Part 1
The hospitality industry is a global industry spread across the entire world and consists of three primary divisions. The lodging is the most basic services of the industry and provided by the hotels, lodges and guest houses. The restaurants and bars form the second group while the last group is composed of tourism and travel industry. The study which has two parts, is about one of the biggest name in the industry, Hilton Worldwide. The first part deals with customer factors, consumer needs, the environment at the Hiltons, the professionalism of their staffs, their products and services ending with documentary evidences of the same. The second part is about setting service and policy standards and ways to monitor them.
First impressions:
The hotel industry is one of the biggest revenue earners in the hospitality industry whose growth is dependent on customer service and goodwill generated from it. This industry spread around the world is worth over $490 billion and is expected to cross $550 billion by 2018.
Hilton Worldwide is one the largest chains of hotels having over 4900 properties, 800000 rooms and is present in 100 countries. The hotel chain having a long association with luxury, class and integrity and is hosting business meets, holidays and fine dining to loyal customers around the world since 1919. The hotel group owns brands like Curio, Canopy and Tapestry Collections, which are synonymous to luxury, class, elegance and splendour the upper class around the world relishes.
Worldwide presence:
The biggest positive customer factor of Hilton Worldwide is its global presence, which the consumers can avail in any part of the world. Hilton operates in most if the countries through franchisees who maintain the standard as per Hilton’s standard parameters. The consumer are able to enjoy the Hilton luxury in big cities, ports, near international airports and all other places which are centres for business, culture and all other human activities which involves the hotel industry. The worldwide chain of hotels all confirming to the standard makes Hilton on eof the most profitable hotel chains in the world.
The success of a hotel chain is impossible without a huge base of loyal customers who visit it to enjoy the superior services. Hilton Worldwide provides a range of brands that provide exceptional services to the visitors repeatedly. The attractive packages, excellent waiters, room services, and guest loyalty programmes make people visit repeatedly.
Hilton Reservation and Customer Care (HRCC) is the customer care service provided by Hilton group. It employs over 3000 skilled customer care service providers, who handles complaints and assists customers all over the world. This network, which exemplifies Hilton’s excellence in the fields of technology and protection of personal information, is run by ResMax, operates for all the brands owned by the company and is capable of handling conversations in most of the major languages in the world (Hiltonworldwide.com 2017).
Excessive dependence on the United States:
Hilton Worldwide is based in the United States and heavily dependent on the market conditions of the United States of America. Most of its operations in the USA and any Negative movement in the economic, political or socio-cultural happening in the USA affect its operations in the other locations, thus affecting the consumers.
Positive Customer factor services
The Hilton Worldwide is involved in several lawsuits around the world relating to services and management issues against it. Keller Grover, a law firm filed a suit against Hilton stating that they had violated the law in California, which forbids recording of private conversations (Team et al. 2017).
The Hilton Group of hotels offer superior and luxurious hotel experiences to its customers. The product line of Hilton consists of goods and services, which are famous for their standard and customer oriented. The goods are the food, drinks and other edible delicious items, which the visitors enjoy at the various properties of Hilton. The services consist of the residential services, the room services, the securities services and host of other services, which the group provides to the visitors. The staffs are very efficient towards taking care of consumers’ needs and having set standards in the industry internationally.
Hilton Worldwide operates all around the world and is affected by a host of microeconomic and macroeconomic factors. The chain is a luxury brand and is usually associated with luxury and class. The hotel chain caters to the upper class of the society and is dependent on the income of its host countries. The hotel chain is heavily dependent on international changes like fluctuations in exchange rate and inflation (Molina-Azorín et al 2015).
The Hilton group is renowned for the professionalism of its staffs and their efficiency in delivering timely services. The room services, security services and all other services points contribute into making Hilton an enjoyable experience for the guests.
The hotel staffs are very helpful and customer oriented.
The staffs at Hilton provide high quality services and are known for their timely delivery. Their high performances have become standard for the industry worldwide. The customers who are loyal and prefer the environment and facilities at Hilton visit the hotel repeatedly (Ali, F. and Amin, M., 2014).
The Hilton Worldwide group operates in the whole world and guarantees price benefits to its customers. It has packages, which allow the customers to enjoy their international standard facilities from any location in the world along with discounted prices and offers. This earns the chain a huge base of loyal customers, which makes it one of the most profitable hotel chains in the world using price multipliers (Bayoumi 2013). Its loyal based customers are the reason on why the Hilton group has been successful over the years.
Hilton Worldwide is known for its quality services and facilities, which have earned it a high position in the world market. Hilton Worldwide has been awarded among the best places of work, which also points out to the quality of staffs the hotel maintains to provide superior services to the visitors. (Hospitality Net 2017)
The annual reports are the biggest documentary evidence of performance of Hilton Worldwide. The company’s Earnings before tax, depreciation and amortization increased from $2210 to $2508 in 2014, which proves the financial capability of the company.
The company earned a profit of $ 673 million in the same year while its stock price stands at $ 58.02 on NYSE as on 28.02.2017 as per Bloomberg, which documents the company, is financial strength.
Negative Customer Service Factors of Hilton Worldwide
Current Staffing Budget:
The Hilton group comprises of many employees in a global basis. Certain issues have cropped up in the work procedures of the group, but they have been able to deliver the best working environment and salary to its employees. Their staff budget has been consistent and in the future years need to be more consistent as staffs is an integral part of any organization. They need to fix a certain percentage of their revenue for staff benefits and training. They need to make their staffs feel that they are an integral part of their group, through either lucrative salaries or rewards and recognition. The company through sharing its profit with
Policies and procedures for implementing customer service standards and their monitoring:
Defining service standards:
The service standards will be based and monitored on punctuality, accuracy, appropriateness and cost effectiveness. The staffs should work in a way to satisfy the customer needs by using resources efficiently. In the present scenario, Hilton stands on the success factors that make implementing the functions of HR in a better way like compensation planning, planning in succession and management of performance. The staffs of the Hilton HR send out outlining routine management forums to investigate completion of work and sending reminders to the managers. The service standards of Hilton get better every time through the leadership qualities enhancing better opportunities for the company’s future. Distribution of merit helps in each of the properties of Hilton motivates enhanced feat.
The management, employees, present customers, potential consumers, rivals and regulatory authorities and their standards have a very important role in service standards. The food and drinks should confirm to the guidelines set by these guidelines (N. Torres, E. and Kline, S., 2013).
- The customers should be able to avail services like check in and out with minimum legal and policy wise formalities.
- The food and drinks should be served to consumers in the restaurants with minimum waiting time. This will increase limit of tolerance.
- The customers’ room services should be within a stipulated time-frame.
- The restaurants serving various types of food like Thai and Italian should have the right chefs in them. Food is something that helps in attracting tourists to a particular hotel.
- The cleaning staffs should always be ready to clean vacated rooms as soon as the guests leave to make them ready to use by new guests.
Conclusion:
Hilton Worldwide is an international chain of hotels, which is known for its luxurious properties and high standard services. The chain must set standards to serve customers more instead of depending on the USA for its financial position to a great extant. The group must be able to provide its executives with succinct information for bringing in substantial improvements. The group’s management needs motivating its managers in a way where better performance can be achieved being within the budget.
References:
[online] Available at: https://media.investis.com/H/Hilton-Worldwide/annual-report/hilton-2014-ar.pdf [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].
Ali, F. and Amin, M., 2014. The influence of physical environment on emotions, customer satisfaction and behavioural intentions in Chinese resort hotel industry. Journal for Global Business Advancement, 7(3), pp.249-266.
Bayoumi, A.E.M., Saleh, M., Atiya, A.F. and Aziz, H.A., 2013. Dynamic pricing for hotel revenue management using price multipliers. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 12(3), pp.271-285.
Bloomberg.com. (2017). HLT:New York Stock Quote – Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. [online] Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/HLT:US [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].
dollars),. (2017). Global hotel industry retail value 2010-2018 | Statistic. Statista. Retrieved 28 February 2017, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/247264/total-revenue-of-the-global-hotel-industry/
Hiltonworldwide.com. (2017). Hilton Reservations | Hotel Customer Care | Hilton Worldwide. [online] Available at: https://hiltonworldwide.com/development/performance-advantage/reservations-customer-care/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].
Hospitality Net. (2017). Hospitality Net – Hilton Recognized as One of the 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials by Great Place to Work® and Fortune. [online] Available at: https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4076889.html [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].
Molina-Azorín, J.F., Tarí, J.J., Pereira-Moliner, J., López-Gamero, M.D. and Pertusa-Ortega, E.M., 2015. The effects of quality and environmental management on competitive advantage: A mixed methods study in the hotel industry. Tourism Management, 50, pp.41-54.
Torres, E. and Kline, S., 2013. From customer satisfaction to customer delight: Creating a new standard of service for the hotel industry.International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,25(5), pp.642-659.
Team, O., Practice, O., Actions, W., Violations, E., Practices, U., Actions, W., Violations, E. and Cases, U. (2017). Cases Archives | Page 2 of 3 | Keller Grover. [online] Keller Grover. Available at: https://kellergrover.com/cases/page/2/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].
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