5 STAR HOTEL GUEST RECEPTION OF QUALITY🏨
With the boom in the tourium industry, many hotels are offering similar products. The most important asset for these hospitality organizations is their guests, and their scor depends on the number of loyal guests and their frequency of patronizing the houd Meeting guest satisfaction and exceeding their expectations are an important part t of the hospitality busines. Guests distinguish between hotels on the basis of the range, qualey of services, and facilities offered by them. Therefore, quality plays an important role in satisfying the guests and achieving customer delight.
The word 'quality' means different things to different people. Quality can be defined as "the strict and consistent adherence to measurable and verifiable standards to achieve uniformity of output that satisfies specific customer or user requirements, Quality is aimed at the needs of the present and future guests. According to 180 8.4oz, quality is 'the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.
The following are two types of customers
External customers External customers are those who purchase or use a particular product or service and who influence the sales of that product or service. They exist ounide the organization and generally fall within three categories, namely current customen (existing guests), prospective customers (potential guests who fall in the target segment of a hotel), and lost customers (guests who did not have a satisfactory experience at the hotel and have moved their business to another hotel).
Internal customers Internal customers (employees) are also very important for an organization as they exist within the organization. Every function has an internal customer each employee receives a product or service and, in exchange, provides a product or service.
Every person working in the organisation may be considered a customer of the preceding operation and every employee's goal is to make sure that the product or service quality meets the expectations of the next person. When this is achieved throughout production, tales, and distribution chains, the satisfaction of external customers can also be achieved easily.
A quality product or service should fulfil or exceed the users' expectations. The expec tations are based on the intended usr and the selling price of the product or service. If a product exceeds guest at expectations, it is considered to be a quality product. Quality may be measured in dimensions such as performance, features, conformance, reliability, durability, service, response, aesthetics, and reputation. These dimensions are somewhat independent in nature, hence, a product t can be excellent in one dimemion and may be average or poor in another. For example, a restaurant may serve excellent quality food but its ambience may lack aesthetic appeal. A hotel offering limited services and catering to the needs of a budget segment will be considered a good quality hotel, though it may lack facilities such as swimming pool, speciality restaurants, har, limousine service, and valet attendant that are available in a five-star hotel,
Even though it is very tough to define quality, it is quantified as follows (see Fig. 20.1)
Fitness of use Products and services are comidered to be of good quality when every component of the product is working properly. For example, when all furnitures and fixtures, equipment, and other amenities of a hotel room are in perfectly working condition, the room is considered to be of good quality. The efficiency and tactfidness of service personnel also determine the quality of a product.
Performance Performance is related with the fitness of the product or service for consumption by the end uer. Other considerations for performance are as follows
Availability It refers to the probability that a product or service will be available when needed.
Reliability It refers to the freedom from failure over
product in operation.
Maintainability It refers to the case of keeping the
The hospitality industry offers products such as accommodation, food and beverage, services like travel assistance, and facilities such as fitness cett tre, yoga, entertainment, and sports. Among these, accommodation, which is the major hospitality prod- uct, constitutes the major part of the hotel revenue. In case of accommodation, the quality concern with respect to performance is reliability,
In case of accommodation, the quality concern with respect to performance is reliability, that is, the room
that are installed therein should works properly. The performance in relation with the front desk is that an employee should be available at the desk all the time to amist the guew and should be able to respond to the gust queries and resolve their problema.
Service An emphasis on customer service la esmerging as a means of organizations offering customers added value. However, customer service is intangible it is made up of many small thing, all geared to changing the customer's perception. Intangible characteristica are those traits that are not quantifiable, yet contribute greatly to customer satisfaction Providing exonllent customer service is different from and more difficult to achieve than providing excellent product quality, Organinations that emphasine service never stop looking for ways to serve their customers better, even if their customers are not complaining Some of the services provided by the hotel front desk to the guests include room reservation reception of guests, registration and amigning rooms to guests, luggage handling, and other services during the stay of the guest, such as maintenance of guest accounts, and preparation, presentation, and settlement of guest billa. Guests look for polite and courteous behaviour of the front desk employees while receiving the aforementioned services.
Features Identifiable features or attributes of a product or service are psychological, time oriented, contractual, ethical, and technological. Features are secondary characteristic of a product or service. For example, the primary prodact of the hotel is a guest room, whereas the furniture and fixture's placed in a room are the features of the room. The design and decor of the front desk, hotel, and lobby are the key features of a hotel.
Grade The grade of the product or service is also considered as a measure of the quality of the product or service. Hotels and restaurants are graded according to the services and facilities provided by them. A hotel graded as five-star deluxe is considered as a hotel that offers the most luxurious and best quality products and services.
Warranty The product warranty represents an organization's public promise of a quality product backed up by a guarantee of customer satisfaction. Ideally, it abo represents a commitment to provide a level of service that meets the satisfaction of the customer. The warranty that a guest expects from a hotel is that the quality of the services will be of the highest standard. Some hotels offer guarantee of satisfaction to their guests.
Price Today's discerning customers are willing to pay a higher price to obtain value for their money. Customers are constantly evaluating one organization's products and services against those of its competitors to determine who provides the greatest value. This, it is very important to provide high-quality products and services at competitive rates to retain the guests and get repeat busines.
Reputation Most of us rate organizations by our overall experience with them. Total customer satisfaction is based on the entire experience with the organization, not just the product. Our human nature is such that we share our good experiences with few people and bad experiences with many; therefore, it is more difficult to create a favourable reputation.
Degree of preference Chality is the degree to which a particular pauduct is preferred over competing products of erpivalent grade, in the humed industry, this is based on the comparative tens by the guests and several hotels in the sancy in a called guess preferme. There may be a sown but the bunel that is mos preferred by the quens will be considered as a good quality hotel in the
Degree of excellence Quality la a measure of the degree of general excclienee of the prosfacts or services that are offered by a bott
INTRODUCTION TO TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Total quality management (TQM) aas set of epstesmanie activides carried out by the entire organisation to effectively and e efficiently achieve company objectives to provide products and services at a level of quality dias satislin appropriate time and price. It is a holistic approach in long-term sccess that views co improvement in all aspects of an organisation as a journey and not as short-term destination. It sime to radically transhem the organization through progresive changes in the anitudes, practises, structures, and systems. Total quality managemen et transcende the 'product quality approach, invulens everyone is the organization, and encompasses every function such as administration, communications, distribution, manufacturing, marketing, planning, and training.
Total quality management, as we can see from the various morning given in Eahibe 30, is the art of managing the whole (sin total anributes of the product or service to achieve excellence. It is the management's approach that tries to achieve and satain long-term onga ninational sucorns by encouraging employne leelluck and participation, untifying gan terda and expectations, empecting societal values and belirli, and obeying governmental stan and regations. Product or service, proces, organization, leadersh
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