Demand
Product consumption experience
GAP 5
Maybe you are interested!
-
The Meaning of Improving Tour Service Quality -
Perspectives on Improving the Quality of Law Application in Resolving Land Use Rights Disputes at the People's Court -
Goal of Improving Product Image and Quality -
Improving human resource quality at Hanoi Construction Joint Stock Company No. 1 - 13 -
Improving the Quality of Administrative Procedures and Strengthening the Direction and Management of the Heads of State Administrative Agencies at the Ministry Level
The actual quality of service the company provides to customers
GAP 3
Transforming manager perceptions into service standards
GAP 2
Company management's perception of customer expectations
GAP 1
Introduction from friends and relatives
Service quality expected by customers
Actual service quality as perceived by customers
Advertising information and company promises to
client
GAP 4
CLIENT
SERVICE PROVIDING COMPANY
Source: Dr. Phan Thang (2008) [2, 254]
1.2. The significance of improving the quality of restaurant and hotel services :
Although service quality and quality management have not really become the top concern of our country's enterprises, in the recent past, in the context of the country's integration into the World Economic Organization WTO, a large number of enterprises in the restaurant and hotel industry have taken some necessary measures to improve their service quality in order to better serve customers. However, that work has only stopped at the spontaneous level of each individual enterprise.
The late 90s began a difficult period in the hotel business in our country, during which many hotels were under strong pressure from fierce competition in the market. In this situation, two big questions were raised:
First: Do hotels in Vietnam necessarily have to care about service quality? The answer is not only hotels but all
Service businesses need to pay attention to the quality of services provided to customers. Product quality has become a vital issue for service businesses in the current period because:
The business environment has changed, moving to a situation where supply is greater than demand. This means that more and more service providers appear in the market, in addition to domestic providers, there are also foreign providers entering the Vietnamese market.
Partners and customers of Vietnamese enterprises today are no longer domestic enterprises but also foreign businesses.
Increasing demands from customers, especially international tourists - people with high payment capacity and very experienced in consuming products and services.
The "expansion" of hotel businesses in joint ventures with large foreign hotel groups investing in building more hotels in Vietnam.
Second: why do we need to continuously improve service quality and manage hotel service quality better and better? The answer to this question is shown through the following perspectives:
High service quality helps increase hotel profits. Indeed, high service quality helps businesses retain old customers (making customers come back to use the business's products many times), create many loyal customers for the hotel (enlarging the reputation and brand of the business) and attract many new customers (this is the potential customer base of the business). In addition, good service quality will help restaurants and hotels increase market share and maintain a high growth rate in the hotel's guest index.
Increase competitiveness and increase selling prices reasonably in the market. Tourists when they leave their regular residence, they just want to be truly
rest, relax comfortably. Of course, they do not want to spend time and money to "buy" trouble and annoyance for themselves. Therefore, they are easily convinced and accept to spend huge amounts of money to buy products and services that they think are of high quality. Therefore, hotels know how to take advantage of this feature to increase the quality of their services, they can reasonably increase their selling prices and increase their competitiveness in the market. According to statistics, hotels that are at the top in terms of service quality can raise the selling price of their products higher than other businesses from 5% to 6%.
Improving the quality of hotel services helps reduce business costs for businesses. First of all, hotels can reduce a large amount of marketing costs and advertising costs because customers who use high-quality services have done this work for the business. Next is reducing unreasonable costs to compensate customers for damages, ... In addition, businesses can minimize waste in costs for inspection and supervision of the service provision process.
It can be said that investing to improve and perfect service quality is a "mandatory choice" for hotels and restaurants in our country in the current development stage.
1.3. Quality management process of restaurants and hotels:
To manage the quality of their services, restaurants and hotels can apply the following management process diagram:
Diagram 1.3: Service quality management process of restaurants and hotels.
Phase 5: Resolve customer complaints
Stage 4: Regularly check the service delivery process
Phase 3: Building a team of qualified staff to provide good service
The quality of service the hotel wants to achieve
Phase 2: Establish service quality standards
Phase 1: Understanding customer expectations
Current service quality of the hotel
Continuous improvement
Source: Dr. Phan Tuan (2008) [2, 255]
1.3.1. Understanding customer needs and expectations :
According to the modern Marketing perspective, any production and business activities must start from customers and be based on their needs. Regardless of which market is chosen, understanding the needs of the target market will make it easier for restaurants and hotels to succeed in providing quality services. In addition, it helps businesses become more familiar with customers. To do that, businesses must take the following steps:
1.3.1.1. Customer identification :
To do this step, the business must answer the question: "Who are the customers of my business?" All types of businesses must identify their target customers, if they cannot do that, the business cannot succeed because they have chosen the wrong market. The customers of the business are not only those who use the business's services, they can also be long-term business partners with the business or suppliers for the business. Depending on each customer, the business designs services to serve its customers well.
1.3.1.2. Understanding customer needs:
Next, the business must determine what needs customers want to satisfy when coming to the business. Understanding customer needs is really necessary to help businesses provide high quality services to customers. The effective customer research method is the Marketing method, which is the key to helping hotels and restaurants fully understand customer expectations and their perceptions of the quality of services that the business is providing in the market. Through customer needs research, businesses can achieve a number of goals such as:
Identify what makes customers unhappy and what service shortcomings need to be addressed.
Identify customers' real service expectations.
Check and monitor the service implementation process at the hotel.
Compare the hotel's service performance with competitors.
Measure the effectiveness of changes in improving the quality of hotel services.
Evaluate the performance of employees and departments to recognize and reward.
Find out customer expectations for new products and services.
Monitor changes in customer expectations.
Predict future customer expectations.
Customer needs can be divided into two categories: expressed and implied. There are many reasons why customer needs change over time: improvements in service delivery processes, changes in customer priorities, improved service quality from competitors, etc.
There are five aspects that are commonly studied to assess customer needs before and after using the service:
Reliability: is the ability to provide customers with what has been promised, reliably and accurately.
Guarantee: customer safety before, after and while using the business's services.
Tangibles: facilities and equipment, … more importantly, the presence of employees.
Empathy: the levels of personal care and attention provided to customers. Specifically, the language used must be easy for customers to understand, and regular customers must be identified by name.
Response: train staff with the spirit of always helping customers and providing them with the fastest and most convenient service.
1.3.1.3. Collecting customer information:
An effective way to identify customer needs is to collect their information. There are many ways to collect customer information such as:
Suggestion cards (books, mailboxes, etc.) and formal surveys are the easiest and most widely used in businesses, especially in restaurants.
– hotels to measure customer satisfaction. The questionnaire usually has many open-closed questions to facilitate customer feedback.
Direct contact with customers: this method is often used for customers who are leading companies or individuals who are loyal customers.
hotel - restaurant design. The issues they contribute or complain about are often valuable experience for the business.
Direct news from the business area: any employee who has direct contact with customers can get useful information from customers by simply participating in customer conversations or listening to customers. Or even simpler, employees just need to observe customer behavior to recognize their needs.
Complaints research: Complaints can be a key source of customer information. Complaints allow businesses to learn about problems that lead to product and service failures, especially the gap between expectations and performance.
1.3.1.4. Customer relationship management :
Customers are the source of all business success. Without customers, a business will go bankrupt. Whether customer relationship management is effective or not, good or bad, depends on the following four areas:
Approach and commitment to customers: businesses must truly believe in and ensure the quality of their products and services in order to commit to providing high quality service to customers.
Customer-focused service standards: service standards are measurable levels of performance that meet customer expectations.
Training and empowerment: Customer relationship management depends on training the employees who work directly with customers. Only when these employees are
Good training and the ability to handle and fix problems when they arise can maintain good customer relationships.
Complaint management: a customer who has a problem with the service of a restaurant or hotel will tell 9 to 10 people. Therefore, if the problem is not handled effectively, it will bring huge consequences, bringing many negative effects to the business. The first and most dangerous effect is to reduce the reputation of the business and make the business lose the brand that the business has spent a lot of money, effort and time to build.
1.3.1.5. Measuring customer satisfaction:
A simple tool to survey and analyze customer satisfaction is to study customer feedback. Customer feedback is an extremely important and necessary document for a business. Through feedback, businesses will know how satisfied their customers are with the products and services they are provided. From there, businesses can evaluate their products and services and then have methods to improve or enhance the quality of their products.
Completing these steps allows the business to move on to the next stage of its quality management process.
1.3.2. Establish service quality standards:
In all service industries, especially the restaurant and hotel industry, establishing service quality standards is necessary. Businesses must
Design a standardized service delivery process and manage well any problems that may arise that may affect the customer service technology process. The service standards established must meet or at least be equal to the customer's needs.
All service standards of restaurants and hotels are built to achieve the goal of improving labor productivity, increasing business efficiency, increasing business competitiveness, minimizing unreasonable costs, etc. To establish good service standards, managers and employees must answer the following questions:
How good is the service that the business provides to customers?
How long does it take to provide service to customers or in other words, how long does it take for customers to receive service from employees?
How many times did the service provider make a mistake?
How do managers handle customer complaints?
How long? Does it satisfy customers?
Services are created to serve customers, so the hotel's service standards must be based on the requirements and expectations of customers, so they are also measured by customers. This standard must be carefully selected to suit the needs of the target customers that the business is aiming at.
1.3.3. Building a team of qualified staff to provide good service:
In restaurants and hotels, the human factor plays an extremely important role and it is these people who directly affect the customer's perception of the service they consume. All employees and what they do directly affect the customer's perception of the service and the business. They act as a salesperson, as a marketing staff of the business.
Employees will feel supported when they work in teams and only by working in teams can they provide the best service to customers. Therefore, businesses represented by managers need to encourage employees to work in teams and coordinate with each other to provide better service.
1.3.4. Regularly check the service delivery process: