Service Quality Management In Hotels

www.jagooindia.com India's hotel industry is growing at a fast pace because of a high economic growth coupled with an increased flow of international tourists. This calls for effective quality management and that can be done through an accurate measurement of services. Effective quality management of hotel industry: 1. Define the quality attributes and variables - Attributes denote qualitative data. They represent discrete values such as presence or absence of an escort to the room from the reception, etc. Variables denote quantitative data, which are continuous such as the price of staying in a room, etc. 2. Measure - The Critical To Quality (CTQ) characteristics of the process need to be identified. The factors that contribute to a good / bad service experience for the consumers need to be picked. 3. Analyze - The attributes and variables need to be measured to find any possible causes of defects / low quality service. 4. Improve - The influence of the causes of defects / low quality service need to be quantified, and the acceptable limits for the same should be defined. 5. Control - In the control step, the modified process should be made to stay within the acceptable limits and emergency handling mechanism should be in place. Define The key quality attributes in a hotel are: Attributes: 1. Arrangements for payment for room service 2. The presentation of the service in the guest room 3. Quality of the table-ware used in the provision of room service 4. Equipment used in providing room service 5. Quality of the food provided through room service 6. Size of food portions 7. The ability of the waiter to understand your specific needs in using room service 8. Service etiquette shown by room service staff 9. The ability of the waiter to instill confidence in the choices the guest has made 10. Quality of the beverages provided through room service 11. Appearance of the room service staff 12. The ability of the room service staff to answer general enquiries about, for example, places for entertainment 13. The ability of room service staff to handle guest complaints 14. The ability of room service staff to provide information on other services available from the hotel to guests 15. The skills in the performance of room service 16. The level of commitment that staff brings to room service 17. The attractiveness of the lay-out of the guest room

18. A sincere interest shown in solving any of the guest's problems 19. Friendly conversation between the guest and the room service staff Variables: 1. Price 2. Time spent waiting to place an order 3. The time spent waiting between ordering and receiving service 4. Hours during which room service is available 5. Number of choices included in the menu Measuring & Analyzing the Attributes & Variables Attributes: 1. Arrangements for payment of room service: The attributes can be measured in terms of the following factors: If arrangements are made to accept credit cards (for all types of cards including VISA, Mastercard, etc.) Is foreign currency accepted for international customers? No. of persons checking out / No. of POS (Point Of Sale) devices in the hotel 2. The presentation of the service in the guest room: Did the waiter knock before entering the room Did the waiter show skill in serving the food, or in changing the bedsheets and towels 3. Quality of the table-ware used in the provision of room service: Was the table-ware aesthetically appealing? Was the table-ware heavy? 4. Equipment used in providing room service: Was the trolley clean? Was the trolley making any noise? 5. Quality of the food provided through room service: Was the food tasty? Was the food the same as ordered by the customer? 6. Size of food portions: -

Was the quantity of food served less than expected? Was the size of food portions too small or big? 7. The ability of the waiter to understand your specific needs in using room service: Was the operator able to understand your needs? Was the waiter able to speak clearly? 8. Service etiquette shown by room service staff: Did the staff smile at you? Did the staff show interest in serving you? 9. The ability of the waiter to instill confidence in the choices the guest has made: Did the waiter display knowledge about the food choice that you made? Did the waiter know enough about the hotel and its facilities? Did the waiters show co-ordination among themselves? 10. Quality of the beverages provided through room service: Was the quality of the beverages provided good? 11. Appearance of the room service staff Was the room service staff well dressed? Did the staff smile at the customers? 12. The ability of the room service staff to answer general enquiries about the place, like places of entertainment, etc. 13. The ability of room service staff to handle guest complaints: Was the room service staff receptive or defensive about the complaint? Was the staff empathizing with your problem? Did the staff take corrective action and within an allowable time? 14. The ability of room service staff to provide information on other services available from the hotel to guests. 15. The attractiveness of the layout of the guest room. 16. A sincere interest shown in solving any of the guest's problems.

17. Friendly conversation between the guest and the room service staff. Variables: 1. Price 2. Time spent waiting to place an order 3. The time spent waiting between ordering and receiving service 4. Hours during which room service is available 5. Number of choices included in the menu Each attribute and variable can be given weights from 1-10 basing on their impact for making the service experience good or bad. Then, a check-sheet could be constructed to find the frequency of negative feedback received from the customer on each attribute / variable. The product of the frequency and the weights would give the final score for each attribute / variable. For negative feedback that is observed, a Pareto Chart can be constructed like this: -

After this step, the attributes or variables with the maximum score are picked up for further analysis. For each of these parameters, which have, maximum scores, a cause and effect analysis can be done. For example, an analysis for bad food can be done as mentioned in the diagram below: -

Say, in the analysis done above, it is found that it is some cook who makes continental dishes has maximum complaints. Further, analysis shows that the cook had less training. A scatter diagram can then be drawn between the number of complaints vs. the training period of the cooks.

If the scatter diagram confirms a relationship, then a formal model can be constructed using regression technique. Improving & Monitoring Once the cause of the problem is found, steps should be taken to correct the problem. In this, if a relationship is confirmed then the training period of the cooks should be increased. Now the process control charts need to be constructed taking the data of the various attributes and variables into consideration. Now service samples are taken and then the UCL and LCL values are found. For Variables: The X-bar and R-bar charts are then prepared for the variables. X-bar charts are prepared taking the mean of the sample values. And R-bar charts are prepared taking the sample ranges. The upper control and lower control limits are then established for the mean and range. Then, the values of the variables are put in the chart and care is taken to see that they lie within the UCL and LCL values. For Attributes: The percent defectives in a service are measured by p charts and the number of defectives are measured by c charts. While analyzing these charts, it is necessary that we not only look out for the points that fall out of the control limits, but also look for the possibility of the points going out of the control limits.

As can be seen above, even in cases where the data points are not going out of the UCL and LCL, a possible problem could be there. In such cases, the pattern should be noted and accordingly corrective actions should be taken. For example, in the 2nd curve above, it is very likely that the situation is about to go out of hand. Lastly, the hotels need to compare their existing performance with their own benchmarks. The best practices of one department should be circulated to other departments in the organization. Using external benchmarks only compounds the difficulties that service companies face in getting comparable measurements from different parts of the organization. So the service companies must apply the lessons of experience.