly they will define all requirements or area that need to keep in mind
while framing questionnaire.
2

 After this they will measure all factors needed to be included in survey and inputs
which created low quality questionnaire before. Analysing each factor on basis of
their relative importance in survey and testing on less number of guest first then
making it available for larger groups (Pereira-Moliner and et. al., 2015). Through
analysis, team will identify reasons for process failure earlier. Team from here start
working to improve performance of surveys and take corrective actions if any
deviations occurs.
 Finally, team will add-on control method to ensure that it does not become ineffective
again. The only reason behind applying Six Sigma management ideology by manager
of Imperial Hotel is to make business effective in solving any problem by following
DMAIC steps. This will help hotel to get proper feedback on which manager can
work to reduce poor guest satisfaction.
2. Making actions proactive – Manager of Imperial hotel wants their personnel to become
proactive service model to improve customer experience from negative to positive. They
should not wait for any feedback to take corrective action rather than they would make
sure that there is no negative experience of guest in advance. For this step to be carry out
in effective manner Manager will apply Henri Fayol Principles of Management which
will serves as guidelines for actions and decision making.
 It will use Division of work to make employees specialise in different areas which
will promote efficiency, increase their speed and accuracy, supports personal growth.
This also avoid confusion between employees related to their area of work and would
perfectly know which problem need to be address by whom.
 Employees should have Unity of Direction to know core values they are working for
and take actions to achieve ultimate goal of improve guest satisfaction. This
management principle ensures smooth running of organisation process to accomplish
long term objectives (Rahimi and Kozak, 2017). All activities must be carried out to
focus and unite all actions towards positive experience of customer.
 To avoid confusion which may lead to conflicts between employees and guest, Unity
of Command will be implemented by manager of Imperial Hotel to make sure that
there is only one boss above every team. They should receive order and accountable
to that superior only.
3

 Remuneration is monetary or non-monetary rewards given to employee for efforts he
put into to make customer satisfied and respond positively. In feedback forms there
will be different section to name employee that served them and rate their actions,
behaviour and attitude to personally evaluate performance of employee for rewarding
(Al-Refaie, 2015). This system will motivate other workforce also to make extra
efforts in making their respective guest satisfied and happy.
 Taking Initiative of employees in decision making will increase their morale and
source of new creative idea to make processes innovative. They will feel valuable and
put efforts to achieve positive guest satisfaction and thus will serves as strength for
Imperial Hotel.
 To reduce employee turnover, sick leaves and absenteeism management of Imperial
Hotel should focus on areas related to changes in position, training and development,
career growth, personal well-being of workforce.
3. Invest in staff training – Imperial Hotel will set goals related to maintain positive
customer satisfaction, manage complaints and how to avoid negative feedback. Staff at
ground level interacts with customer, represents professionalism and leaves good
impression on guests (Lee and et. al., 2015). They directly take feedback about what are
hotel's strengths and weakness to improve customer service or experiences.
 Investing in training and development of employees can be costly affair but it brings
positive results for organisation in long-run as well. Total Quality Management
approach will be use as material while training personnel of Imperial Hotel.
 It is structured approach focuses on improving customer experience through reducing
errors in processes or procedures that keeps employees up-to date with training. Its
aim is to held all personnel responsible for overall quality of services hotel provides.
 One of basic principle of Total Quality Management is to be customer-focused in all
processes. While training it is duty of manager of Imperial hotel to determine
employees about managing all their efforts to improve quality on basis of customer
requirements and preferences.
 Training sessions ensure participation of every employee from workplace. They
should feel empower to work towards common goals of organisation for that
4

management shall provide proper environment with work systems for continues
improvements (Berezina and et. al., 2016).
 All sessions will follow series of steps to motivate, develop skill or performance and
measuring outcomes in order to evaluate changes keeping their attitude or behaviour
as base for improvements.
 Communication skills need to be improved in training session to reduce guest
negative feedback. Management of Imperial Hotel will use strategic and systematic
approach for continues improvements that ensures proper one-to-one interaction of
staff with customer (Wang and et. al., 2015). All these approaches of training will
help employees to be proactive, friendly and supportive towards guest needs.
It is concluded from above discussion that Manager of Imperial Hotel wants to reduce
negative feedback of guest to make business financially sustained with motivated staff who
attends guest with positive attitude. 3 point plan that is purposed above will be effective in
improving quality of employees behaviour or attitude towards customer needs. Employees
behaviour need to be changed due to constant complaints of guest, for that systematic approach
of training is planned with management and operations principles. Following methodology is
productive in correcting defaults and major barriers in services of hotel done by its staff.
5

CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is concluded that imperial hotel is suffering with any issue of
poor guest satisfaction and ineffective quality of the services. Apart from this, it was also
realised that, in bench mark grading system imperial hotel is even less than standard and industry
such as 60 out of the 78 percent. Imperial hotel has to be focused on their services utilisation
such as quality rooms, developing process for check in and check out of the customer and takes
out service measuring standards such as feedback cards, question and answer and taking short
interview in order to attracts major customer at one point of time. It is necessary to develops
service constitution in the hotel sector so that organisation would develops services in
accordance to standard one required. Also, imperial hotel must gives training to their employee's
and staff in matter of how to perform necessary hotel service based work and how to takes on
consideration of how changes in services of hotel can be made perfect and how perfect changes
can be initiates to brings out effective working in the imperial hotel.
6

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Molina-Azorín, J. F., and et. al., 2015. The effects of quality and environmental management on
competitive advantage: A mixed methods study in the hotel industry. Tourism
Management. 50. pp.41-54.
Wang, L., and et. al., 2015. Impact of hotel website quality on online booking intentions: e Trust
as a mediator. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 47. pp.108-115.
Berezina, K., and et. al., 2016. Understanding satisfied and dissatisfied hotel customers: text
mining of online hotel reviews. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management. 25(1).
pp.1-24.
Lee, J. S., and et. al., 2015. Quality of work life and job satisfaction among frontline hotel
employees: A self-determination and need satisfaction theory approach. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 27(5). pp.768-789.
Al-Refaie, A., 2015. Effects of human resource management on hotel performance using
structural equation modeling. Computers in Human Behavior. 43. pp.293-303.
Rahimi, R. and Kozak, M., 2017. Impact of customer relationship management on customer
satisfaction: The case of a budget hotel chain. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing.
34(1). pp.40-51.
Pereira-Moliner, J., and et. al., 2015. The Holy Grail: Environmental management, competitive
advantage and business performance in the Spanish hotel industry. International Journal
of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 27(5). pp.714-738.
Nieves, J. and Segarra-Ciprés, M., 2015. Management innovation in the hotel industry. Tourism
Management. 46. pp.51-58.
Pan, F. C., 2015. Practical application of importance-performance analysis in determining critical
job satisfaction factors of a tourist hotel. Tourism Management. 46. pp.84-91.
Luo, Z. and Qu, H., 2016. Guest-defined hotel service quality and its impacts on guest loyalty.
Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism. 17(3). pp.311-332.
To, W. M., and et. al., 2015. Effect of management commitment to internal marketing on
employee work attitude. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 45. pp.14-21.
Zhangjiakou, E. A., and et. al., 2015. Methodological aspects of strategic management of
financial risks during construction of hotel business objects. Asian Social Science. 11(20).
p.229.
7