Service Quality Assessment Report: TLH 339, December 2019

This report assesses the service quality of Sunderland International Hotel, a three-star establishment in Canary Wharf, London. The report begins by emphasizing the importance of managing and measuring service quality, highlighting its impact on customer satisfaction, profitability, and brand image. It then recommends appropriate service quality management methods, including SERVQUAL, in-app surveys, social media monitoring, and the establishment of clear KPIs. The report delves into the current service delivery practices of the hotel, identifying issues such as poor service, long wait times, and uncooperative staff, and analyzes their impact on front-line employees and their engagement. It also examines the managerial implications of these issues. Finally, the report formulates a Customer Feedback System (CFS) that the hotel can utilize to monitor and continually improve service quality. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the hotel's challenges and offers actionable recommendations to enhance its service quality and customer satisfaction, drawing on various service quality management techniques and frameworks.

Service Quality Assessment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
1. Importance of managing and measuring service quality and recommendation of the
appropriate service quality management methods.................................................................1
2. Determination of current service delivery/practices and its impact on e front-line
employees, their engagement and also managerial implications............................................5
3. Formulation of Customer Feedback System that the organisation can utilise to monitor and
continually improve service quality.......................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Service quality is the contemporary conceptualisation includes the comparison in
between perceived expectations of service with sensed performance. An organisation able to
provide high service quality will meet or exceed the customer expectations. The benefit
ascertained from this by an organisation includes high amount of profitability along with brand
image in market. The role of management in improvement of the quality of service is optimum.
All the organisations must have proper management system that work in accordance to the
requirement of customers. This will provides an opportunity to offer quality services to their
customers that satisfy their all requirements (Ali and Raza, 2017). The current report is based
upon Sunderland International Airport. This hotel have its operations in Canary Wharf, East
London since 2000. It is a 3 start hotel in nature and equipped with lots of facilities. Currently,
this hotel faces the issue of low service quality that have negative impact over its business. The
main aim of this report is about improvement in the service quality for better customer
satisfaction.
This report covers the importance of managing and measuring service quality along with
recommendations about the adoption of service quality management methods. Also, determines
the current service practices of hotel and their impact over front line employees and formulation
of Customer Feedback System (CFS) for an organisation to monitor and continually improve
service quality.
Main Body
1. Importance of managing and measuring service quality and recommendation of the
appropriate service quality management methods
Sunderland International hotel is 3 start in nature and operates its operations in Canary
Wharf, East London since 2000. The total number of rooms are present in hotel are around 100.
These are in the nature of modern and stylish en-suite rooms including standard, executive and
premier. The management of hotel made the addition in their services in 2012 and opened
conference and banqueting suite of the three different venue spaces which are good and
sufficient for the purpose of hosting, conferences, meetings, weddings and other functions. Also,
the other additional facilities are available at hotel includes gym, spa and swimming pool. This
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hotel also has good food and beverage operations includes a formal dining area to serve breakfast
and lunch, Norman Bar and Restaurant.
Different kind of guests are attracted towards this hotel includes business and leisure. To
made their hotel more attractive, work of refurbishment is done related to reception area,
restaurants and rooms. Th overall development ascertained after the addition in services and
refurbishment is around 200% increase in room and events booking. This improves their profit
but simultaneously noticed that there is significant increase in the customer complaints. The
different type of issues faced by the customers at the time of their visit in the hotel includes poor
service, long 1 hour waiting to check-in, non cooperative behaviour of staff, non responsiveness
nature of manager, busy front desk and lack of manpower. Some other issues are published on
the Facebook page of hotel but management has no time to revert or clarify as due to increment
in the hotel occupancy and conference and banqueting event bookings. This depicts that poor
service quality is the one aspect that have negative impact over brand image of hotel. Other
determinant that have negative impact over the image of hotel includes ineffective management
that resultants into lack of staff and the employees working on part time basis. There are many
issues faced by the staff in hotel includes no ownership, no reward scheme, work not valued by
management, less training opportunities and high staff turnover that put burden of work.
Ascertained from the overall analysis that the reason behind the low service quality is in
effective management which is not able to handle their internal operations and staff
(Babalhavaeji and et. al., 2017). The issues faced by the staff in hotel de-motivates towards their
work and end last customer attained low quality service that diminishes their overall customer
experience even after presence of good facilities. So, providence of effective and good quality
services to the customers help in improvement of their experience along with the redressal all the
issues determined above.
Importance of managing and measuring service quality
Managing and measuring service quality includes the adherence of activities which are
effective in nature along with ascertainment of their effectiveness in regular intervals. This will
not only provides an opportunity to improve the services but also help to bring improvement in
internal staff operations too. Good quality service has direct relation with staff performance. So,
if service will improve then ultimately improvement will be seen over the performance of staff
(Cai and Zhu, 2015). Through this exercise of management and measurement of service quality,
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organisation able to attain the two different type of developments as determined above. In
addition to these developments, large number of importances can be ascertained by Sunderland
International Hotel which are defined below:
More consistent products and services along with increased efficiency: As identified
lots of issues are present in Sunderland international hotel in respect to their services that have
negative impact over their brand image. Adherence of effective management and measuring
strategies help the organisation to provide more effective services which are qualitative in nature
and able to fulfil the requirements of customer. The characteristics which are associated with the
services due to application of strategies includes reliable and differentiated from the competitor
that able to provide more value to the customers (Đonlagić and Fazlić, 2015).
Greater customer satisfaction: Effective management and measurement help to provide
optimum quality service irrespective of any error and hardships. This will enable in nature to
provide positive experience to customers. This have positive impact over their satisfaction and
resultants into increment of revenue in positive direction.
Lower costs and increased profits: Application of the strategies to manage and measure
service quality help to attain all the dimensions that contributed towards optimum quality
includes reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. This will resultants into
bring flow over the providence of quality services through good performance of employees. In
future, this will help to save cost as chance of any error is very low (Zhao and et. al., 2015). The
direct impact of this is ascertained over profits as reduction in cost improves the margin of profit.
Reduced risks: The number of risks are more in the situation when the quality of service
is not good. This happen in the situation when employees and workers of the organisation are not
able to perform well as per the established standards. Adoption of managing and measuring
strategies in respect to improve the service help to improve the overall skills and characteristic of
employees (Gilavand, 2016). This will provides an opportunity in respect to reduction of amount
of risk from future operating activities. It enables in providence of services with best
performative level which is associated with high amount of value and low risk towards the
customers.
Keep up with the competition: Importance of adopting managing and measuring
strategies related to improve service quality is understood from the point that it help in
attainment of competitive advantage in market. Improvement in services not only help to provide
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maximum output to customers but ensures optimum performance from the side of employees.
This will provides an opportunity to business or organisation like Sunderland International Hotel
in respect to improvement of profit margin through reduction of cost and attraction of new
potential customers through providence of quality deliverables. The integrative impact of both is
attained in the form of competitive advantage in market.
Recommendations to improve service quality management
Management and measuring strategies in respect to improve service quality has large
number of benefits to the organisation as determined above. It is the duty of the management of
an organisation to adopt proper strategies. These strategies are needed to adopt in relation to both
manage and measure (Gomez-Castillo and et. al., 2015). All these have their own different role
or working in relation to the improvement in service. The different kind of approaches which are
recommended to the management of Sunderland International Hotel for adoption to improve
service quality are mentioned below:
SERVQUAL: This is one of the most common method that help to measure the
subjective elements of service quality. The method that can be adopted in respect to gather data
is survey. Under this, option is provided to customers to rate services in respect to the their
different expectations. The five elements must needed to fulfil by the organisation while
providing services includes;
 Reliability: Creation of ability within in the internal operations that help to deliver
promised services to customer in consistent and accurate manner.
 Assurance: To improve the knowledge and politeness level of employees as they can
respond to the customers issues effectively. The ability of employees is needed to be
developed towards such level that contributes in creation of trust and confidence among
the customers about the effective services of an organisation.
 Tangibles: Development of physical attributes through which customers have direct
contact and help to fulfil their requirements. Improvement in all help to increase their
appearance (Huang, Bulut and Duru, 2015). The aspects which are covered under this
includes building, website, equipment and employees.
 Empathy: This includes about the development of the employee behaviour to provide
effective care and individual attention to all customers.
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 Responsiveness: Development of willingness among the employees in respect to speedy
services to the customers
In app survey: This includes the use of website and app for the purpose of ascertaining
the views of customers over their different services. In this customers are going to rate their
services on the basis of the different determinants. This method of the measurement of service
quality is effective and fast that help to attain results in very prompt manner,. The opportunity is
present afterwards in front of the organisation in respect to removal of same and improve their
quality.
Social media monitoring: This includes the use of different social media platforms that
provides an opportunity to analyse the views of customers over their services of an organisation,.
The scope of the method id vast and effective (Izogo and Ogba, 2015). It help the management to
ascertain the reason behind the low quality and remove the same from their operations. Th
overall contribution is ascertained in the form of development in operations and improvement in
service quality. The different platforms that can be used in this respect named as Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest etc.
Establishment of clear KPI: Development and use of Non KPI methods provides an
opportunity to improve the service quality. The contribution of this is ascertained in the manner
that this will help to bing coordination in between the working of employees that generates
synergy effect. This will improves the quality of services and help in timely satisfaction of the
requirements of customers.
2. Determination of current service delivery/practices and its impact on e front-line employees,
their engagement and also managerial implications
Sunderland international hotel is a three star hotel which operates in the region of Canary
Wharf. Currently this hospitality organisation is facing various issues regarding their service
quality and low customer satisfaction (Kalaja, Myshketa and Scalera, 2016). The main cause
which is highlighted in the case study of this hotel is its employees who are not performing with
their full potential due to which quality of their service is continuously degraded. In order to
improve the quality of this organisation, it is important to assess the service practices of this
hotel and their impact on its employees.
For any hospitality organisation, its services are its key selling point which are obviously
given by its employees. Every practice which an organisation performs, impacts its employees;
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this impact can be both positive and negative. Current service practices of Sunderland
International Hotel are assessed below along with its impact which these will have upon front
line employees, their engagement and managerial implications.
Refurbishment and development
This is the most current service practice which Sunderland international hotel has been
performed in which they have refurbished the conference and banqueting suite. By doing this
practice, the event bookings of this hotel increased to 200%, due to which profits are also
significantly have increased (Kara and et. al., 2015). Due to this practice, front line employees
are and will be negatively impacted. When turnover of an organisation increases, it is important
for the organisation to increase the number of staff members and their incentives as well so that
workload can be divided and effective operations can be done. Due to this refurbishment,
workload on front line employees has been increased due to which their turnover has also
enhanced.
Along with employees, their engagement in organisational services will also be impacted.
Due to high event bookings, workload on the workers has also increased due to which they are
less engaged in the organisation and to evident this, a situation of Sunderland case study shows
that employees gets no time to respond to customer reviews on their website and Facebook page.
Not only employees but managerial implications will also get influenced. Due to the
practice of refurbishment, staff turnover of Sunderland International Hotel is increasing due to
which managers’ holds less control over the staff which will result in low managerial
interference and implications.
Low power of staff
Sunderland International Hotel receives reviews from their customers and from the case
study it has been seen that one of their guests reviewed services of this hotel and stated that the
member of this organisation’s staff responded on guest’s enquiry that it is not in their hands to
decide whether or not they can be compensated (Kong and et. al., 2015). This review shows that
Sunderland hotel gives no power to their employees to make decisions. This service practice of
the hotel will impact front line employees negative. In the case, where guests ask from the front
line employees about whether they can be compensated, these employees will do not have any
power to provide them an upgrade or a free breakfast to satisfy them. In this situation, front line
employees will be impacted and they will be vulnerable for power.
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Employee engagement of front line employees will also be impacted by this service
practice of Sunderland International Hotel. The main practices of front line employees include
greeting guests and resolve their enquiries. In the case in which they do not hold any power to
make a decision, they will ultimately be less engaged when it comes to resolving employees
issue (Yaya and et. al., 2015).
However, managerial implications by this practice will be positively impacted. In the
practice, where front line employees do not hold power to make the decisions, all these power
are vested to manager. This way, manager can interfere and can make decisions whenever they
want. These high managerial implications are may be beneficial for them but are not facilitating
the guests in any situation as they have wait for over a month to resolve their queries (Noaman
and et. al., 2017).
Recruitment
Recruitment practices at Sunderland International Hotel includes employing 60% of the
staff for part time where only management team and supervisors are employed with full time
contracts and recruiting employees using ad hoc basis. Both of these recruitment practices has
negative impact on the front line employees of this hospitality organisation. Most of the front
line employees in this hotel are recruited using part time contracts due to which most of the time,
these employees have no clue what the guests are complaining for as they did not have their shift
at that time of the hour. This negative influence on employees can be evident from the customer
reviews which this organisation is receiving. A customer review of this organisation stated “The
staff tried really hard to accommodate all of our wedding guests but they were clearly
understaffed and unable to cope”. This review clearly provide evidence that recruiting part time
staff is not enough to provide effective services as even after their efforts, they are unable to cope
up the work given to them. Besides this, another recruiting practice which involves recruitment
using ad hoc basis. This practice involves recruitment of staff on the spot due to which their
skills and knowledge are not judged effectively due to which front line employees has to suffer
as they have to work with low skilled employees (Reuter and et. al., 2015).
Employee engagement will also be negatively influenced due to the recruitment practices
of the company. When employees know that they are only hired for part time and they do not
have full responsibility of their actions, then they will be less engaged in the activities of the
organisation.
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Due to ad hoc basis recruitment, managers has to train employees which are not even
appropriately qualified due to which their managerial implications are adversely impacted.
Training
In Sunderland International hotel, training to each new employee is given by their duty
supervisor which lasts only for one week. A hospitality organisation has main aim to provide
quality services to their guests so that customer satisfaction can be attained. In order to provide
effective guest service, it is important to provide reliable training to employees. If an employee is
less trained and they will make mistakes (Romano, Molinos-Senante and Guerrini, 2017). Front
line employees are the ones who face to face deal with the guests. Waiters also included in the
category of front line employees. Due to this low training, front line employees has to suffer as
they do not have the information about how to tackle the guests. It can even be proved by a
review given by guests of this hotel which stated “The waiter acted like it wasn’t his problem
and told us we would have to speak to the manager as there is nothing he can do to rectify the
situation, we only wanted an apology”. Due to the low training, waiter in this case has acted
unapologetically which has impacted front line employees.
Due to low training period, employees does not care for the operations of the organisation
which reduces the employee engagement. Due to short term of training, managerial implications
increases as they have to control every minor issue in the organisation.
Wages
Sunderland International hotel provides no reward schemes and is also alleged to provide
minimum wages to their employees. When staff of this hotel feels that they are not going to be
paid more for their hard work then they only work which is required to them in order to retain
their job. These wage practices of this hotel impacts front line employees as they do not make
any efforts to provide their maximum potential to satisfy their customers. Similarly, it even
impacts the employee engagement as they show less interest in the operations of the organisation
and focus on only fulfilling the orders given to them (Shaaban and Kim, 2016).
The activity performed by Sunderland International hotel of low wage practices even
impacts managerial implications adversely. Low wages directly lead to low satisfaction of the
employees. This low satisfaction tends employees to not follow instructions given by their
manager which negative influences managerial implications.
Trip advisor reviews
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According to the case study of Sunderland International hotel, manager only reviews the
trip advisor customer review only once in a month. This reviewing procedure is a service
delivery practice of this company which impacts its front line employees. Front line employees
are the personnel which has to face to face deal with the guests due to low information about the
complaints from the customers, front line employees have to suffer in effectively resolving
guest’s issues (Shafiq and et. al., 2017).
This practice does not concern the employee engagement but it definitely has adverse
impact on the managerial implications. Manager of an organisation has to review the trip advisor
guest’s reviews once in a month, this will enhance their interference in the customer issue
resolution but it will also result in delayed responses which will adversely impact managerial
implication in this organisation.
3. Formulation of Customer Feedback System that the organisation can utilise to monitor and
continually improve service quality
To attain growth and sustainability in future operations required to adopt the framework
which has continuous contribution in process of ascertaining the issues. This will provides an
opportunity to the management that adopt the strategies in timely manner for the removal of such
issues from base and create the platform that help the organisation in performance of effective
operations i.e. quality in nature and able to satisfy all the requirement of customers. In this
regard, required to formulate or adopt some specific customer feedback system framework that
provides an opportunity to ascertain the views of customers about their different services. It is
not possible for the manager of an organisation to personally monitor all the activities and apply
the controlling measures (Tavakoli and et. al., 2015). Determination of the customer views
provides an opportunity to grab the feedback about their services and employees performances in
unbiased manner which is true and reliable in nature.
Sunderland International Hotel also faced many issues related to low performance of
employees and poor quality of service. Adoption of customer feedback system help to create the
process of identification of issues and their further removal for improvement. This can be done
from the side of management because this will allows in continuous monitoring along with
application of controlling measures. The system or framework which can be adopted by
Sunderland International Hotel in this respect is “Online Retrieval System”.
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