Quality Service in the Hospitality Industry: Achieving Effective Service Processes and Designs

In today’s hotel industry, customer service quality is an important determinant of a successful business. Identifying the specific expectations of customers, the dimensions of service quality and its relative importance for customers in each segment of hotel industry can help hotel managers meet the challenge of improving quality of service. One major barrier to standardizing services in the hospitality industry is that quality of service is always directly proportional to the level of experience and skills of the server. Moreover, as experiences are always subjective and differ from one person to other, it is not possible to authentically standardize them. This paper examines the most common factors needed to achieve effective service processes and designs, including types of service transactions such as electronic-mechanical transactions, indirect personal transactions and face-to-face transactions. It identifies intangible aspects of service quality and examines the importance of inseparability, variability and perishability, as well as the time gap between demand and supply of service. To further aid in attaining effective customer service, important service processes and their strengths and weaknesses can be identified and designed using Service blueprints. Finally, Total Quality Management (TQM) is discussed as another structured approach for managing organizational services and improving the quality of services or products.