Service quality in tourism and hospitality Designing quality service Personal qualities of service providers Customer contact employees' responsibilities Tourism & Hospitality service delivery system

2. Main contents of the chapter
• Designing quality service
• Personal qualities of service providers
• Customer contact employees responsibilities
• Tourism & Hospitality service delivery
system
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3. Designing quality service
• Many Leisure and tourism contexts contain a
myriad of individual experiences, and have
implications for understanding and designing the
leisure & tourism product.
• The premise of giving the consumers what they
want springs to mind when writing about design
quality.
• Unfortunately it is not as easy as it suggests,
because consumer needs and wants are constantly
changing
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4. Characteristics of Service
• There are four basic characteristics of services:
• intangibility,
• inseparability,
• variability,
• perishability.
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5. Characteristics of Service
1. Intangibility:
• services cannot exactly be seen, tasted, felt, heard
or smelled before they are purchased.
• “Someone who purchase a service may go away
empty-handed but they do not go away empty-
headed… they have memories that can be shared
with others” /Robert Lewis/.
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6. Characteristics of Service
• Discuss
• How can we reduce uncertainty caused by
service intangibility?
• Tangibilizing the product- promotional materials,
employee appearance, and service firms physical
environment all keep tangbilizing the service.
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7. Characteristics of Service
2. Inseparability
• In most hospitality services, both the service
provider and the customer must be present for the
transaction to occur.
• Customer-contact employees are part of the
product.
• Inseparability also implies that customers are also
part of the product.
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8. Characteristics of Service
3. Variability
• Services are highly variable.
• Their quality depends on who provides them and
when and where they are provided.
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9. Characteristics of Service
3. Variability
• There are several causes for service variability:
a) Services are produced and consumed
simultaneously, which limits quality control.
b) Fluctuating demand makes it difficult to
deliver consistent products during periods of peak
demand.
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10. Characteristics of Service
3. Variability
• There are several causes for service variability:
c) It depends on the service provider’s
skill/experience.
d) Time/length of service/tiredness.
e) Lack of communication and heterogeneity of
guest expectation.
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11. Characteristics of Service
It is obvious that:
• service is produced and consumed
simultaneously,
• individual people make up part of the service
offering,
• Then, it can be argued that a service is always
unique; it only exists once, and is never exactly
repeated.
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12. Characteristics of Service
• This can give rise to concern about service quality
and uniformity issues.
• Personnel training and careful monitoring of
customer satisfaction and feedback can help to
maintain high standards.
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13. Characteristics of Service
4. Perishability
• Service cannot be stored.
• If service providers are to maximize the revenue,
they must manage capacity and demand because
they can’t carry forward unsold inventory.
• Perishability does not pose too much of a problem
when demand for a service is steady,
• but in times of unusually high or low demand
service organizations can have severe difficulties.
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14. Characteristics of Service
4. Perishability
• service quality level deteriorates during peak
hours in restaurants, banks, transportation etc.
• This is a challenge for a service marketer.
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15. Characteristics of Service
• The above characteristics are generally referred to
in many texts as being what makes services
marketing so different.
• The special characteristics of service operations
mean that their management should be treated
differently from that of other production systems.
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16. Service standards
• What are service standards?
• a shortened form of the phrase "standards of
service"
• are more than service delivery targets such as
waiting times and hours of operation.
• Service standards include five essential elements:
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17. Service standards
• Service standards include five essential elements:
• 1. Descriptions of the service you intend to
provide and, where applicable, the benefits
clients are entitled to receive;
• 2. service pledges or principles describing the
quality of service delivery clients should expect
to receive,
• focusing on such elements as openness, fairness,
courtesy, professionalism,
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18. Service standards
• Service standards include five essential elements:
3. Specific delivery targets for key aspects of
service, such as timeliness, access and accuracy;
4. The costs of delivering the service; and
5. Complaint and redress mechanisms that clients
can use when they feel standards have not been
met.
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19. Six steps to follow when developing service standards
1. Knowing your business entails
2. Consult with clients and staff
3. Set client-sensitive service standards:
4. Empower and train service providers
5. Communicate service standards and report to
clients on performance
6. Manage to service standards and for service
quality:
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20. 1. Knowing your business entails
• Identifying your clients; includes their back
ground, wants and expectations.
• Identifying your services;
• Identifying your partners;
• Knowing what is being done now
• Knowing what is affordable:
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21. 2. Consult with clients and staff
• Consult with clients to find out
• what is important,
• how satisfied they are with current service
delivery,
• what's working well and what needs to be fixed.
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22. 3. Set client-sensitive service standards
• research has shown that clients regard the following
factors as critical to good service:
• Responsiveness;
• Competence;
• Courtesy;
• Good communication;
• Credibility;
• Reliability and accuracy;
• Security;
• Appearance of staff; and
• Attractive physical facilities.
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23. 4. Empower and train service providers
a) Train staff in techniques and skills for improving
quality and client service
b) Empower the employees who serve clients
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24. 5. Communicate service standards & report to clients
• Service standards are intended to let your clients know
what to expect when they deal with you.
• They can help to moderate clients' unrealistic
expectations for service.
a) Make communication clear and effective
b) Be effective in using Verbal and non-verbal
communication.
c) Build upon current communication methods
d) Determine how you are going to communicate the
various elements of service standards to your clients
e) Prepare a long-term communication strategy
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25. 6. Manage to service standards and for service quality
• If you are actively involved in quality
management and using service standards to
manage your organization, , you will be
– Measuring your performance against your
standards;
– Striving for continuous improvement; and
– Developing a quality service improvement
plan.
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