Service Quality Assessment Report for Sunderland International Hotel

This report conducts a comprehensive service quality assessment of Sunderland International Hotel. It begins with an introduction to service quality management and its importance, emphasizing the need for effective measures and techniques, including Total Quality Management (TQM) and the SERVQUAL model. The report analyzes the impact on front-line employees, focusing on internal service quality and employee engagement, and it explores managerial implications. The study examines the current service levels of the hotel and the rise in customer complaints, recommending the implementation of the INTERSERVQUAL model to assess employee perceptions. Finally, the report proposes the development of a Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework to monitor and improve service quality, including the analysis of customer feedback and the drafting of valid recommendations for improvement. The report's recommendations include the use of TQM principles, SERVQUAL model, and the development of a Customer Feedback System (CFS) to enhance the customer experience and improve employee engagement. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the hotel's service quality, offering actionable recommendations for improvement.

SERVICE QUALITY ASSESSMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Importance of measuring service quality and recommendations for adoption of effective
service quality management methods.........................................................................................1
2. Assessing impact on front-line employees, their engagement and also managerial
implications.................................................................................................................................6
3. Producing Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework which company can use to
monitor and improve upon service quality..................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Service quality management ensures an organisation to have appropriate activities as per the
consumer requirements and at a satisfactory level. Ascertainment of the proper quality of
services will bring long-term basis of executing and monitoring of all consumer offerings. It
helps business professionals with effect to manage the performance as well as for measuring the
efficiency of firm in improving their efforts. In the present report, there have been analysis based
on the case study of Sunderland international Hotel with reference to manage its operations and
employees as per consumer requirements.
Managing the employee practices and satisfying consumers on which there have been
requirement of improving the quality of services as well as monitoring the operational level of
firm. Report will recommend professionals of firm in analysing the measures of service quality,
adoption of effective changes in practices, establishment of framework which will assist their
current work operations. Moreover, designing the customer feedback system will be effective in
making necessary improvement in the services offered to them. The evaluation of the
performance, grievances as well as consumer feedbacks will be analysed to draft a valid
recommendation to firm in context with bringing reforms in their practices.
1. Importance of measuring service quality and recommendations for adoption of effective
service quality management methods
To manage the operations of business as per meeting the gap between actual and
expectations the implication of effective service quality management will result positive changes
in business. However, there have been various measures and techniques which are required to be
adopted by the professionals which in turn will be useful in bringing the effective analysis over
managing the service quality of business. There will be effective ascertainment over the
performance and operations performed by the business units in respect with improving its sales,
employee turnover as well as bringing the better popularity in environment.
Therefore, these techniques enable managerial professionals in analysing practices done by
employees in a respective period. However, there are various conceptual and contextual issues
which has been faced by Sunderland international Hotel that is affecting decision- making
process of an industry. However, with reference to make effective changes in the operational
practices there must be implication of several techniques in firm to manage the quality of
services such as:
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Total Quality Management:
This is buyer’s-oriented practices which determines on going increment in operational
process. Quality of operations which are required to be improved by managerial professionals at
Sunderland international Hotel and that could be possible as per proper records of performance
as well as efforts made by employees in this practice. The main aim of this techniques is to
ensure the proper increment in the service and product quality. There will be information
relevant with the requirement and desires of consumers based on their wants and needs which are
to be executed in a manner to bring them effective services. the loopholes and issues which are
required to be managed to have proper training, staffing and management of operations.
Figure 1 Principles of TQM
(Source: Total quality management, 2019)
Principles of TQM:
There have been several principles based on the TQM implication in the organisation
which will be effective in bringing reforms in proper management of operations.
Managerial commitment:
The managerial bodies in organisation has to be committed towards planning, implicating
the changes, executing the operations as well as taking necessary initiative to overcome with
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such obstacles. Professionals at Sunderland international Hotel must have commitment towards
analysing the main causes, making reliable and accurate planning which will bring positive
results to the gains of firm (Basu and et.al., 2018). Along with this, there must be effective
support and participation of employees in several practices that in terms of making changes in
the operational practices.
Employee empowerment:
In this aspect the aim of business is for monitoring the duties, efforts and performance
done by workforce with relevance to have effective control over practices. There are several
techniques which will help Sunderland international Hotel in developing skills among employees
such as proper training and development program, excellence team, measuring their performance
and recognising the efforts as well as suggesting them to improve skills (Wendot and et.al.,
2018). Thus, with the impact of such effective management and operational control there can be
adequate increment in efforts and operations of firm which will result in improving and
motivating them for their duties.
Ongoing improvements:
For the continues operational practices of an organisation on which executing and
implicating changes are effective to control the issues in the services. However, there must be
application of systematic measurement, cross functional process management, attain, maintain
and improvement in standard of the firm (Choy and et.al., 2018). Additionally, encouraging the
staff as per their excellence in the operational practices will be most reliable and effective
method in uplifting the performance and quality of services in the continuous process.
Consumer Focus:
By taking reviews of consumers on the basis of services offered by organisation to them
which will be monitored in terms of having information regarding their satisfaction with such
practices. There are various stakeholders which are associated with the business on which
partnership firms, suppliers of the resources are a part of operations.
Thus, for managing relationship with them is profitable for Sunderland international
Hotel to up lift the business is prime requirement in organisational activities (Alolayyan and
et.al., 2018). Similarly, in analysing the consumer needs and requirements relevant with the
services on which managerial bodies will make strategies for retaining them on the long-term
basis.
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SERVQUAL model:
Application of service quality model will help Sunderland international Hotel in terms of
managing the quality of services offered by the business. From room services to kitchen as well
as managing staff in each department will be effective with reference to have proper control over
the quality of services in business (Basu and et.al., 2018). The elements which are listed in data
set have effectiveness in terms of analysing the issues and suggesting the appropriate increment
in the performance of business. Moreover, this method has been gone through analysing the
performance on the basis of 5 dimensions.
Figure 2 Principle of SERVQUAL model
(Source: Understanding the SERVQUAL Model, 2018)
Reliability
In the service quality model, the reliability is relevant with promises made by business to
their consumers is how reliable and effective to manage them. Thus, it will monitor that how
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accurately and effectively the business is presenting such services among consumers. Thus, the
reliable trust from sight of consumer will be developed on the basis performance made by
Sunderland international Hotel in current manner (Wendot and et.al., 2018). As per the issues
stated in business and consumer feedbacks which were determined to be resolved accurately and
adequately. However, with reference to this, they have to bring training programmes for
employees to enhance their skills, talent which will be effective for delivering what exactly a
consumer requires.
Assurance
This is a knowledge and courtesy driven by employees for inspiring trust on the business
services. Therefore, in a hospitality industry there are various departments such as kitchen,
dining, rooms and cleaning. Moreover, analysing the requirements of employees relevant with
their duties will be helpful in encouraging their commitment towards the firm. They will assure
Sunderland international Hotel with their reliable efforts in duties (Choy and et.al., 2018). Thus,
such influences draft trust of business on their employees and which would result in better
attainment of goals as per quality of services.
Tangibles
It is determined as per the concrete evidences such as physical presence, facilities and
equipment used in the services industries. In Sunderland international Hotel there can be
variations in the number of employees stated in the business as well as job roles. Focusing on the
way of presentation given by an employee among consumers is must be considering so, that if
there is any loophole in their presentation which will be improved just in a manner to develop
skills among them. Similarly, as per focusing the equipment which are used to record the data set
or any operational tools which must be improved to increase the quality of services. Facilities
provided by business must be considered to be improved and executed to bring better analysis on
operations.
Empathy
This is the method through which managerial professionals interacts with the employees
in terms of analysing their issues. Therefore, supervisors in Sunderland international Hotel
enables the employees to participate in decision-making, planning and effective operational
analysis. Communication and participation of employees in various decision making process
helps in enhancing their commitment in the business.
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Responsiveness
In this method there have been analysis over the willingness of business with reference to
meet the requirement of the consumers as well as promptly delivering them the satisfactory
services. Thus, effective in work process will be effective in terms of improving the quality of
work. To improve efficiency of business on which timeliness is the main concern that has to be
considered by Sunderland International Hotel.
2. Assessing impact on front-line employees, their engagement and also managerial implications
Current Service Level of Sunderland International Hotel
The service quality is of great concern to company as it leads to offer adequate
satisfaction level in effectual manner. It can be noticed that The Sunderland international Hotel
has been operating in East London and earning good amount of profits over the years and also
opened conference banqueting suite as well. However, with increased profits and sales, customer
complaints have also risen up to a major extent. This is evident from the fact that complaints are
posted on Trip Advisor and also on company's Facebook page. The service quality impact on
front-line employees as they are internal customers of the hotel and are well-equipped with the
factors inside hotel quite effectually.
Internal Service Quality (ISQ) is the notion considering employees as internal customers
of the hotel as they are in direct contact with internal affairs. They know far better than external
customers who visits on infrequent basis (Chen, Saad and Yin, 2018). This can be defined as
service imparted by different service departments in the organisation. It refers that The
Sunderland international Hotel wishing to deliver better quality services to external customers
must satisfy internal services for meeting needs of customers in effectual manner. The quality of
internal services imply that way for designing better workplace, recruitment, rewards and
recognition of employees and tools for enhancing customer services in the best manner possible.
With the help of these elements, corporate can easily deliver good quality of services for external
customers.
Improvement made in quality of internal consumer service automatically leads to
improvement in quality of external consumer service quite comfortably. However, in order to fill
the gap, SERVQUAL (Services Quality) model was created giving broader range of service
quality assessment by nearly five dimensions. These are tangibility, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance and empathy leading the way for measuring quality of service level so that hotel may
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be able to maintain its stake in the market and enlarge its customer base (Meesala and Paul,
2018). It is primarily based on consumer's evaluation of service quality. The gap between
customer's expectations and perceptions are overcome with the help of this model in effectual
manner.
The SERVQUAL model being implemented has been modified for assessing employee
perceptions towards the service quality. It is further modified to INTERSERVQUAL (Internal
Service Quality) model used to analyse the perceptions of front-line employees of hotel. By
incorporating INTERSERVQUAL model, measurement of internal customers can be easily
assessed. The front-line staff who are in direct control with the customers are to be satisfied in a
better manner. They answer the phones and meet consumers and have the opportunity to help in
creating loyal customers and inspire influencers in effectual manner (Lobo, Samaranayake and
Laosirihongthong, 2018). The impact on front-line staff due to rise in bad quality service will
demotivate them and they will be adjudged to provide quality services requiring better policies
for ensuring customer satisfaction by improving adequate services. Both the SERVEQUAL
AND INTERSERVQUAL have benefits in the hotel which will help it to attain higher standards
of service quality in a better manner.
Impact on front-line staff
The job satisfaction influences employees to effectively accomplish productivity
demanded by hotel. With regard to positive working environment, employees can display their
efficiency and productivity and imparts good quality services to clients in order to satisfy them at
large. ISQ and employee satisfaction are important mechanism which rises confidence of front-
line staff. It can be referred to case study that staff feel that they are not provided with ownership
and also are not cared for. Moreover, The Sunderland international Hotel does not offer reward
schemes or active empowerment of the staff. They feel that they are not valued by the top
management which signifies not only external customers are satisfied but also quality of internal
services are bad as well. It is needed that The Sunderland international Hotel should correct both
quality of services in order to enhance overall satisfaction of customers for eradicating bad
reviews.
There are complaints being filed regarding minimum wage paid to staff. Management
team has lack of planned approach for recruitment and training just lasts for one week. The
quality of internal customer services are deteriorating day-by-day which is a significant issue for
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the hotel as both consumers are disheartening with the services provided by hotel (Shahin,
Bagheri Iraj and Vaez Shahrestani, 2018). This means that job satisfaction of workers seems to
be bad and they are not valued by the management leading to increase in staff turnover up to a
high extent. Furthermore, 60 % of staff is employed on part-time basis and remaining 40 % are
permanent employees. This is another issue as external customer services are inadequate as staff
is not committed to provide full-time services to hotel leading to effect service quality.
The internal service quality and job satisfaction are interrelated to each other. This
relationship is far more significant in comparison to remuneration and benefits imparted to staff.
Moreover, The Sunderland international Hotel needs to provide excellent internal services to
people as they are behind the success of the hotel and not motivating them will be disadvantaged
to management at large. The driving factor for improvement of external service quality to
customers are front-line staff which in direct contact with the staff and help them to answer their
queries in a better manner by quickly responding them.
Impact on engagement of front-line staff
The engagement of front-line staff will prove to be beneficial for The Sunderland
international Hotel which is facing crisis in terms of elevating customer complaints from external
ones. However, their engagement in services will be to provide greater efficiency and resolve the
disruptive operations which are deteriorating customer satisfaction related to poor services
(HOSPITALITY FRONTLINE STAFF : RELATING TO CUSTOMERS. 2018). The online
reviews posted by customers provide clarity that front-line staff have immense responsibility to
get in touch with the people and try to completely resolve queries. Contacting with them will
significantly help staff to attain positive reviews for the hotel which will be beneficial for them in
the long-run. This means that getting customer attention by resolving their complaints and
addressing feedback will provide The Sunderland international Hotel to accomplish better level
of service quality.
Impact of managerial implications
Furthermore, it can be ascertained that management implications on front-line staff will
be provided effective services in order to bridge the gap between the expectations of customers
and bad services offered by hotel. It means that firm is required to enhance its services in a better
manner. This will ensure that customer complaints are eradicated by quickly responding to them
and meeting their demands in the best manner possible (Horvat and Filipovic, 2018). Moreover,
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management implication for enhancing or improving upon staff services will be to develop better
framework for ensuring that management orders are effectively provided to front-line staff by
following hierarchical structure and within the framework, queries would be resolved. This will
prove to advantageous for management, employees as customer complaints will be accounted for
leading to attainment of higher satisfaction level through better service quality.
Front-line staff will get impact because of management implications as around 60 % are
part-time employees which will receive orders for completing their work. They will have to
perform hard enough to provide healthy benefits to hotel and as a result, desired services will be
imparted to customers which will surely reduce complaints in a better way. The management
implications can be considered in a better manner. ISQ in the hotel is regarded to be most crucial
dimensions with reference to service quality. Moreover, it provides cost reduction and
profitability for the hospitality firm. Imparting them with the highest standard of services among
employees will help them to easily interact with external customer in a better manner.
Internal customers play vital part in external customer satisfaction and either it leads to
success of firm or failure depending upon the organisation's service quality towards them.
Moreover, focus on ISQ affects the other variables of service quality provided to the external
consumers. This means that ISQ has high significant influence on job satisfaction of employees
at The Sunderland international Hotel up to a major extent (Tseng and et.al, 2018). This falls on
the ground that managers are encouraged for offering high quality services to front-line staff so
that they are motivated to provide ideal services to customers meeting their demands. This will
surely help to come down customer complaints in a better way. Moreover, ISQ should be
established as a long-term goal for hotel. Management of The Sunderland international Hotel are
required to keep with the ISQ as an integral part of organisational culture. Thus, it can be said
that firm will be able to identify the loopholes in framework which will have impact upon front-
line staff.
3. Producing Customer Feedback System (CFS) framework which company can use to monitor
and improve upon service quality
Customer complaints are to be resolved at the earliest so that firm may be able to improve
upon service quality in a better manner. In order to resolve the same, CFS system needs to be
produced so that firm may be able to institutionalised feedback received from the customers in
continuous manner (Izogo and Ogba, 2015). To learn from feedback provided by customers is
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referred to core of CFS. On the other hand, it can be analysed that key factors of satisfaction are
product quality, service quality, expected value and expected price consisting budget factors.
CFS leads to obtain feedback and stimulates improvement. There are several components of CFS
like service indicators, standards and performance targets, feedback collection tools, reporting
system, service recovery system, IT system, team learning system and organisational positioning
of CFS.
The use of IT system is far better than other framework allowing for speedy capture and
dissemination of information with the help of which complaints can be handled in a better
manner. In order to improve service quality, The Sunderland international Hotel is required to
implement reporting system should be designed as well for taking feedback to front-line staff,
department managers and upper management as well. Three types of service performance reports
can be prepared by The Sunderland international Hotel which are monthly service report,
quarterly service report and annual service report (Reuter and et.al., 2015). Monthly report
provides process owners on comments from customers on time. The feedback is provided to
process manager which is then discussed with service staff.
Quarterly service report provide process owners and department managers with trends in
process performance and service quality. While, annual service report offers upper management
assessment of status of corporate and long-term trends in satisfaction of consumers with its
services. Besides this, effective organisational structure for managing customer feedback system
is a centralised Customer Feedback Unit (CFU) that owns system and encourages various
departments for providing inputs into system and use customer and process knowledge gained
from it. In relation to this, with the usage of CFS, valuable information can be shared in a better
manner. It is confronted to employees with valuable feedback from customers and makes
employees act customer-oriented with ease. The Sunderland international Hotel is required to
adopt customer-driven improvement model. The CFS for the hotel is drawn below-
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Investigation and Maintenance
Process
Feedback Proforma
Personal contact during
calls/ visits
Design verification and
validation procedure
Customer Support training
process
Feedback during hotel trial
service
Customer
Feedback System
(INPUT)