TLH 339 Service Quality: Strategies for South Quay Hotel Success

This report critically evaluates service quality management at South Quay Hotel, focusing on major theories and principles, including the Gap Model and Expectancy-Value Theory, to enhance customer satisfaction. It justifies the importance of measuring service quality by identifying customer complaints, reducing risk, and managing internal issues. The report appraises current service delivery practices and their impact on employee engagement and motivation, emphasizing the need for ongoing improvement. Furthermore, it proposes a Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework to monitor and continually improve service quality, ensuring the hotel meets and exceeds customer expectations, ultimately leading to increased revenues and a stronger brand reputation. Desklib offers a wealth of similar solved assignments and resources for students.

TLH 339
Service Quality

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Critical evaluation of major theories addition to principles concerned with managing service
quality. Justification of importance to measure quality of service in the company....................1
Critical appraisal of managing service quality for the firm, establishing impacts of present
service delivery practices on engagement and motivation of employees....................................5
Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework that the organisation can utilise to monitor and
continually improve service quality.............................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
All customers have ideal expectation of services which they desire to receive at the time
when they visit any store or outlet of a company. Service quality refers to element of efforts
which every member of company invests with the hope of satisfying customers (Aboye, 2021).
In wider sense, it is termed to excellence or superiority perceived by customers. Willingness for
delivering high quality services is essential in service industries to maintain loyalty of customers
and reduce risk of replacing faulty commodities. For gaining insights about service quality,
considered organisation is South Quay Hotel which has been operating since 2005 at Central
London. The organisation attracts business and recreational guests towards modern along with
stylish en-suite rooms that entails standard, executive as well as premier. It used to carry out its
practices on good service standards within recognition, attentiveness and quality assurance. With
passage of time, it is facing issues in retaining workforce, finding duration to respond customer
feedback and many more.
The report highlights evaluation of theories and principles to manage quality of service in
the company. It also includes justification of importance to measure service quality. It appraises
service quality management for service company to establish impact of existing service delivery
practice on engagement and motivation of human resources. It includes customer feedback
system framework for monitoring and improving quality of services.
MAIN BODY
Critical evaluation of major theories addition to principles concerned with managing service
quality. Justification of importance to measure quality of service in the company
The term service quality can be defined to customer’s comparison about expectation of
service due to its relevance with business performance. Purpose of service quality is to meet
satisfaction of target customers. In present era, there is intense competition and to survive in this,
it is crucial for establishment to offer services in the manner that it addresses needs and meet
satisfaction of target segments. Successful organisations tend to offer high quality services that
results in high customer satisfaction. In hospitality entities, quality of services tends to emphasis
more on timely services, friendliness ad server attentiveness. In aspect to South Quay Hotel,
fairly engaging experiences is an expected element of service quality because it is the potentiality
for making recommendations that are relevant to practices. The hotel has introduced new
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packages in order to maintain competitiveness in hospitality sector. However, there are some
situations faced by the entity which requires effective management of service quality. In this
context, quality management consultant of South Quay Hotel is planning to adopt following
theories and principles to manage service quality at workplace:
Theories for management of service quality:
Gap Model: The theory of service quality management was developed by Valarie
Zeithaml, Leonard L. Berry along with A. Parasuraman in the year 1985 for understanding
customer satisfaction. It shows five key satisfaction gaps which an entity is required to address
while looking to fulfil level of customer expectations. As per the theory, satisfaction on customer
is function of perception. In case, when target guests perceive that service offered by hospitality
entity meets their expectation, they are satisfied. However, when services lack meeting
satisfaction, customers will be dissatisfied (Barakat and Wada, 2021). The reason of
dissatisfaction is due to one of customer service gap that includes knowledge gap, policy gap,
delivery gap, communication gap and customer gap. In South Quay Hotel, application of gap
theory by service management consultant is to gain comprehensions for issues or gaps that
increases dissatisfaction among customers or other key stakeholders. With this theory, manager
works to determine gaps and make strategy to reduce them. It has been evaluated that application
of Gap theory benefits management of South Quay Hotel in devising a roadmap for entire
service delivery processes along with identify gap among processes to work to delivering
satisfaction effectively. It also helps in understanding deviations that creates hurdles in
delivering of services according to customer expectation. On other hand, gap model has
limitation that it lacks actionable process and only focus on current organisational performance
despite of set future desires to deliver service quality.
Expectancy-value theory: It is devised by John William Atkinson who states that
customers have belief about service that is determined by the ways well it measures up to set
standards. As per the theory, customers make judgement for product and benefits about quality
of service delivery. Within South Quay Hotel, application of Expectancy-value theory assist
manager to analyse difference between expectations and perceptions of customers about services
received. It is based on general ideas that there are beliefs together with expectations of
customers that impacts subsequent behaviours. It is evaluated that benefit of the theory to the
hotel is to look towards factors which influence behaviour against delivered services. It assists in
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anticipating judgement that customer make for standard of service of company. However,
limitation of Expectancy-value theory is that it lacks to provide direct linkage among satisfaction
and purchase of service.
Principles to manage service quality:
 Principle of process approach: It assist service organisations to avoid logistical issues
which stem from confusion over accurate way to go for strategies and things. With
application of the principle, service quality consultant is able to future proof the entity by
establishing set processes that ensures improved, consistent addition to predictable results
for service quality.
 Principle of people involvement: According to the principle, human resources at all
level are crucial for success of entity. In South Quay Hotel, application of principle
ensures that all people are using their abilities for organisational benefits (Yang, Kim and
Kim, 2021). When the principle is applied in service firm, it leads to helping people to
understand their contribution, identify constraints in performance, evaluate working
against individual objectives and actively seeking opportunities in order to improve
experience along with competence.
 Principle of customer focus: The principle says that business depends on customers and
it is crucial to understand their needs so to meet them as well as strive to exceed
expectations. In case of South Quay Hotel, working with the principle leads to ensuring
that all objectives are linked with expectations of customers, measuring customer
satisfaction along with taking actions on outcomes and systematically managing
relationships.
 Principle of leadership: In accordance to the principle, an organisation needs string,
unifying along with purposeful leadership. In South Quay Hotel, leaders have key
responsibility to build productive and progressive environment at workplace. Leaders are
in charge to ensure that talents that are hired must maintain atmosphere. Application of
the principle leads to inspire and recognise contribution of employees, establish an
environment of trust, establishing challenging targets as well as considering requirements
of all stakeholders.
Importance of measuring service quality at an organisation
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Measuring service quality is an important task for ventures for understanding wants and
needs of consumers through analysing experiences and satisfaction on provided offerings. In
association to South Quay Hotel, importance of measuring service quality is due to mentioned
reasons:
Identifying nature of customer complaints: Within changes in trends, ongoing changes
in complaints addition to demand from customer occurs. At the time, when there are not satisfied
properly, it causes dissatisfaction among consumers that causes huge complaints. In this,
measuring service quality is significant because it assists in determining pertaining trends, type
of service as well as other aspects which requires improvement. Through measuring service
quality, administrators of South Quay Hotel are able to recognise complaints from customers and
identify measures to resolve them properly with best solutions.
Reducing risk level: In a company, huge types of risks have great chances to arise.
Ongoing service quality measurement is important for the purpose to lessen risk levels because
this provide opportunities for managers to look towards incumbencies promptly and make
decision to minimise them so that there is no harm to others in present timings or in future. For
South Quay Hotel, measuring service quality plays important role in decreasing risk level at
great aspect that are concerned with meeting expectations of employees and customers. It helps
professionals of firm to minimise risk and potential challenges that are closely associated to
future performance.
Managing internal issues: At workplace, there are various issues that arises internally.
Measuring service quality becomes important to analyse impact which issues, problems together
with challenges have on employee performance. By looking towards this, service quality
consultant determines effects that issues can have of organisational competence and potentials
for meeting demands in market (Yoo and Dalton, 2021). Managers of South Quay Hotel pay
consideration on challenges or issues by measuring service quality and manage them effectively
to gain competitive edges addition to accomplish higher workforce engagement, clarity about
compensation, apologies for inconvenience and satisfying customers.
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Critical appraisal of managing service quality for the firm, establishing impacts of present
service delivery practices on engagement and motivation of employees
As per Chang and Cheng, (2021) managing service quality is a process to assess how properly a
service is provided according to customer expectations so to work for improvisation in quality in
future. It helps to identify problems addition to correct them promptly for enhancing satisfaction
of customers and employees. It entails monitoring and maintaining varied services which are
offered by venture to end users. It ensures that organisation excels to meet requirements of
customers and staff along with attain desired goals. Managing service quality is essence for
ongoing improvement and growth of venture. When good service quality is delivered to
customers, it improves their perceptions about company that boosts reputation and brand.
Moreover, managing service quality encourages staff to engage with practices of company to
treat customers well. Within South Quay Hotel, managing service quality ensures higher
productivity along with increased revenues. It is appraised that when a firm is earning, its
employees are also earning. For the entity, it is a great opportunity for establishing competitive
differentiations as well as generate revenues within hospitality industry. By measuring and
managing gap size between expectation and reality, organisation is able to deliver actionable
insights to targeted improvements. It also focuses on experiences of guests and helps in
delivering excellent services that matches to their anticipations.
For measuring and managing quality of services for meaningful results, service quality
assistant of South Quay Hotel carries out practices with ongoing sources of specific information
which illustrates about interactions of services. With this, service quality consultant is able to
analyse customer service touchpoints and make necessary improvements in existing services in
the field that matters most to all customers. As per the case of South Quay Hotel, it is critically
appraised that proper management of service quality results in developing and measuring the
ways in which customers and employees perceive the enterprise. It helps to evaluate success
according to factors which are significant for organisation. When managers of the service
company continuously manage service delivery they become potential for developing desired
outcomes in collaboration among divisions which creates highly transparent relationships and
reduces response durations.
Satisfaction or dissatisfaction in employees and customers are responses of managing
service quality. Customer and employee satisfaction implies ways in which they sense service
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delivery. Strong relationship among satisfaction of employees and customers with quality of
service is significant for managerial strategy which emphasis towards comprehensive approach
for managing service quality. Time to time, managers of the service company checks reviews
posted by customers and give instructions to employees for refereeing together with solving
complaints of customers efficiently in order to respond properly to feedbacks with high service
delivery levels. Employees are provided training sessions to gain knowledge about delivering
services with great excellence to all guests in the manner which makes them feel valuable
addition to improve their experiences. South Quay Hotel operates with high service standards to
meet all perceptions related to facilities from customers and gain favourable experiences from
services provided by organisation. For this, personalisation approach is adopted by managers
wherein they use name of guests and calls them after some time to have look for room and make
arrangements accordingly. Standard tools together with equipment are used by entity to set prices
that consumers are ready to pay to avail services. To manage service quality continuously, South
Quay Hotel managers needs information about interactions with partners, employees, customer
and other stakeholders. For this, managers conduct surveys and as per outcomes they implement
changes in services or practices to engage and motivate employees for hard working. It builds
workplace environment of confidence, trust addition to loyalty among employees. Every member
of group or department have opportunities for making contribute towards devising compelling
customer experiences by engaging with each other. Motivation as well as engagement of
employees is significant at organisation as it leads to high performances. Understanding factors
that motivates and engages an employee gives valuable insights to managers about nature of
personnel. It explains reasons why human resources set goals, experiences emotions and strives
for achievement. All organisational managers make decisions to engage employee and makes
them motivated for work activities. It enhances possibilities for decreasing turnover rates,
increase productivity and profitability.
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Impact of organisation current service delivery practices on the motivation and engagement of
staff
The South Quay Hotel is operating their business operations as a four-star hotel in Central
London since 2005. This hotel effectively attracts both set of guests that include leisure and
business. The manager of hotel keeps checking Trip Advisor on monthly basis and further
provide instruction to employees to refer any consumer complaint directly to him. It has been
analysed by the management team of hotel found out that customers are also leaving their
reviews on hotel Facebook page (Dhaifullah, Munizu and Umar, 2021). In this due to the
significant increase in the Occupancy of Hotel conference and banquet makes management team
of organisation to face difficulties to effectively respond to the consumer feedback, as it is
becoming quite challenging for them to take out time and respond consumer feedbacks. It has
been evaluated that hotel service culture emphasize upon significance which is associated to
experience of consumers. But it has been evaluated that employees’ states that there is lack of
ownership and they are not being provided with the care. Along with this it has been identified
that there is lack of reward scheme or active employee empowerment that makes staff feel that,
organisation management does not value their hard work and contribution. Furthermore, it has
been underlined that at present The South Quay Hotel is having approximately 60% of part-time
employment of staff and only supervisor and team of management is on full time contract, as due
to the significant increase in turnover of labour. Thus, it has been identified that there is a
negative impact of organisation current service delivery practices on the engagement and
motivation of staff, as employees feels that hotel does not value their contribution, as there is no
reward schemes and active empowerment of employees (Hemsley-Brown and Alnawas, 2016).
Furthermore, it has been evaluated that irrespective of the fact that hotel provide great facilities
but the services are poor that include busy front desk, long waiting times, staff trying really hard
to accommodate all the guest in effective manner, no apologies for the inconvenience lack of
clarity about compensation and more. This delivery practice of hotel is impacting upon the
motivation of employees in a negative way. This is affecting their overall level of motivation
which is leading towards significant increase in the overall employee turnover. Furthermore, it
has been underlined that Hotel is also having complaints associated to the minimum wage paid,
lack of empowerment and the bureaucratic style of management. Along with this as per the
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analysis it has been identified that in context with recruitment the management team does not
have any form of planned approach and recruitment is conducted on an ad-hoc basis.
Furthermore, it has been underlined that hotel training and development last one week which is
offered on the job by the on-duty supervisor. By analysing organisation current service delivery
practices, it has been evaluated that hotel used to operate on good service standards in
recognition, quality assurance and attentiveness. They also take advantage of personalized
approach in order to make sure that they provide satisfactory services to customers. However,
from the significant increase in hotel occupancy and staff turnover it has been identified that The
South Quay Hotel delivery practices is having negative impact on the motivation and
engagement of staff, as they feel undervalued in which management does not value them.
It has been identified that staff turnover can lead organisation to face the challenge of decrease in
overall level of consumer satisfaction, as loyalty and attitude of employees towards organisation
keeps on decreasing at constant rate that will affect hotel profitability and productivity on
simultaneous basis. All the problems that have been facing by employees in hotel states service
failure process (James, 2021). It is essential for management to emphasize upon satisfaction level
of employees and value their contribution in order to provide maximum level of consumer
satisfaction. This will also lead hotel to decrease their rate of employment turn over. It has been
underlined that due to nonexistence of reward schemes, active empowerment of employees, lack
of training, lack of empowerment, bureaucratic style of management, minimum wage paid is
leading negative reviews of hotel on review sites. Thus, it is essential for management to
emphasize upon these aspects.
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Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework that the organisation can utilise to monitor and
continually improve service quality
From the case study analysis of The South Quay Hotel, it has been identified that it is
essential for management to have an effective consumer feedback system framework that
organisation can effectively utilise in order to monitor and make companies improvement in
service quality.
Listening to the customers by monitoring interactions:
It is essential for management of The South Quay Hotel to listen to the consumers with
the help of monitoring interaction. In this they are required to ask question about the overall
satisfaction from the hotel Services (Sitepu and Rismawati, 2021). Within this they can also
undertake advantage of analytics which is playing essential role through which hotel can
evaluate each and every aspect.
Capturing every channel of customer feedback:
In order to have consumer feedback system in an effective manner it is essential for The
South Quay Hotel to capture every channel of consumer feedback (James, 2021). In this hotel
with the application of similar standard of quality in utilising in terms of calls and interaction
which is based upon chat emails and more can provide high quality services to customers.
Furthermore, by capturing consumer feedback from all the channels for instance from
organisational website, social media and more The South Quay Hotel, can make themselves
aware about actual reviews of customers towards hotel services and facilities.
Asking the customers about their views:
It is one of the most important aspect in which hotel by considering of asking question to
customers about their views can evaluate their overall level of satisfaction. This is important for
mapping first stage interaction in which consumer expectations can be determined.
Using quality monitoring for assisting the staffs towards skill improvement:
It is essential for hotel to take advantage of quality monitoring in order to assess staff
towards skill improvement. As per the case study analysis of The South Quay Hotel, it has been
identified that it is essential for them to identify the skill gap and further provide individual scope
of learning different type of training method by experts. This will help in enhancing staff skills
through which overall satisfaction to customers can be provided.
Development of the staffs should not be a one-off aspect:
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