Customer_Service_Report

Table of Contents Abstract 1. Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.3-4 2. Methodology ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.4 3. SERVQUAL ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.4-5 3.1 Tangibles ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.5-6 3.2 Reliability ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.6 3.3 Responsiveness ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.6 3.4 Assurance ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.6-7 3.5 Empathy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P. 7 4. 5-Gap Model ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.8-11 5.1 Knowledge gap -------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.8 5.2 Standard gap --------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.8-9 5.3 Delivery gap ------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.9-10 5.4 Communications Gap ------------------------------------------------------------P.10-11 5.5 Customer Satisfaction ---------------------------------------------------------------- P.11 5. Layer of Service Product ----------------------------------------------------------------- P.12 6. Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.13 7. List of References--------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.14 8. List of Appendices --------------------------------------------------------------------- P.15-17 9.6 Appendix A- Survey form ----------------------------------------------------------- P.15 9.7 Appendix C- Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group:Mission Statement, Guiding Principes and Mandarin Oriental Pillars-------------P.15-17 Abstract Service quality has been regarded as one of the key for long term business success, especially in service industry. It’s crucial to customer satisfaction. In this paper, customer service and care standard in Totts, The Excelsior, would be studied by using different service quality models that present the idea to measure and enhance service quality by identifying its dimension. It’s interesting to find out if the restaurant in sister hotel of The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group-The Excelsior has performed outstanding customer service as the group does. Introduction Totts,The Excelsior belongs to Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group which is an international hotel management group. The group has received awards for its service and management, as well as for the spas and restaurants located at many of their hotels and resorts. The Mandarin Oriental’s reputation continues to endure with their legendary service. Over the years, the group has been recognized consistently by influential global publications as an outstanding hotel company. Totts is a fantasy fine-dining restaurant in terms of food and environment. The service is highly recommended as its name may suggest -Talk of the town. It’s on many recommended restaurants list on magazines and websites for travelers. Nowadays, restaurants are more than selling a food. As suggested by Michael Hurst in 1970, the food will not taste as good as it could if the atmosphere is not seasoned with good, caring service provider. In the following, how Totts as a hospitality industry strive in providing excellent customer service and care as it claimed by the organization would be studied. Methodology In this article, secondary data is used instead of primarily data as it is time consuming and may not be accurate if sampling size is not big enough. Though secondary data is information that has been previously gathered for some purpose other than the current project, advantages are information being more comprehensive and readily on hand. There’re various secondary data being used in this report including textbooks, journals, company newsletter and websites. Academic theories in textbooks and journals were applied to access the service and care standard of the restaurant while others provide information and data related to the restaurant. While there’re no general agreements on the measurement of service quality, three different theories including SERVQUAL, 5 gaps model and layer of service of product would be considered in this study. SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al, 1991) SERVQUAL is the short form of “service quality”. This theory evolves from Total Quality Management. This model suggests that customer satisfaction is the customer’s overall feeling of contentment and Service quality could be measured by the difference between customer perceptions and customer experience. Excellent quality service begins with customer expectations and succeed when the expectations is exceed. SERVQUAL measures the quality of service in five areas which include tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. This model is widely used by managements and scholars as it’s proved by sufficient research that it’s effective to identify priorities for service enhancement. By accessing the five dimensions of service quality of Totts, the level of services provided could be ascertained. Tangibles Totts located at convenient location - Causeway Bay which is the heart of the city with breathtaking Victoria harbor view and city skyline. Their physical facilities are visually appealing and their staff is well dressed and neat. They have a sophisticated and modern menu and their food is of best ingredients. Atmosphere is good with appropriate space and relaxing music. Reliability Employee follows proper operation procedures and standards closely. There’s hostess right in lift lobby to warmly welcome the guest, escorting and seating the guest according to the reservation. Guests are addressed by names and pleased for welcome drinks. Drinks are served promptly in five minutes and waiter/waitress would explain the menu and make recommendations. They are used to repeat the orders and inform the necessary preparation time for the dishes. Servers deliver the dishes with simple description to avoid mistakes. Responsiveness Guests are granted to have their calls picked within 3 rings. Staff is very attentive and helpful. Each staff is responsible for one section of fixed number of tables to prevent them from too busy to respond to customer requests promptly. They are not standstill waiting for guest approach but wandering around the section with open hands to observe guests’ needs and act upon immediately. They keep track of the dishes delivery time, course by course. Assurance Customers always expect staff to be knowledgeable about the service and therefore they would be very unsatisfied if this dimension not to be achieved. Totts gives adequate support to make staff doing their job well. They equipped staff with knowledge of seasonal wines by regular training. Chef would give introduction and food tasting during briefing if there’re new or special dishes. In this way, staff is confident with talking about the menu and making recommendations. Staff is professional with personal passion and commitment. Especially when there’s guest sitting alone, staff talks with the guest, which makes them extremely friendly and accommodating. Empathy Totts demonstrate their care by retaining guests’ personal data and preferences on their records through after-meal survey (Appendix 1). They’ve strong database to store guest preferences in the company system around the world. Hostess would note the seating (e.g. window seats) and dining preferences (e.g. vegetarians) according to customer history and remind the server during the daily briefing. They provide a special menu whenever necessary. Individualized attention is given as guests are not required to repeat themselves in every visit. 5-Gap Model (Parasuraman, Berry, and Zeithaml, 1991) Based on measurement of difference between expected and actual service standards, this model suggests five areas that discrepancies are likely to be exist between the firm and the customer’s perceptions. This includes knowledge gap, standard gap, delivery gap, communications and customer satisfaction (Appendix 2). According to Brown and Bond (1995), “the gap model is one of the best received and most heuristically valuable contributions to the services literature”. Knowledge gap Knowledge gap refer to the difference between what customers expect of a service and what management perceives that customers expect. Totts is doing customer survey from time to time in order to measure customer experience. Staff would proactively please guests to fill up the survey right after dinner to get real insight into how customers feel about the restaurant while the interaction is still fresh. This also gives opportunity to take action when they’re not happy with the experience, which could build loyalty and drives positive word of mouth. The data collected would then input into computer system. These records of F&B preference, seating preference etc in guest profile would be recalled when guest visit again. Standard gap Standard gap refer to the difference between what management perceives that customers expect and the quality specifications set for service deliver. “In order to improve service quality, it’s necessary to contact employees regularly and assess their service experience. Like the external customer, an internal customer too considers categories of service attributes, such as reliability and responsiveness”(A. Shahin). The Mandarin Oriental group has been always encouraging staff to raise ideas regarding the customer service. For example, Mandarin Oriental Pillars (Appendix 1) are ideas from employees with bonus as rewards. Daily briefing in Totts also facilitate communication between colleagues. Feedbacks could revert to management by restaurant manager during regular F&B meeting. Customer service policies and procedures could then be set and revised by management according to what servers encountered and observed in real situations. Policies include what the staff should do under certain situation while service procedure is a way of doing the routine practice. For instance, when Totts is full, staff would please the guest to wait at the bar with drinks or recommend other F&B outlet in the hotel. Delivery gap Delivery gap refers the difference between the quality standards set for service delivery and the actual quality of service delivery. “The ability to satisify customers as well as employees has gained increasing attention as the competition for both market share and people has stiffened and especially the ability to measure employee and customer satisfaction has received increasing attention” (Dahlgaard, 1998). To attract and retain employee is important to ensure service performance meets standards. The Excelsior has invested heavily in training and career development. A range of programmes for career advancement and personal development are in place to meet the current and future development needs of global workforce at different level. For new recruits, there’re 2-day orientation program. This gives basic information about the organization e.g. culture, mission statement, history, unique features and target market etc. By familiarizing new staff members with the organizational culture, it increases the chances that they will fit well into the organization, and absorb and become part of the customer-focused culture. New staff would enjoy a lunch buffet to experience what a guest might feel towards the restaurant. At the beginning, senior staff will clarify the employee role with the new staff. For established staff, there’re regular trainings regarding service skills, wine tasting, time management etc. There’s also subsidize for academic achievement to encourage self long term development. During daily operation, briefings are conducted by restaurant manager. Staff is informed in details regarding the daily special of the menu and wine, table setting and guest special preference e.g. vegetarian. Totts also adopts a promote-from-within policy, encouraging advancement and improved personal performance. Communications Gap Communications gap refer to the actual quality of service delivered and the quality of service described in the firm’s external communications. The group has clear mission statements and guiding principles (Appendix 3). Legendary Quality Experience (LQEs) is established to guide staff in achieving the mission to delight and satisfy the guests. It’s designed by defining the core experiences in guest/colleague interactions and represent in the style suits Hong Kong and attention to details that the firm bringing to their hospitality and service. To ensure that communications promises are realistic, the group has seek comments from frontline employees and operations to set Mandarin Oriental Pillars (Appendix 3) which is practical instructions to guide the staff to reach the goal of the company. Customer Satisfaction Customer Satisfaction refers to the customer perceptions of service actually received with their prior expectations. Individual staff members in Totts are empowered to promote human touches which help create a memorable dining experience. Empowerment of employees in the work place provides them with opportunities to make their own decisions with regards to tasks. Staff is motivated to handle things effectively by their knowledge and experience. There’re cases that server could make decisions to efficient the guest. For instance, they may separate the dishes into equal portions for guests who want to share dishes or eliminate one of the ingredients of the dish according to guest preference. Most customers appreciate the flexibility offered. On the other hand, standard practice of mystery customer to measure quality of service is taken place. This not only assist in identifying what brings customer back or drive them away but also keep staff in optimal performance by improving customer service awareness. Layer of Service Product (Kolter, 1994) It’s suggested there’re several levels of a product including core benefit, actual product, augmented product and promise. Actual product is what the customer is really buying while augmented product is host of supporting services. Core benefit is what the consumers feel they are getting when they purchase the product. Totts is a fine-dining restaurant with trendy decoration. Variety food & beverages selection are served. There’re smoking area, non-smoking area, lounge and VIP rooms. Customer enjoys supporting service like parking, newspaper, magazine, menu with different language menu and wheelchair access. Staff with detailed-mind and relaxing atmosphere makes guest feel happy and secured. Totts has committed to provide a refreshed and revitalized dining experience. Conclusion “Many factors, like management systems, staff and volunteer actions, and facilities etc. may directly affect the customers’ perception of quality and therefore their level of event satisfaction. Thus to create a lasting impression in the customer’s mind, organizations need to add value in the views of customers that good service quality and satisfaction is achieved, by concentrating on the development and provision of these more rational elements of the service encounter (Neil, Getz, & Carlsen, 1999)” After all, Totts has demonstrated to strive to exceed customer service expectations. It’s a strong organization providing quality service. A memorable name could make or break a restaurant. Totts belongs to the prior one. List of References Brown, S.W. and Bond, E.U.III (1995), “The internal/external framework and service quality: Toward theory in services marketing” Journal of Marketing Management, February, pp.45-56 Dahlgarrd, J.J; Kristensen K. & Kanji G.K.(1998), Fundamentals of Total Quality Management, Chapman & Hall, London Hurst, Michael E.1970. You sell more than food. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 11:103-4 Kotler, O.,(1994) Marketing Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1991), “ Refinement and Reassessment of the SERVQUAL Scale”, Journal of Retailing, 67 (4), Winter Neil, M.O., Getz, D., & Carlsen, J. (1999). Evaluation of service quality at events: The 1998 Coca-Cola Masters surfing event at Margaret River, Western Australia. Managing Service Quality, 9(3), 158-166 Shahin, A. (2006), SERVQUAL and Model of Service Quality Gaps: A Framework for Determining and Prioritizing Critical Factors in Delivering Quality Services. In V. Partha Sarathy (Ed.) Service Quality: An Introduction (pp 117-131) Andhra Pradesh: ICFAI University Press Appendix A - Survey form Appendiex B – Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group: Mission Statement, Guiding Principes and Mandarin Oriental Pillars Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group Mission Statement Our mission is to completely delight and satisfy our guests. We are committed to making a difference every day; continually getting better to keep us the best. Guiding Principles * Delighting Our Guests, * Working Together As Colleagues, * Promoting A Climate Of Enthusiasm * Being The Best * Delivering Shareholder Value * Playing By The Rules * Acting With Responsibility. Mandarin Oriental Pillars * We will constantly act in a manner which reflects our mission, vision and values, and be ever mindful of our oriental heritage * We will warmly engage all guests by natural use of their names and through friendly gestures, smiles and eye contact * We will carefully watch and listen to each guest so that we can understand and anticipate their needs, and respond in a timely manner * We will maintain an alert posture so that we can proactively and respectfully acknowledge guests and fellow colleagues, even when passing by, offering assistance when needed * We will take ownership of each guest request or need to ensure that guests do not have to repeat themselves * We will never say “no” to a guest, but offer alternative solutions * We will record guest preferences in order to surprise and delight out guests and ensure that their preferences are acted upon appropriately whenever possible * When directing guests around the hotel, we will always at least partly escort them, never simply point * We will answer telephones before the fourth ring, and always speak calmly and clearly * When talking with guests by telephone, we will ask permission before placing guests on hold, announce to whom they are being connected, and always allow guest to be the one to end the call * We will listen to guest complaints calmly and sincerely, apologise for any inconvenience, agree upon an action which will follow, and ensure the action occurs