Managing Gauchos Argentinean Restaurant Experience - Case Study Example

Managing the restaurant experience Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Executive summary Hospitality and tourism industry exploits emotional labor to improve the level of customer experiences, loyalty and satisfaction. While there could be instances of faking emotions, expressions of sincere emotions among Gaucho’s Argentinean restaurant employees are crucial to lasting experience. The restaurant as a service sector differentiates itself through the level of experience attained by its customers but seen through employees. This report begins with an introduction which introduces the topic of emotional labor in relation to experiences of customers at Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant in Adelaide. Furthermore, a review of literature is done to find out some of the leading studies with regard to the experience economy and emotional labor. The report then discusses and analyzes the observations and experiences of the author upon visiting and staying in the restaurant. Besides great food, the report indicates that staffs at the restaurant are below par in being friendly, fabulous and responsive to the needs of customers. The attention received at the restaurant mirrors that of insincere positive feelings and attitude required to create positive impressions in the minds of customers. The report concludes that emotional labor is an important aspect of employee behavior and attitude that determines customer satisfaction, loyalty and memorable experiences. A number of recommendations are made in this report on how to improve customer experiences through emotional labor. Table of Contents Executive summary 2 1.0 Introduction 4 1.1 Literature review 4 1.1.1 Experience economy 4 1.1.2 Emotional labor 5 1.2 Discussion 6 1.2.1 Initial impression 6 1.2.2 Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant Experience 7 1.3 Conclusion 8 1.4 Recommendations 9 References 10 Appendices 11 Appendix I: Food Menu at Gaucho’s Argentinean restaurant 11 Appendix II: Wine menu at Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant 12 1.0 Introduction The aim of this report is to examine, analyze and discuss the behavior and emotional labor of Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant staff. Firstly, this report first looks at the type of hospitality offered, business target market, expectation of service, and role of service staff. Secondly, it analyzes emotional labor and relates to responses by staff to customers. Finally, the report discusses attitude and behavior of staff, consequences of emotional labor on staff and makes recommendations based on analysis above. The restaurant’s core business is food and sea food and wine. The nature of hospitality is comfort and tranquility. In addition, this report establishes the relationship between emotional labor of restaurant workers in the accommodation section and customer experience. Recommendations will be made as to how Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant should enhance emotional labor, improve service quality and create lasting customer experience. 1.1 Literature review 1.1.1 Experience economy The tourism and hospitality industry has to a greater extent focused on experience economy beyond the tangible and the intangible products offered. Experiences are memorable and engaging to the magnitude that it creates positive customer satisfaction. According to Pine and Gilmore (1999) experiences arise from memorable events as high-valued offerings for purchase of tangible or intangible activities. Experiences are relevant to guests as they stand as differentiated products (Liljenvall & Dziewiecka, 2010, p.14). While business can add entertainment dimension to existing offerings, being actively engaged in the experience is likely to bring lasting memories to the customer. Firms compete for customers on the basis of experience provided basis or price (Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003, p. 37). The hospitality industry primarily sells ‘staged’ experience to create touristic experience out of their central productive activity. Experiences are personal and exist in the minds of individuals engaged spiritually, intellectually, physically and emotionally (Pine & Gilmore, 1998, p.101). Pine and Gilmore (1999) suggested that the experience realms that create the richest experience are escapism, education, esthetics and entertainment. The optimal experience effects are active or passive participation, immersion and absorptions. Visitors have a tendency of enjoying the destination’s environment through esthetic experience (Liljenvall & Dziewiecka, 2010, p. 19). The environmental characteristics highly influence consumer’s patronage through service and physical setting. Therefore, the choice of location and physical setting of visitor’s accommodation and room environment affects their esthetic experience. Active engagement leaves lasting impression on customers and leads to customer loyalty. Guests intend to increase knowledge and skills through educational events that actively engage their minds. Significant factors are physical training that accrues to the body and intellectual education that engages the mind. Although best restaurant offerings are available to all players, an original rich experience that a client receives brings lasting experience (Liljenvall & Dziewiecka, 2010, p. 15). Guests wallow in the escapism realm by par-taking a different character, immersing into a destination and getting away. Tourists desire to move away from routine, escape to a particular destination and become motivated to take on a different character by immersing oneself in target activities at the destination. 1.1.2 Emotional labor Firms in the service sector create competitive advantage by offering high level of quality service. This sector cannot meet the demands of guests when it lacks high quality workforce employees trained in service delivery. Moreover, their work not only involves cognitive and physical demands but also emotional labor demands (Jung & Yoon, 2014, p.84). Employees in the service sector are expected to manage feelings, be nice, and have a friendly attitude towards guests. As a result, guests become satisfied and increase their commitment and loyalty. However, workers may suppress or fake emotions just to comply with the rules of the workplace. In emotion regulation theory, Grandey (2000, p. 98) observes that emotional regulation is when individuals choose the emotions they have, when they occur and how to express. These are demonstrated in subsystems of distinctive behavior, physiological reaction models and subjective feelings. Emotional labor involves face-to-face interactions with clients and affects their behaviors and emotions (Wong & Wang, 2009, p. 250). The hospitality sector uses emotional labor in the form of display rules such as normatively appropriate emotions because it has a long history of well-established rules. Human resource managers in this field hire service workers based on their emotional intelligence through the process of socialization, feedback on emotional displays and formal training. Punishment and reward are used to enforce adherence to rules (Shani et al., 2014, p. 151). Emotional acting can be done by genuine display of emotions, deep acting and surface acting. Surface acting manages the visible aspects of emotions since they are expected emotions not felt by an individual. They relate to outwardly observable expressions only and do not require conscious actions. Deep acting requires simultaneous regulation of inner feelings and expected expressive behavior as it invokes thoughts and memories that induce desired emotions (Lee & Ok, 2014, p. 179). High scores of service evaluation are linked to deep acting where a sincere service is offered that lead to customer satisfaction. When employee reactions are authentic to the feelings of customers, emotional harmony between the felt and desired emotions occur (Zapf, 2002, p. 243). Thus, genuinely felt emotions displayed results in sincerity and leads to high service quality. Emotional labor is likely to be expressed by individuals with higher levels of positive affects, particularly those who are inspired, interested and enthusiastic. Mature employees have their emotional regulation aligned to deep acting to support the emotional labor strategy. 1.2 Discussion 1.2.1 Initial impression Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant is a 25 year-old family owned business located in 91 Gouger Street, Adelaide in South Australia. The core business of the restaurant is food which comprise of steaks and Char-grilled seafood with outdoor seats and white table clothes. The restaurant is a pioneer Argentinean restaurant with a passion for char-grill (Gauchos, 2016). It prides itself in providing unrivalled culinary experience. Some of the food offered includes Wagyu beef and Gaucho seafood such as Coffin Bay Oysters and Spencer Gulf King Prawns. The beef is butchered on site, prepared to chef’s standards and hand selected. The initial experience on the visit to this restaurant at mid-day was great. I found friendly staff, great food and fabulous atmosphere. However, the Porterhouse steak was great except the meat platter that was a bit disappointing. Generally, the food and wine was excellent with amazing steaks and ribeye (Gauchos, 2016). I thought of getting a reservation given the great atmosphere and friendly staff. The dinner was a fantastic dining experience with delicious food. I had great time with staff that provided a warm and home away from home environment. The staffs were really friendly. I was spoilt of choice over Rias Baixas Albarino and classic Barossa Shiraz. Combined with friendly staff, the diner takes on a journey to exciting and new trends within and outside Australia. According to Google (2016) reviews of the restaurant, one of the disappointed visitors to the restaurant commented that although the food and the restaurant were lovely, the couple said; “…we had bad experience simply because one waitress was rude and disrespectful. We felt uncomfortable and unwelcome and swore never to return to the restaurant”. This indicates one instance of failure by the staff to create positive experience on its customer. 1.2.2 Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant Experience Emotional labor and the experience economy apply to the quality of service offered in the restaurant rooms. Visitors expect more than food and wine in this area of Adelaide. According to Van et al. (2011, p. 39), emotional labor involves managing feelings and attitudes towards customers in order to create positive emotional experiences. The disappointment expressed by visitors to the restaurant was because the staff was not sensitive to the feelings and emotions of the customers. This ruined their expectations for a great experience and resulted in dissatisfaction which affects their loyalty. Emotional labor is enhanced by the process of socialization, feedback on emotional displays and formal training (Wong & Wang, 2009, p. 250), and requires face-to-face interactions with clients (Jung & Yoon, 2014, p.84). However, Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant staffs were generally helpful and friendly to me and other guests visiting the restaurant. All the staff I encountered was friendly, courteous and polite. Moreover, they were clean, well groomed and professional in handling customers. I loved the way they took orders and within a shorter time they had delivered. As Pine and Gilmore (1999) suggested escapism as an experience realm, I found that I was following experience realms of escapism and entertainment that helped create the richest experience. I had fantastic dining experience with a wide range of delicious food to choose from. However, the testimonies I had from one of the repeat visitors is that the staff seems to be on the rush with the manager not treating customers in a bad way. Besides, the rooms were crammed and very loud for people on the same table to talk. These observations were inconsistent with Liljenvall and Dziewiecka (2010, p.15) that visitors have a tendency of enjoying the destination’s environment through esthetic experience. The restaurant staffs were friendly but seem to be unreliable as they cannot maintain the same set of emotional labor for all visitors at different times. Employees are required to manage their emotions to increase overall effectiveness and develop customer relationships (Zapf, 2002, p. 248). I learned that guests combine acquired resources in time and space to produce positive experiences. Overall, emotional labor was evident but to a lesser degree as expected of staffs in leading South Australian restaurant. I gained memorable experiences but got not so good comments about the restaurant due to low levels of emotional labor from staff. I realized that this was in agreement with the arguments of Lee and Ok (2014, p. 179) that fake acting requires is superficial regulation of inner feelings that does not meet expected expressive behavior as it invokes thoughts and memories that induce desired emotions. I found that the level of service offering was insincere and highly unlikely to lead to customer satisfaction. The low scores of service evaluation at Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant are linked to surface acting where staff reactions did represent the authentic feelings of customers. Somehow, the restaurant enhances emotional harmony between the felt and desired emotions to create lasting memories. I believe emotional labor is necessary especially in the restaurant where customers escape their routines in search of new dining experiences. I would say emotional labor on staff makes them to suppress or fake feelings but with genuine employee training and motivation of workers they can engender deep acting. 1.3 Conclusion Review of literature review has shown that firms in the hospitality sub-sector exploit positive experiences of customers to increase their level of service quality, satisfaction and customer loyalty. However, the restaurant has an uphill task of ensuring positive experiences of customers through emotions displayed by its staff. This has been highlighted as experience economy and emotional labor expressed by employees. A lunch and dinner at Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant in Adelaide, South Australia has affirmed by experience is what differentiates restaurants as major players in the service industry. With its core business as food and fine dining in particular, Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant management has not invested in employee training and management of emotions to ensure lasting impression and memories. The report shows that employees adhere to rules of hospitality through surface acting without showing sincerity in their behavior and attitude to customers. This has been evident in the way they interact and respond to the needs of guests seeking food and fine dining experience. Emotional labor is an important aspect of employee behavior and attitude that determines customer satisfaction, loyalty and memorable experiences. 1.4 Recommendations This report makes the following recommendations; Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant should monitor and evaluate workers on emotional labor and customer experiences Routine training of workers is necessary to improve their level of emotional stability and suppress instances of faking emotions to stay within the rules Workers need motivation through reward and professional educational improvement to increase their levels of happiness, commitment and loyalty to their workplaces The management should introduce work-life balance workshops among staff to engage their minds on managing customer experience as well as their families Proper coordination and use of information technology systems will enhance customer experiences as they could be able to learn about the restaurant through mobile apps The restaurant should match customer experiences with the brand name through word-of-mouth, media advertising, and use of social media marketing References Grandey, AA 2000, ‘Emotion Regulation in the Workplace: A New Way to Conceptualize Emotional Labor’, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 95-110. Jung, HS & Yoon, HH 2014, ‘Antecedents and consequences of employees’ job stress in a foodservice industry: Focused on emotional labor and turnover intent’, International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 84-88. Lee, JJ & Ok, CM 2014, ‘Understanding restaurant employees’ service sabotage: Emotional labor perspective based on conservation of resources theory’, International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 176-187. Liljenvall, A & Dziewiecka, I 2010, Experience economy: the implications for the marketing strategies for the Swedish travel industry, Jonkoping International Business School. Gauchos (2016). Menu: Food and wine. http://gauchos.com.au/menu/ Google (2016). Gaucho’s Argentinean restaurant. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=restaurants%20in%20adelaide&tbs=lf_msr:-1,lf:1,lf_ui:9,lf_pqs:EAE&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=-34927175,138600240,545&tbm=lcl&rldimm=4423796968935655284 Pine, BJ & Gilmore, JH 1998, Welcome to the Experience Economy, Harvard Business Review, July/August, 97-105. Pine, BJ & Gilmore, JH 1999, The Experience Economy: Work is a Theatre & Every Business a Stage, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Shani, A Uriely, N Reichel, A & Ginsburg, L 2014, ‘Emotional labor in the hospitality industry: The influence of contextual factors’, International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 37, no. 5, pp. 150-158. Stamboulis, Y & Skayannis, P 2003, ‘Innovation strategies and technology for experience based tourism’, Tourism Management, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 35-43. Van Dijk, PA Smith, LD & Cooper, BK 2011, ‘Are you for real? An evaluation of the relationship between emotional labor and visitor outcomes’, Tourism Management, vol. 32, no. 7, pp. 39-45. Wong, JY & Wang, CH 2009, ‘Emotional labor of the tour leaders: An exploratory study’, Tourism Management, vol. 30, no. 9, pp. 249-259. Zapf, D 2002, ‘Emotion work and psychological well-being A review of the literature and some conceptual considerations’, Human Resource Management Review, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 237-268. Appendices (Source: http://gauchos.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/current-menu-october-2016.pdf) Appendix I: Food Menu at Gaucho’s Argentinean restaurant (Source: http://gauchos.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/new-wine-list-november-2016.pdf) Appendix II: Wine menu at Gaucho’s Argentinean Restaurant Read More