Service In Hospitality

SERVICE QUALITY

SERVICE Customer: all actions and reactions that customers perceived they have purchased Provider: performance for the customer by the organisation and its staff a service is a time-perishable, intangible experience performed for a customer acting in the role of co-producer = Service is experience for the guest and performance for the server

Characteristics of service Intangibility - cannot be handled, smelled, tasted, heard, touch, non-physical Inseparability - presence of customer during service delivery (part of the service experience) Perishability - Unable to store Heterogeneity - Lack of customization

Service Transactions v

Electronic-mechanical - Mechanical methods to serve guest

needs. E.g. vending machine, automated check-in/out, automatic wake up call v

Indirect personal

- Use gadget for medium of service. E.g. telephone, e-mails v

Face-to-Face

Personal contact and dealing with customer

Service Quality Concepts

Two school of thoughts

1. Nordic/Scandinavian 2. American

1. Nordic/Scandinavian Total Quality

Image (Corporate / Local)

Technical Quality of the outcome What?

Functional quality of the process How?

Gronroos’s two service quality model (source: Williams and Buswell, 2003)

The total perceived quality model. (Source: Williams and Buswell, 2003)

Expected Quality

Marketing Communication • Image • Word-of-mouth • Customer Needs •

Total Perceived Quality

Total Quality

Technical quality What?

Image Functiona l quality How?

2. The American School - The foundations could be traced from the works by the early quality gurus, i.e. Deming, Juran, Shewhart, Crosby. - Believes in standardization practice for service (as in manufacturing) but needs refinement

- Service standard provides clear job instructions, convey a sense of priority and provide benchmarking for performance judgements. - Applications of this approach ‘blueprinting’ has proven successful in many American hotels and fast food chains.

In general, service quality works within the American school can be traced back to the study by Zeithml, Parasuraman and Berry (1985) Introduced 5 dimensions of SERVQUAL.

5 dimensions ofSERVQUAL: Ø

Ø

Tangibles: The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials

Reliability. The ability to perform the promised service dependently and accurately.

Ø

Ø

Ø

Responsiveness. The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service. Assurance. The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence. Empathy. The provision of caring, individualised attention to customers

Developing Quality Standard v

Develop quality statements

Statements to indicate procedures to follow/adhere: “benchmark” Example? v

Implements

Ensure implementation v

Evaluate

Follow up and evaluation