Serving people Case Study
Serving people is the foremost activity in hospitality, and being expertly served is the reasonable expectation of a guests.
If there’s any place where customers are likely to be paying attention to the type of service they receive, it’s within the hospitality industry. From restaurants to hotels, it is the Job of the hospitality service provider to maintain customer happiness and satisfaction. Nowadays, it is not enough for a hospitality business to know that their guests were happy Just receiving ‘thank you” or getting service with a smile, although it is the proper etiquette.
Customer satisfaction isn’t Just about the service. Satisfied customers are looking for memorable experience and a dynamic service from the establishment they visited.
Customer service begins the moment an individual calls your business, either to make a reservation or to gather information. High quality service means meeting and exceeding your guests’ expectations to feel warmly welcomed. While high- quality customer service requires that employees interact with guests in a friendly manner. They must perform their daily duties with a smile, responding appropriately to the guest’s needs. Complaints must be handled in an empathetic manner.
When the guest is satisfied with his experience, the company earns revenue, return visits, new clientele and positive recommendations.
One good thing if an establishment was able to exceed the expectations of the guest is customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is one of the most important keys to the restaurant’s success. Happy customers are the loyal customers. Not only is it important for a hospitality establishment to provide stellar service, but awesome products as well. A customer who has to continuously wait for a restaurant or a hotel, for example, to do their part may grow tired, no matter how loyal, and venture off to their competition.
Keep customers loyal by focusing on them at all times.
Customer loyalty leads to higher customer retention rate and to continuous business success even in situations where failure to satisfy customers would normally cause an early termination of business. Therefore the restaurant operation must focus not only on attracting first-time customers but also on developing long term relationship with customers. One of the negative results of an unsatisfied guest is the customer complaint. This is one thing that hospitality businesses try to avoid.
Fairness is typically the biggest concern of customers who have lodged a service complaint. Because a service failure implies unfair treatment of the customer, service recovery has to re-establish Justice from the customer’s perspective.
Handling customer complaints doesn’t have to always be a battle, with the right tools and responses an establishment can use complaints to their advantage. A hospitality establishment should always know how to properly handle customer complaints, this is to assure that the complaint of the guest was addressed properly and they will still be considered a repeat customer on their establishment.
Giving the customers an outlet for telling the establishment bout their poor experiences is one thing they could do. And make it a point to correct issues that went wrong and look into those that could stand some improvement. II.
Time Context A week after the appointment of the new General Manager of Paulo’s Restaurant and Brewery, they received a comment in their corporate Web site from one of their customers. The problem takes place when one of the loyal customer experience lousy service when they dined in one Saturday night before they went into a theater and have a movie night.
After experiencing that kind of service, they posted a comment in he customer feedback section of the website of the establishment so that they could address the problem immediately. Ill. Viewpoint In any establishment, managers should always take charge when there is problem regarding the guests. They should act immediately to the complaint of a guest to reduce the occurrence of much bigger problem that could hurt the operation of the establishment.
After the manager did the first step, the staffs of the establishment should support the action of the manager to ensure that the problem can be avoided in the future.
The overall in charge of the problem is the whole team in the establishment. If they don’t work and help one another, surely the problem they encounter in the past would still occur. ‘V. Problem Statement Paulo’s Restaurant and Microbrewery is a famous pub in the city.
It has established good position in the market. They have loyal customers who are repeatedly coming back to their establishment. The establishment operates a corporate Web site; one of TTS features is a customer feedback section that is sent directly to the corporate Vice President and to the appropriate general manager.
Once they received a feedback from a customer where they complained about the lousy service they experienced En they dined in at the restaurant one evening. The guest was really disappointed because it is their first time to experience that kind of ridiculously slow service from the establishment usually they do not experience from their past dine in. V.
Objectives I. To be able to understand why guest complaint occurs in an establishment. Or address guest complaint properly. Iii. To avoid having the same guest complaint in the future.
” SOOT Analysis * Internal Strengths 1. Paulo’s Restaurant and Microbrewery is a famous pub in the city. 2. They have a site that has a feature which is customer feedback section where customers can vent UT their complaints, with that they can address it immediately without spreading it to their other guests. 3.
They located in one of the major city which gives them opportunity to attract more guests. And they also have locations in six regional cities. Insaneness 1 . Lousy service. 2.
Employees who are not well trained in giving quality service to the guests.
3. Negative poor work habits of some employees. * External Opportunities 1 . Acquire more locations in other regional countries. 2.
To improve the service of the employees to eliminate the number of unsatisfied guest. 3. To acquire more technology to enhance the service of the restaurant. Threats 1. Customer complaint. 2.
Existing competition. 3. The word of mouth that a customer would do if they experience bad service from the establishment. VI’.
Alternative Course of Actions (CA) a.
CA#I In addressing a customer complaint, the Paulo’s Restaurant and Brewery manager should act immediately and tell the guest how the problems will be addressed. The management should investigate the areas of issue, train the staff that is involved in customer service skills or rotate staff so they can increase their knowledge of other areas. And encourage support and teamwork in the establishment. B. CA#2 Paulo’s Restaurant and Brewery should be aware to the trends that the industry NAS as of the present.
They should be able to forecast what would be the future trends that their competitors will adapt.
They should always think one step ahead of their competitors. Sales and Marketing department should be the one in charge in doing the reviews of what their competitors are doing. C. CA#3 Talking to the guest when a guest complaint occurs is really important. An establishment should let the guest be heard about their concern. They should always Invite the guest to express their feelings so that they could address the problem Immediately and it will not spread outside the establishment.
And with that the management could also make appropriate and reasonable amends regarding the complaint. VIII. Action Plan Action Plans I Person in Charge I Time Frame I Customer Service Training for the employees I Training Manager I Quarterly or every three months I Consistent monitoring of the upcoming trends in the industry I Sales and Marketing manager and staffs I Should be done every 6 months I Perform service recovery I Restaurant Manager I Immediately after En a complaint occurs I ‘X.
Conclusion In every hospitality establishment a customer complaint is always occurring every now and then. This is why the constant monitoring of the practice of quality service in an establishment is important.
Addressing this problem properly will surely benefit one’s establishment. It is important to understand customers’ desires to attract, maintain, and satisfy those customers in order to maintain this continuous source of income. The restaurant operators should understand the impact of both the customers’ level of satisfaction to reduce the chances of having customer complaint.
Customers may vary in the way they become loyal to a restaurant; for some customers restaurant image may be important, whereas for others quality of service and food are more important. That is why it is significant to exceed the expectations of a customer and never let them down because if these happen a customer would never come back to your restaurant.
Positive approach in handling a customer complaint and performing service recovery helps any hospitality establishment to address those issues to the customers’ satisfaction to promote customer retention. And it could also create positive word-of-mouth about your restaurant.
