Importance of Providing Good Customer Service
Questions:
How Professional Was The Service Received?
How Helpful Was Representative Of Customer Service?
Was The Delivery Process Of Restaurant Was Efficient?
Were The Staffs Friendly And Responsive To Enquiries?
Were The Representatives Knowledgeable And Available At Service?
Customer service is an important part of business mainly in hospitality industry. Providing good customer service helps in giving repeated business and enhancing their reputation. Offering better customer experience helps in offsetting higher prices and building customer loyalty. Good customer service will help in creating satisfied customers that will lead to more sales and creates motivation among say front office staffs. Providing service to customers on active basis will enable business to gain feedback from customers by indicating the area for further improvement (Chen et al. 2015).
If the customers are encouraged for having expectations, about services and products that do not exist will lead them to develop unrealistic expectations. Creation of unrealistic expectations would lead to conflict and disappointment between employees and customers. This would make customers angry and disappointed about the services provided to customers and ultimately declining productivity of employees dealing with such customers. Customers expectations should be well aligned with service and products that are consistently delivered by business (Wirtz 2017). Higher will be the possibility that expectations of customers will be met if the expectations of customers are more realistic. It will be impossible for service providers to meet such unrealistic expectations and it will further lead to downward shift in expectations.
Managers should view negative feedback as a part of performance improvement plan because it would provide an opportunity for improving performance of employees. Negative feedback can be considered as constructive feedback and it benefits both managers and employees. For managers, it can be the most valuable thing to be received as it can be utilized in an advantageous ways for improving employee’s performance. Considering the mistakes and ignoring reality would provide an opportunity to grow. Assessing employees’ weakness and guiding them would help in improving and propel within the organization (Tseng and Wu 2014).
Variable pricing- Variable-pricing strategy used by many restaurants and hotels that make the adjustment of price using historic demand during time of the day. This approach of variable pricing is evolving and is regarded as effective when traffic is driven during peak hours.
Capacity management- Capacity management is about managing limited resources of an organization. Integrating capacity management would enable business to meet current and future demand in a manner that is cost effective (Lovelock and Patterson 2015).
Creating Realistic Expectations for Customers
Demand soothing- One of the key factors leading to revenue generation is driving demand of product. Demand for the products and services of organization can be smoothened by strategizing the product price in such a way that it helps in gathering more customers and increasing demand for products (Kandampully et al. 2015).
Duration control- Revenue and profit of small business can be boosted by applying control procedures that will help in controlling cost and doing business activities within budget.
- Always respond in a timely manner- It is required by business to respond to their customer queries in timely manner. The time period should be very clear with customers and needs to be manageable.
- Treating customers with respect-Customers should be treated with respect so that it would be perceived they are valuable to organization.
- Honoring your commitments- All the commitments must be honored, say if organization is offering guarantee, then it must be honored.
- Avoid arguments with customers- Getting into argument with the customers will have alienated customers and would forever loose them. Hence, argument with customers should be avoided.
- Focusing on building customer relationship- It is required by business to cultivate long-term relationships in order to enjoy long-term success (Ostrom et al. 2015).
- Training staff members- When front staff members are trained properly for providing customer service by ensuring that that they align with the principles..
Employee personality- Performance of customer service is influenced by personality traits of employees such as extraversion and conscientiousness.
Product improvement based on customer feedback- Improving products and services provided to customers using feedback will help in creating satisfied employees (Scheidt and Chung 2018).
Organizational climate- Organization that offers good service performance is facilitated, rewarded and valued. It is so because they play a crucial role in providing service to customers.
Face value- Customers accept the values of product and services when it cost more.
Waiting time- Waiting time of organization in the hospitality industry is an important variable as longer waiting time is perceived to inefficient staffs.
Setting realistic expectations- It is very important to set realistic expectations for avoiding disappointed and angry customers.
Follow up- Follow up makes customer remember of the service they received at the restaurant and it acts like an opportunity.
- Apologizing- First step for resolving complain is to apologize.
- Listening to customer queries-In the next step, customers need to be directed with attention and premature conclusions should be avoided.
- Taking down notes- Interruption should be avoided while dealing with customers and notes should be taken down for offering and responding to solution (Dhar 2015).
- Problem repetition- Repetition problem should be some for ensuring that queries have been understood.
- Offering solution- Customers should be provided with repeated solutions without any exaggeration.
- Expressing gratitude- Conversation with customers should be ended with repeated apology and thanks giving.
- Reporting to superior- Superior should be reported about solution and decision should be taken.
- Reporting to customer- Customers should be informed about the efforts taken for solving problems.
- Building brand loyalty
- Creating sustainability
- Cohesion of team
- Customer retention
- Increased revenue
- Skirmishing higher price
- Niche creation
- Reducing customer complains
- Increasing customer loyalty
- Generating more referrals
- Lower marketing cost
- Helping competitive advantage
The customers encountered in the hospitality field of training have different characteristics that are described below-
- Few customers usually wants undivided attention so that the person providing service understands their feelings and condition
- The loyal customers are the one who might take away staffs from their work at expense of rest of the customers. However, these customers need to feel that they might have impact on the overall process
- The customers with indecisive nature usually need the service on –time delivery, which can be main frustration. If these customers cannot decide in choosing any product or service, they require helpful prompting.
Front office plays vital role in the hospitality industry as they are the ones who interact with client. They offer assistance to the customers and also solve their queries regarding any kind of product and service (Ryu, Lee and Gon 2012). Five examples of products and services offered by the front office in the hospitality industry are given below-
- They offers information as well as services to the guests and also receive payment for the services
- They also maintain inventory of vacancies, registering arrival of guests and assigning rooms, answer enquires relating to hotel services
- They also offer bellhop service for the guest who requires help for moving their baggage to their room.
- They prepare staff schedule and also take responsibility to correct service problems of customers
- They also try to respond to the complaints of guests and also checks their accounts and receipts.
The three examples of additional add-ons and extras provided by the front office in the hospitality field are given below:
- Event add-ons- The service offered by the front office in this field involves table centerpieces, setting up fees, audio- visual equipment, room rentals etc. However, the clients who seek information regarding booking events area basically ideal clients for upsell.
- Concierge services – It is actually a part marketing, customer service and public relations. Well- informed concierge helps to recommend activities that enhance stay of guests and experiences of guests ( Torres and Kline 2013).
- Marketing and sales- Front office staff also provides this additional service by coordinating with sales and marketing team for ensuring maximum sales of their rooms in hotels.
Anticipating needs of customers and assisting them for fulfilling their requirements are the main role played by the front office staffs (Li, Ye and Law 2013). Three examples given below reflects that the requirement of customers are usually anticipated by front office in this industry –
- If the specific visitors arrives with their baby, then the staffs of the front office tries to provide additional services such as bottle warmer for the baby in order to make their guests stay comfortable.
- When the guests arrive with huge luggage, the front office staff tries to provide bellboys for carrying their luggage to their rooms. They also takes them to the rooms and informs them regarding other hospitality services
- If the guests are old aged, the front office staff tries to help them in every possible way and making them more comfortable.
The front office executives inform the housekeeper for checking the rooms regarding uniqueness and size before delivery to their customers. This is because the different room rates creates effectual environment for up-selling. The front office manager tries to train their staffs for interacting with their customers in order to understand the needs of customers before presenting their products and services to their clients. In addition, the executives of front office reconfirm their customer’s reservation and also ask their preferences in order to keep the room according to their needs.
Strategies for Improving Customer Service
Front office executives plays important role in dealing with the problems reading offering of products and services in this industry. For handling with these problems, they develop proactive plans which are given below:
- The front office manager trains their staffs so that they provide best service to their guests and also handle any kind of problems. This in turn will increase the stay of their guest and hence increase their profitability (Dabholkar 2015).
- The front office executive also monitors the check-in process in order to handle problems regarding exchange of wrong information between guests and staffs.
- The alternative options that is recommended for the staffs is that they should consult with the higher authority for dealing effectively with the conflicts occurring between guests and staffs.
Several methods should be adopted for avoiding the problems and improving the service provision in future. These methods are illustrated below:
- Ask their customers about their preference before delivering their products and service to them. However, interacting personally with customers can help them to build good relationship with them
- Monitor the staffs in action so that the front office managers can find out the specific problem that is required for improvement.
- Service provision in future can also be improved if the managers provide training to their new front office staffs (Wu et al. 2012). This can help them to satisfy their customers with proper service
Dealing with customers conflicts creates difficulty for the front office staffs in this hospitality industry. There are certain procedures that can help them to deal with these conflicts, which are-
- Understanding the proper reason behind the mistakes occurred by their staffs during offering of services.
- An apology also helps to resolve the conflict and appease upset guests.
- The front office staffs must maintain positive attitude for dealing with conflicts
Both verbal and non-verbal communications are required for this industry as it helps in removing the barriers of cultural as well as languages between the guests and staffs.
Three examples of promotional services that might be used in the hospitality industry are illustrated below:
- Mass Market promotion-The hospitality industry promotes their services through mass market. They contract independent properties and large chains for selling their hotel rooms at discount rate.
- Discounts-They can promote their services by offering discounts for rooms to their potential guests. They can also offer discount to their customers for extended stay.
- Value- added promotions- The hospitality industry sometimes provides rewards to their guests for night stay along with other amenities. This in turn helps them to promote new services.
The above feedback form can be evaluated by the following procedure:
- The comments given in feedback form can be categorized by some factors namely, courtesy, speed, etc
- If the comment of the customers are many, then the comments should be broken into two parts- positive and negative (Radojevic, Stanisic and Stanic 2015).
- The negative points jotted down should be reviewed again in order to plan which process to be improved.
The collected data will be utilized in that area where the improvisation is required. Besides this, action plan can also be prepared based on this collected data. Hence, it will be useful to establish ongoing customer rapport as the changes done enhances their satisfaction level.
References
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Chen, Z., Zhu, J. and Zhou, M., 2015. How does a servant leader fuel the service fire? A multilevel model of servant leadership, individual self identity, group competition climate, and customer service performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(2), p.511.
Dabholkar, P.A., 2015. How to improve perceived service quality by increasing customer participation. In Proceedings of the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference (pp. 483-487). Springer, Cham.
Dhar, R.L., 2015. Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of organizational commitment. Tourism Management, 46, pp.419-430.
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Kandampully, J., Zhang, T. and Bilgihan, A., 2015. Customer loyalty: a review and future directions with a special focus on the hospitality industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.379-414.
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Proactive action plan for dealing with problems relating to products and services in hospitality field
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