TLH 339 Service Quality: Assessment & Improvement at Royal Lancaster

This report provides a comprehensive service quality assessment of Royal Lancaster London, a leading hotel in the UK's hospitality industry. It emphasizes the importance of managing and measuring service quality to meet customer expectations and gain a competitive edge. The report explores various service quality management methods, including Six Sigma (DMAIC and DMADV), to control defects and improve processes. It analyzes the impact of current service delivery practices on front-line employees and proposes a customer feedback system (CFS) framework for continuous monitoring and improvement. The assessment highlights the significance of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and adapting to changing customer preferences post-pandemic, ultimately aiming to enhance Royal Lancaster London's service quality and market reputation. Desklib offers this and similar solved assignments to aid students in their studies.

TLH 339 Service
Quality Assessment
Brief 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................3
The importance of managing and measuring service quality with justification....................3
Recommending the adoption of appropriate service quality management methods..............5
TASK 2......................................................................................................................................8
Analyse current service delivery/practices through the assessment of the impact on the
front-line employees...............................................................................................................8
TASK 3....................................................................................................................................10
Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework can utilise to monitor and continually
improve service quality........................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................14
Books and Journals:.............................................................................................................14
Online:..................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
The hospitality industry is found to be one of the fastest-growing industries in the UK
and currently they are representing 6.9 % of total UK employment (Hospitality industry and
Covid-19, 2021). The hospitality industry is playing a very important role in order to create
jobs. This industry has become successful because the organisations are providing the best
services to the customers. It includes food and accommodation services such as hotels,
restaurants, pubs, cafes, campsites, etc. This report aims to analyse the importance of
managing and measuring service quality with justification with special reference to Royal
Lancaster London. It is found to be a hotel and one of the leading hotels in London. It has an
excellent range of facilities with insurance for the satisfaction of the guest. The success is
because of their dedicated team. This report will be discussing appropriate service quality
management methods and analysis of the current service delivery of the organisation. It will
also include a customer feedback system framework that needs to be utilised for monitoring
and improving the service quality. The success of a Hotel depends on the delivery of services
and that's why it becomes necessary to maintain and measure the service quality with the use
of appropriate tools and techniques.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
The importance of managing and measuring service quality with justification
The process of managing the service quality of a product according to the customer's
expectation is service quality management (Christian, Y. and Utama, Y., 2021). It assesses
how well a service is given so that they improve its quality. It included identify the problem
of a customer and how they increase the satisfaction of a customer. Service quality
management involves maintaining and monitoring service offered by an organisation to a
customer. Whether the company is software or food or hospitality and travel providing the
right service to the customer is very necessary. Service quality management is essential for
customer satisfaction and company growth.
Service qualities refer to measuring an organisation's service delivery in order to meet
the expectation of customers (Lai and et.al., 2018). In the case of the hospitality industry, it is
identified that service quality is playing an important role as it includes trust, cultivating
loyalty and improving the satisfaction of customers. Royal Lancaster needs to make sure that

the services should have excellence so that they are able to meet or exceed customer
expectations. It is not only about customers but also for gaining a competitive edge in the
market. Every day the competition is increasing at a rapid rate and that's why the company
needs to maintain the service qualities so that they can stay competitive in the market. After
the pandemic situation, measuring and managing service quality is becoming more important
for Royal Lancaster hotel as now customers are aware of the quality of services. Generally,
people are considered prices for booking services but after pandemics situations are the
things are going very changed at a fast speed as now they are more focused on service
quality. The pandemic situation is not only the reason but there are many more reasons for
maintaining and managing the quality of services. There are many organisations that are
running the business in the market and they are doing very well in the business. They are
providing the same services with more quality and affordable prices which increases the
competition in the market. This is found to be the main reason for increasing the importance
of managing and measuring service quality. Some more important points are mentioned
below which helps to give the reason and justification that why it is important for an
organisation to manage and measure their service quality:
 It is found that service quality measurement is an important managerial tool in order
to understand the needs and wants of consumers. This can be possible by analysing
the experience of consumers (Oliveras-Villanueva, Llach and Perramon, 2020). It is
necessary for an organisation to measure the services because they should know about
what they provide and the expectations of customers. Generally, it is identified that
customers' expectations are more than the service provided. But, Royal Lancaster
Hotel is trying to exceed or meet the customers' expectations so that they can satisfy
their customers.
 Before managing any service quality, it is important for Royal Lancaster London
hotel to measure that the gap between expectation and actual service. This is really
very helpful to analyse the real situation of the company. They are able to know
where are the areas of improvement which helps the organisation to take necessary
corrective action. For example, there is a team of quality control in the hotel and they
are doing an audit for analysing and measuring the service quality of the Hotel. In that
period, it is identified by the quality improvement team that there are some areas
where they need to improve such as proper allocation of rooms. They found that some
confusions are found in the mind of the receptionist as they get confused to provide

room keys to the consumers. It is a really bad experience for customers because if
they get the wrong keys then their satisfaction is declined and they are not able to
enjoy the facilities of the Hotel. So, quality improvement team and action by changing
receptionist in order to reduce these types of problems.
 Customer satisfaction is the main motive of Royal Lancaster Hotel and this is also one
of the important reasons for managing and measuring the service quality. This can be
better understood with the help of an example. For example, there is a family who
visits London for spending day vacations and they want to live in a place where they
get comfort. For that purpose, they booked their rooms in Royal Lancaster London.
After taking services of Royal Lancaster London, customers analyse that there are
many facilities which provided by Hotel is different from other hotels and they are not
even expected from a hotel. It was a great experience for them which really worthy
and providing satisfaction to the customers (Naumov, 2019). Due to the service
quality, now that family is always booked their rooms in Royal Lancaster London.
This example shows that an organisation needs to focus on managing and measuring
their service quality so that they are able to provide the best experiences to the
customers.
 By managing and measuring service quality, Royal Lancaster London is able to boost
customer loyalty. In addition to this, it is also found that if the organisation is able to
manage the service quality then they are easily providing services according to the
expectation of customers. It is important to note that Royal Lancaster London need to
make sure about their services should be always of the same quality or may be
improved. They should make sure that their service quality is not declining because of
any reason as it provides a great impact on the reputation of the hotel in the market.
Recommending the adoption of appropriate service quality management methods
Managing service quality is an important task and definitely, it is not an easy task for
hotels. This is necessary to understand the hotel that management of service quality can be
performed with the help of using tools and techniques. There are many tools and techniques
available that helps to manage the quality of services in an effective way. Some other
important tools and techniques are mentioned below which is really helpful for managing the
quality of services:
Six Sigma

Six Sigma is found to be an important and useful tool for an organisation that can be
used for controlling the defects and variations in the process of services (Qiu and et.al.,
2019). It is found in Royal Lancaster London that service quality is not effective when there
are some errors in the process of service. In that case, this tool is very effective as it
implements excellent quality control in the organisation. Six Sigma is helpful for providing
services with the highest quality possible. It is very well known that any organisation wants
to cut their cost and increase their profits but they do not rely on reducing the quality of
services. It is identified by Royal Lancaster Hotel that the services are constantly read or
remade because of poor quality then it will result in adding the cost. So that's why the need to
make sure to improve the quality of services which can be possible with the help of six
Sigma. Six Sigma is the quality control tool that helps to reduce and remove the defects and
the processes of the company and is really very helpful for increasing customer satisfaction
and improving the quality of services. Six Sigma quality control is working to find errors and
identify the areas where the company needs to improve for enhancing the quality of services.
It includes two methods that are DMAIC and DMADV. The explanation of both methods are
mentioned below:
DMAIC
It has five phases that help to focus on improving existing business practices. All the phases
are explained below:
 Defining the problem is the first phase in which Royal Lancaster needs to clearly
define the problems. This can be possible by taking feedback from customers so that
company is able to understand the feelings of customers about their services (Myo,
Khalifa and Aye, 2019). It is very important in this stab that all the feedback are
carefully monitored by an organisation to understand the problem areas and their root
cause.
 The second phase is to measure and find out the points which are required in the
problem. It is important for Royal Lancaster London after identifying the problem to
collect relevant data which helps to give an insight into the current process.
 The third phases analyse the data which is concerned with the second stage where
information is collected should be now verified. It is important to note that Royal inn
castle London should be identified and investigate the root cause of defects so that
day is able to find out how these defects are affecting the entire process.

 The fourth phase is improving the current process which is based on analysis and
research done in the previous stage. Now it is an important step where why Lancaster
London should make efforts for creating a new project with the ensuring of superior
quality. That means they should effort for improving the quality of services.
 Control of the processes is found to be the last phase which is also playing an
important role in reducing errors in future service. They should make sure that it will
not lead to defects again by controlling the processes on a regular basis.
DMADV
It also has five important phases and the main focus of this method is on creating new
strategies and policies in order to combat the issue of service quality (Waqanimaravu and
Arasanmi, 2020). The explanation of five phases are mentioned below:
 The first phase is design in which the company needs to make sure that they will give
100% customer satisfaction and because of that, they need to design strategies and
processes in an effective way.
 After designing strategies now the second phase is the measure which is really very
important for quality as it identifies the parameters.
 The third step is to analyse which is helpful for Royal Lancaster London to ensure
superior quality of services and for that purpose, they need to develop high-level
alternatives as well.
 It is the fourth step or phase in which organisation needs to design processes and
details so that they can able to satisfy their customers.
 The last step is to verify which is concerned with the verification of all the processes
and should be implemented in the same way so that company is able to maximize
customer satisfaction and reduce the errors in service quality.
Other methods for managing service quality
 Encourage feedback: Feedback must require by the customer regarding improving
service and for organisational growth (7 Best Quality Management Tools For Process
Improvement, 2021). This feedback is complete knowledge of customer expectation
and company learn this how accurately employees provide the service to the
customer. Peer feedback encourages team building and learning from feedback. The
practice of asking customers to rate the service after they delivered the service. It is
easier for the organisation to instant customer feedback.

 Listening calls: Employees should listen to the call and discuss which point to
improve. The process closely analysing the point such as tone, solution for the
problem. Employees can get a better sense of what service look like and make
improvement. Ability to respond to a customer's problem and give a solution.
Employees can create trust and its required one to one customer attention or
understanding of customer preference. When employees simply handle this situation
with great pleasure that will reflect in company growth.
 Post contact survey after every interaction: No matter what priorities are set for
customer service, the customer should come first (Kalargyrou, Barber and Kuo,
2018). Its means that customer feedback is important as any supervisor's feedback and
also quality management want to feedback for every service interaction. Post contact
survey should include those questions that directly address the customer's need and
want, preference with an additional comment.
 Customer effort score: Instead of focusing on pleasing a customer. The company
should make it as easy as possible for them to solve their service. This is what that
biggest positive impact on customer mind. Example how satisfied with ABC service?
Instead of this companies must ask this how much effort did put the solving question.
This type of question gives a positive result and customers are easily asked what they
want. This information gives the most insightful details about the customer
experience. It is a very commendable and reliable way.
 Social media: This is the biggest platform because it this available 24x7 for the
customer. In the new era, all things are available online. So mere response from social
media. Social media offer the best way for customer to share their frustration online.
Facebook, Twitter is the best portal for this is the place where great insight about
service quality. In social media, customers learn about the product for anything wrong
also and right also (11 Types of Service in the Hotel Industry to Attract Customers,
2021). Some sites are available that keep a record of true service quality. Some brand
uses social media account to check the service quality of a product and regularly
monitor it.

TASK 2
Analyse current service delivery/practices through the assessment of the impact on the front-
line employees
It is identified that there are many types of services provided by Royal Lancaster
Hotel London in order to satisfy the consumer needs and wants. It is necessary for each and
every employee is especially frontline employees to make sure the quality of services which
they deliver to the consumers. It is also found that this will impact the engagement and
managerial implications. There are many methods which can be used for the purpose of
evaluating and analysing the service delivery of Royal Lancaster Hotel which provides a
great impact on frontline employees and their engagement (9 Practical Methods for
Measuring Service Quality, 2021). For that purpose, there will be the discussion of services
of Royal Lancaster London are mentioned below:
 Post-service ratings: It is found that it is an appropriate method for evaluating the
service delivery of Royal Lancaster hotel. In this method, it is identified that
customers were asked to rate the services and it is found there are many positive
ratings are received. This method is really very appropriate for the organisation. With
the help of this method, it is found that front lined employees get positive feedback
and provide the motivation for their management activities (Ghosh, Jhamb and Yu,
2022). The meeting option was given by Royal Lancaster Hotel so that they can
understand their service quality. In addition to this, it is also found that the help of
post-service ratings provided a great impact on the engagement of frontline
employees. Wendy gets positive ratings after providing services then which helps
them to encourage to involve more in the service delivery.
 Follow up surveys and in-app surveys: It is found that Royal Lancaster Lomdon
hotel has performed follow up surveys and in-app surveys so that they can get actual
feedback and be able to improve their services accordingly. Follow up surveys can be
possible with the help of Google forms as it is really very important for understanding
the customers' perception towards the service quality of Royal Lancaster hotel. It also
provides a more holistic overview of service. It actually measures the overall opinion
of customers related to the service quality that's why it is found a useful technique and
which it is identified that Royal Lancaster London is performing very well. But after
the pandemic situation, there were some fluctuations are found in surveys and it
provided a great impact on the engagement of employees (Al-Gasawneh and et.al.,

2022). When employees got to know that they got fluctuations in surveys they took
the necessary course of action so that they are able to manage the service quality
appropriately. After the pandemic situation, Royal Lancaster London is also provided
in-app surveys so that any visitor can read their services from anywhere at any time.
Royal Lancaster London analysed that it is really very convenient for people and they
are likely to respond on the basis of their entire experience.
 Customer effort score: It is found to be a metric that was proposed in the Harvard
business review article. In this method, the questions are changed as it included
politeness in the question so that Royal Lancaster London will get positive feedback
from customers (Wilson, 2020). It is also identified that with the use of this Matrix
they will get a positive impact on customer experiences because it becomes easy for
them to solve their problems.
These are the important evaluation methods which are very important for the purpose
of analysing the customer feedback so that Royal Lancaster London is able to understand the
perception of customers towards the quality of services. From the above assessment, it is
analysed that Royal Lancaster London is doing their business very well. After the assessment,
this becomes to prove that the services are very qualitative but still the need to take the
necessary course of actions so that they can maximize the quality of services. With the help
of assessment, it is also analysed by Royal Lancaster London that their employees are filled
very happy and motivated towards organisational goal. It is important to note that the impact
of feedback on employees should be analysed by the company so that they can take action. If
employees are not feeling any interest in the customer feedback then Royal Lancaster London
is not able to improve the quality of services (Mohamed Idris and et.al., 2020). It is crucial
for analysing the impact on frontline employees as they are the first person who meets with
customers and gives the first impression to the customers. In the assessment, it is analysed
that customers are happy with the services of frontline employees so it will also become very
beneficial for employees as they get positive feedbacks which improve their performances
and managerial implications. In addition to this, it is provided with a great impact on the
engagement of frontline employees in the improvement functions.

TASK 3
Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework can utilise to monitor and continually improve
service quality
Customer feedback system helps organisation in tracking and monitoring the quality of their
services. It helps to create innovative and creative ideas which increase the performance and
ability of organisation. This framework focus on the feedbacks of customers which assist
them in making better and advance products and services (Chan-Olmsted, Wolter, and Adam,
2021). Long term relationship, loyalty and trust can be maintain with customers with the help
of customer feedback system. Royal Lancaster hotel offers high quality services and maintain
proper ambience in their hotel with the help of this framework. Without customer opinions
and feedbacks, hotel management can not implement necessary changes which are require to
fulfil the demands. It is a loop which should be analysed on regular basis so that hotel can
maintain its standard in longer run. Success of any business depends on the customer
satisfaction. With the help of combination of data and artificial intelligence, hotels can
optimize their services and modify their products. Collection of feedbacks plays important
role in increasing their customer base in effective manner. Feedbacks of customers help in
making strategic decisions and planning which provide them higher returns. Listening to
customer problems results in better understanding of mindset of customers which results in
growth and development. Royal Lancaster hotel uses customer feedback system which is as
follows:
 Ask: First stage of customer feedback system comprises of relevant and important
feedbacks of customers. All the further modifications are based on this stage.
Businesses can collect feedbacks in two ways which includes unsolicited feedbacks
and solicited feedbacks. Unsolicited includes online reviews, customer support
request and social media reviews (Christian and Utama, 2021). Solicited reviews
includes the surveys like customer satisfaction surveys. Royal Lancaster can get
detailed customer reviews with the help of unsolicited feedbacks as it may collect
honest and clear feedbacks. It helps in making necessary changes in services with the
help of honest reviews. Various site like G2 crowd and Capterra helps hotel in
gathering feedbacks which proves vert beneficial. There are different types of surveys
which Royal Lancaster uses like qualitative and quantitative surveys. Quantitative
surveys are usually includes questions which are close ended and quantitative

includes questions which are open ended. CSAT surveys, NPS surveys, CES surveys
and PMF surveys are used to gather the honest feedbacks from customer end.
 Categorize: This stage includes artificial intelligence and data which help businesses
in identifying the qualitative feedbacks and quantitative feedbacks. Manual
categorization is very difficult process which consume lot of time and efforts of
managers. It also results in data duplication and inaccurate information which affect
operations. Royal Lancaster hotel uses tools like Monkey Learn which help them to
categorize different type of feedbacks effectively. It collect feedbacks with the help of
data visualisation and text analysation of artificial intelligence. Monkey Learn gather
data from the topics, sentiments and keywords. It is highly scalable, accurate,
provides results which is data driven and give real time feedbacks. Categorized data
help Royal Lancaster in identifying the required changes in their system and services.
Technology and advancement help managers in evaluation of qualitative feedback and
quantitative feedback which differs from each other.
 Act: After categorization of feedbacks, organisations have to share the feedbacks with
their teams including sales, product, customer services and marketing. All the
respective teams formulate strategies which should be implemented in relation to
feedbacks. Monkey Learn also helps in sharing feedbacks in different teams in easy
steps. Individual teams act according to their feedbacks and make their products and
services more attractive. It helps Royal Lancaster in making creative and innovative
ideas so that they upgrade their products and services according to the needs of
targeted customers. Profit generation and improved performance helps in making
brand image in market. Managers take necessary steps and implement changes with
the help of advanced tools and techniques. Correct actions satisfy the needs of
customers which result in better performance of hotel.
 Follow up: This is the last stage of customer feedback services which fix all the
problems of customers (Leavy, 2022). At this step, feedback loop is closed due to
implementation of changes. Improved and better services are given to customer
which satisfy their needs. It increase loyalty and trust of customers towards business
because of the satisfied wants. Royal Lancaster focus on maintaining the required
quality which increase their sales. They complete all the steps and criteria which is
required in the operations. Management informs their customers about changes and
ask again for feedbacks which help in regular up gradation in services. Royal
Lancaster achieve goals and objectives with the help of customer feedback system as

it is continuous and ongoing process. Follow up boost the morale of customers so that
they avail services on regular basis.
With the help of customer feedback system, Royal Lancaster evaluate the need for changes in
taste and preferences of their customers. Customers are valuable part of every business who
are responsible for their growth and expansion. It is important to track the services of all
departments because lack of satisfaction may result in low profit generations (Lee, Chen and
Lee, 2020). Surveys help Royal Lancaster in making their services more attractive and
affordable for customers. They serve diversified customers from all over the world so they
have to fulfil the demands according to the cultural, social and environmental differences.
Artificial intelligence and technology helps them in maintaining the loop of feedbacks in an
organisation. Customer feedback system helps hotel in maintaining the quality and standard
of products and services. It detects flaws and defects in the services of Royal Lancaster which
was the main reason of loss. Customer satisfaction can be evaluated by managers with the
help of this framework as it lower the negative operations and increase profitability.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above discussion that hospitality industries growing their
business at a rapid rate. This is the main reason that it is important for them to manage and
measure service quality. Service quality is found to be a key reason for the success and
growth of any organisation as it helps to attract consumers to their business. Service quality
becomes more important in the hospitality industry. With the help of the right tools and
techniques of managing service quality, hotels are able to achieve their objectives and satisfy
their customers with quality services. This report also discusses the service delivery of hotels
which analyse with the help of assessment of the impact on frontline employees. It also
included a customer feedback system which is really very important for satisfying their
customers and for that purpose company needs to utilise it with proper controlling and
monitoring.

REFERENCES
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Kalargyrou, V., Barber, N.A. and Kuo, P.J., 2018. The impact of disability on guests’
perceptions of service quality delivery in the hospitality industry. International
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Lai, I.K., and et.al., 2018. Literature review on service quality in hospitality and tourism
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Leavy, B., 2022. Fred Reichheld: Customer centricity and the strategic power of embracing
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Lee, C.H., Chen, C.H. and Lee, Y.C., 2020. Customer requirement-driven design method and
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Myo, Y.N., Khalifa, G.S. and Aye, T.T., 2019. The impact of service quality on customer
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satisfaction. International Journal of Management and Human Science
(IJMHS), 3(3), pp.1-11.
Naumov, N., 2019. The impact of robots, artificial intelligence, and service automation on
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Waqanimaravu, M. and Arasanmi, C.N., 2020. Employee training and service quality in the
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Wilson, N., 2020. The Impact of Service Quality and Corporate Reputation Toward Loyalty
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