International Business Management: Town Hotel Case Study Analysis

This report analyzes a case study focused on the customer service challenges faced by Town Hotel in Nepal. The report examines various factors contributing to service failures, including issues with the physical environment, lack of management control, inefficient systems, and incorrect information provided to customers. The analysis delves into specific instances, such as long wait times at check-in, double-booked rooms, and misleading airport advertisements. Furthermore, the report explores service recovery strategies implemented by the manager, Ashok Kumar, to address these issues. The proposed solutions include recruiting and empowering employees, optimizing service encounter systems, and fostering a positive customer-focused environment. The report concludes with recommendations for improving customer satisfaction and overall business performance, providing actionable insights for the hotel's management team.

International Business Management

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Question 1........................................................................................................................................3
Physical environment...................................................................................................................3
Lack of management control.......................................................................................................4
Control and efficiency.................................................................................................................5
Incorrect information...................................................................................................................6
Question 2........................................................................................................................................6
Selection and recruitment of the appropriate employees.............................................................7
Offering appropriate levels of empowerment in job....................................................................7
Systems for optimizing the service encounter.............................................................................8
Question 3........................................................................................................................................9
Analysing the need of employees................................................................................................9
Upgrading the technology............................................................................................................9
Involvement of manager............................................................................................................10
Creating positive culture............................................................................................................10
Forming relative marketing team...............................................................................................11
Issues with the general manager....................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
The aim of the paper is to talk about the service that is provided to the customers by the service
industry in the international business management. The report is based on the case study in
which the question has been asked at the end. In the case, there is description related to the Town
Hotel who is currently dealing with the customer service failure issues that can affect the image
of the company in the market of Nepal. Ashok Kumar is appointed with the motive to improve
the level of customer satisfaction. Thus, this paper includes the service recovery done by the
manager and the ways he acted to the situation.

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Question 1
Service encounters are considered as the transactional interactions in which one person offers the
services to another person. These interactions take place when the town hotel offer services to
their guest with the motive to attain the satisfaction and to improve the experience of the
customers. In the past few years, the managers of the service companies are getting aware of the
needs of the customers which help them to create value for their customers by offering them high
satisfaction.1 This section includes the explanation related to the factors of the service encounter
that failed to achieve the expectations and satisfaction of Mr Kumar’s with the Town Hotel,
Nepal.
Physical environment
One of the factors that affected the experience of Mr Kumar was a physical environment of the
Hotel which gets influenced by both the customers and their personal behaviour. The below-
given diagram shows the physical complexity of the servicescape: -
1 Christopher Lovelock and Paul Patterson. Services marketing (Australia: Pearson, 2015), 217.

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This has been found that the staff was working to provide the delight services to customers but
the unavailability of the enough is one of the issues which arise due to which the complexity and
gaps in the service take place. Mr Kumar arrived in the hotel at 11.00 pm and found that one of
the front desk staff is going off duty and closed her drawer at that moment. Due to which the 11
guests left in the line to be checked in by only one of the staff of the hotel. This consumed
approx. 30 minutes due to which the services were not appreciated by the customers. 2
This shows the lack of personnel in the Town Hotel at the night which is the general time when
most of the international tourists visit the place. Once the room where assigned Mr Kumar asked
for the assistance with luggage and was told that the staff is not available. This means that hotel
is lacking in managing the human resource effectively. The customer satisfaction and experience
depends on the interaction with the employees majorly in the service companies and the lack of
personnel will affect the services that are offered to the customers. The availability of the staff at
the hotel could have improved the experience of Mr Kumar.
Lack of management control
The control of the management is one of the factors that can influence the service encounter.3 Mr
Kumar reached the hotel two building away from lobby area with wife, a son who was fast
asleep. The guest attempted to enter the room which and key unlocked the door and after the
couples of attempts there was woman voice in the room. Later, it was identified that the room
was double-booked and the woman was awakened from her sleep which occurred because of the
lack of management by the staff of the hotel. Mr Kumar informed about the situation due to
2 Tijana Radojevic, Nemanja Stanisic, and Nenad Stanic. "Ensuring positive feedback: Factors that influence
customer satisfaction in the contemporary hospitality industry." Tourism Management, Vol. 51 (2015), 15.
3 Lianping Ren, et al. "Exploring customer experience with budget hotels: Dimensionality and
satisfaction." International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 52 (2016), 21.

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which the front desk manager offered a quick apology and the send the correct keys of the
nearby room. This made the customers amazed that the front office manager was available but
there was no assistant offered to the women at that moment. This shows that the manager of the
Town Hotel is not supportive and corporative towards the customers and employees which affect
the services offered by the hotel.
Control and efficiency
The management should control the system efficiently which is the way through which they can
meet the expectations of the customers. The service encounter is also characterised by the three-
cornered struggle for the control. Thus, the customer, the frontline service staff member and the
firm’s management are all vying to control the encounter effectively. 4For instance, the process
of guest checking into a hotel is one of the areas where the customer's experience and satisfaction
might get affected. this was witnessed by the manager in the job when he witnessed that about 20
local guests were waiting to check in when two tour coaches with the additional 80 guests
arrived into the lobby with the motive to check in. With the availability of the only two front
desk staff, it was difficult to manage the guest and conduct their check-in process. Though, it
was found that Front Desk staff had a look of terror in their eyes as they worked diligently to
process the registration of the guest waiting for the check-in. The guest generally requires the
quick assigning of rooms in the hotel with the minimum waiting time which leads to the
improved experience and satisfaction of the customers in the hotel. In the case of Town Hotel,
the guest was supposed to wait for the longer period of time due to which customers experience
and satisfaction get affected.
4 Nigel Hill and Jim Alexander. The handbook of customer satisfaction and loyalty measurement (New York:
Routledge, 2017), 98.

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Incorrect information
The incorrect information is one of the major factors that influence the company service
encounter. The guest Mr Kumar didn’t have a good experience because of the false
representation at the airline. This was evident when Mr Kumar found that their connecting flight
was delayed and they found the advertisement of town hotel for the check-in facility at the
airport. Thus, Mr Kumar assumed that he can easily secure the room for the family while waiting
for the luggage at the airport. He approached the employee at the hotel’s airport facility but over
there he was told that the check-in services were not available at the time of the day.
This shows that there was incorrect information related to the hotel at the airport which affects
the experience and satisfaction of customers. The lack of the correct information exploits the
image of the company with the experience of the customers with the hotel.5 In this case, it has
been found that the advertisement of the hotel was done appropriately and the hotel should have
the tie-ups with the airport so that they both get the benefit of same.
Question 2
In the service industry, the efforts for the service recovery are important as this has been found
that it is impossible to ensure perfect and error-free service. This section of the report includes
the service recovery efforts that have been undertaken by the manager. Moreover, the efforts
have been undertaken by the manager to restore the services that are failed. The solutions which
are suggested for the improving the customer service can easily be applied to the company with
their operations in other branches. These solutions are given below: -
5 Rania B. Mostafa, et al. "Corporate image: A service recovery perspective." Journal of Service Research, Vol. 18
No. 4 (2015), 470.

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Several studies found that the ability of manager is to recover from a service failure favourably
that affect the evaluation of the customers of service and organisation. The recovery of the
service failure can be in the form of apology, compensation, refund or additional measures that
can offer the delight to the customers and can contribute in improving the experience. 6
Selection and recruitment of the appropriate employees
The selection and recruitment of the appropriate employees is not an easy task for the Town
Hotel currently. This has been found by the manager need to recruit more employees for their
organisation because inefficient staff can affect the service quality. 7The department that is
supposedly related to this recovery is the Human resource department. The HR department of the
Town Hall Nepal is required to hire more frontline and other employees for the effective
services. The increase in the number of employees at the front line and for other services helps
the company in managing the customers. Moreover, efficient use of the employees can be done
in Nepal hotel for the effective control of the management. There is a need for a dedicated
employee who can control the work. Service quality is managed by the employees who are hired
with the motive to recovery the services.
Offering appropriate levels of empowerment in job
The researcher has found that empowerment of employees will offer an appropriate level of
decision-making abilities which is used by them in enhancing the decision making. The
empowerment of employees in Town Hall in Nepal will offer the frontline staffs has the latitude
in forming the decision making to provide the services that can meet the needs of the customers.
6 K. Douglas Hoffman, Scott W. Kelley, and Holly M. Rotalsky. Restaurant service failure and recovery analysis
(Springer Cham, 2015), 95.
7 JungYun Hur and SooCheong Jang. "Toward service recovery strategies: the role of consumer-organization
relationship norms." Journal of services marketing, Vol. 30 No.7 (2016), 732.

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This helps the employees in showing the ability of the frontline personnel to think of the
feasibility options that can help in determining the satisfaction of the customers in the
organisation.8 The manager of the Town Hotel Nepal can work with the motive to empower the
frontline staff with the motive to use their own initiative to deal with the problems which are
majorly faced by the customers. This empowerment contributes to dealing with the problems
faced by the customers and leads to the improvement in the satisfaction and experience.9 This
will help the hotel in creating the customer-focused work environment.
Systems for optimizing the service encounter
This has been found that the system for optimizing the service encounter is must so that
managers need to ensure that there are good systems in the place to facilitate the offering of
service to customers. Town Hotel Nepal is dealing with the issues of incorrect information and
lack of effective management for which it has been found that the Mr Ashok manager should
conduct the different analyses related to the service that they are offering. A blueprint offers a
visual representation of the activities and the events that are essential to offer customers with the
service. The blueprint of the company includes all the activities front and back of town hotel
which helps the managers in managing the services in the area of every floor. The training
should be provided to the customers so that they can consider the touch points in satisfying the
needs of the customers. All these help in providing the correct details to the customers and also
in dealing with the situation which arises due to any of the reasons.
8 Evert Gummesson, "From relationship marketing to total relationship marketing and beyond." Journal of Services
Marketing, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2017), 18.
9 Aditi Sarkar Sengupta, M. S. Balaji, and Balaji C. Krishnan. "How customers cope with service failure? A study of
brand reputation and customer satisfaction." Journal of Business Research, Vol. 68 No. 3 (2015), 670.

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Question 3
According to Mr Kumar customer experience with the Town Hotel Nepal, Mr Ashok as the new
person would handle the customer services effectively. This section includes a way to encounter
the issues encountered by the general manager.
Mr Ashok, a new person who ensures the customer's services in the hotel would have taken the
required actions which might help in offering the delight customer experience with the
satisfaction. The below given are few ways or action that might be taken by the customer service
manager.
Analysing the need of employees
In the situation of long waiting lines for the customers check in service then Mr Ashok would
have analysed number of visitors or guest that generally arrive in the hotel which will help them
in finding the average guest at the hotel. This will help them in analysing the need of the
frontline staff not only in the daytime but also in the night time when most of the foreign tourist
check in the Town hotel. This will help them in placing the employees at the frontline desk so
that they can manage the guest effectively by reducing their waiting time. Moreover, the
employees in the Town Hall Nepal not only required at frontline but also required at the back
office. 10
Upgrading the technology
The effective customer service is possible with the effective use of the technology. The use of
the upgraded technology by the manager would be a way through which they can check the
vacant rooms and can manage their rooms accordingly. Thus, the issues related to the
10 Amir Shani, et al. "Emotional labour in the hospitality industry: The influence of contextual factors." International
Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 37 (2014), 152.

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management control would be managed by Mr Ashok with the help of the effective use of
technology.
Involvement of manager
This has been faced by Mr Ashok that the presence of the manager at 11 pm was not effective for
the employees to deal with the delight customer experience. This clearly shows the situation that
reflects the lack of participation of manager. If in case, Mr Ashok would be there as manager
then he would have involved in providing the delight services to their customers. The
involvement of the managers in conducting the check-in services and in guiding the guest for the
hotel which will make them personalised and would have enhanced their customer delight. 11
Creating a positive culture
In the situation, this is evidence that the staff started feeling demotivated which exploit the
atmosphere and spread the negativity. Thus, it is essential to form a positive culture which would
be done by MR. Ashok if he would be present over there. The positive culture helps in
generating the positive experience of the customers as the employees will be able to deliver the
services in an effective manner. 12
Forming relative marketing team
The marketing of the service is one of the ways through which they service companies grab the
attention of the customers. This is the fact that the incorrect information on the advertisement can
affect the experience of the customers with the Hotel. Thus, the manager needs to form a
11 K. Sivakumar, Mei Li, and Beibei Dong. "Service quality: The impact of frequency, timing, proximity, and
sequence of failures and delights." Journal of Marketing, Vol. 78 No. 1 (2014), 48.
12 Yuntao Dong, et al. "Fostering employee service creativity: Joint effects of customer empowering behaviours and
supervisory empowering leadership." Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 100 No. 5 (2015), 1364.

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dedicated team of marketing so that they can reflect the relative information which will provide
accurate details to their guest. This will prevent in happening of any tough or difficult situation.
Issues with the general manager
The issues which might be faced by Mr Ashok is related to the cross culture different. This was
found that Ashok Kumar was transferred from India to Nepal with the motive to bring the
improvement in customer’s service. Thus, the major issues can be related to the communication
style, the way of making the decisions and many others. The major issues which might take place
are that Nepal is considered a strong collectivistic society. Though, on the other hand, India is
composed of a mixed society with the collectivistic and individual society.13 Thus, the general
manager in Nepal will take the decision collectively which will take the time. Moreover, Mr
Ashok generally takes the quick decisions that are the way to achieve customer satisfaction.
Therefore, the differences in society according to the theory of hofstede’s can bring the change in
views and in the management styles and ultimately leads to the effect on customer satisfaction
and expectations.
13 Hofstede's insights, (2018). Country Comparison [Online]. Available: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-
comparison/india,nepal/ [2018, December].