Improving Customer Satisfaction at R-group Hotels - Research Proposal Example

Improving customer satisfaction at R-group Hotels Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Summary The satisfaction of the customer determines the success and performance of a business. Unsatisfied customers often seek new suppliers who can meet their needs. R-group Hotels has recently been experiencing low room occupancy that could be attributed unsatisfactory service provision at the hotels. This study aims to unravel factors that are making the hotel to lose its customers to competitors. The subject of the study will be employees who have worked at the firm for at least six years and customers who have inquired or visited the firm in the last six months. The study will be a quantitative survey which will employ questionnaires to collect data. The data obtained will be analysed using Microsoft Excel software. Table of Contents Summary 3 Introduction 6 Background 6 Significance 7 Scope 8 Problem statement 8 Research objectives 8 Research design 9 Data collection methods 10 Sample selection 11 Ethical consideration 11 Data analysis 12 References 13 Introduction Unsatisfied customers often seek new suppliers who can meet their needs. It has been found out that room occupancy at R-group of hotels whose customers are business people and luxury travellers has been dwindling due to unsatisfactory services. This study aims to unravel factors that are making the hotel to lose its customers to competitors. It is anticipated that the analysis of customers and competitors of R-group of hotels will enable the management to implement a strategy that can help it increase room occupancy and profitability. Background Customer focus and customer satisfaction have become more important businesses in today’s management philosophy (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). Customers who are not satisfied will seek other suppliers to meet their needs. Firms with poor performance in customer satisfaction often results in the firm’s general decline in performance (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). To develop metrics for satisfying customers, the target customers should be analyzed in terms of the kinds of the processes and kinds of customers for which the products are being provided (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). R-group Hotels target customers are mainly business people and luxury travellers. The firm has recently been experiencing low room occupancy that could be attributed unsatisfactory service provision at the hotels (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). This study aims to unravel factors that are making the hotel to lose its customers to competitors. To do this both the customers and competitors will be analyzed. Customer analysis will entail analysis of internal process at the hotel and the target customers (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). Competitor analysis will enable managers to consider strategies of competitors in order to be able to formulate appropriate business strategy. Competitor analysis will help in obtaining information about important competitors and using that information to predict competitor behaviour (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). It will also help in identifying competitors, competitors’ strategies and planned actions, the likely reaction of competitors to a firm’s action and how to influence competitor behaviour to the firm’s own advantage (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). The analysis of customers and competitors will enable the management to implement changes that could help the hotel increase room occupancy rates and hence profitability overall. Without such venture the management cannot really know the really cause of reduced occupancy rates at the hotel and their action will only be based on guess work that might be costly to the firm in the long run. Significance The reduced room occupancy at R-group Hotels is the main concern of the management (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). This is because low level room occupancy is drastically impacting negatively on the profitability of the hotel (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). The management has recognized that there is need to find out what is causing this trend. The management feels that its competitors are using a strategy that is responsible for taking away its customers (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). Furthermore, the management feels that its current internal process might be impacting negatively on the satisfaction of its customers. To be able to make informed decisions on the strategy to implement and changes on the internal process, this study needs to be carried out (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). By carrying out this study, the management will be able to certainly know what is causing the dwindling numbers of room occupancy at the R-group Hotels (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). This will allow the management to implement changes that can counter the strategies being implemented by R-group Hotels’ competitors in addition to tailoring its internal process to the needs of its customers. Scope The study will target employees and current and potential customers of the R-group Hotels. Employee analysis will help to find out factors that can enable employees to work hard to satisfy the firm’s customers (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). This will allow the management to tailor its employee treatment process to much what will be found out to be motivating the employees to improve customer satisfaction (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). Customer analysis will enable R-group Hotels’ management to know what competitors offer that the firm is not offering and how to improve its services to satisfy the customers (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). Problem statement The dwindling room occupancy levels at R-group Hotels have resulted in reduced earning of the hotel (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). The main cause of this is not yet known but given that competitors profitability have not been affected implies that the competitors have a strategy that is more satisfactory to customers than what R-group Hotels has (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). To be able to remain competitive need to find out how to improve its customer satisfaction (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). This study will analyze competitors’ strategy and employee service delivery in order to find out how customer satisfaction can be improved at R-group Hotels (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). Research objectives To find out the impact of internal process on customer satisfaction at R-group Hotels. To find out competitors’ strategies that are leading to reduced room occupancy levels at R-group Hotels Research design This is the structure of research. It holds all the elements of a research project together. It enables researchers to answer research questions using the evidence obtained unambiguously (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). In order to obtain evidence that is relevant one need to specify the type of evidence required for answering the research questions, to evaluate a program, to test a theory or to describe a phenomenon accurately (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). Thus when designing research one ought to know the type of evidence required for answering the question at hand. Quantitative research design will be employed in this study (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). Quantitative research methods were designed originally in the natural sciences for studying natural phenomena. However, several quantitative methods have been accepted in social sciences and they include survey methods, formal methods, numerical methods and laboratory experiments (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). Quantitative method is chosen because this study is an empirical study (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). This will allow us to search for truth in controlled and objective manner. Quantitative methods are characterized by their inflexibility where respondent are asked fixed questions in methods like questionnaires and surveys. The questions in these methods are usually closed ended. This inflexibility will be advantageous in that responses will be compared across study participants meaningful (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). They will enable us to predict cause of dwindling room occupancy at R-Group Hotels. This study will use survey method to describe the relationship between reduced room occupancy and both internal process and competitors’ strategies at R-Group Hotels (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). Data collection methods A survey will be used to collect data. Survey involves collection of large amounts of data from the population which is sizeable by use of questionnaires administered to the sample population (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). Surveys provide information that suggests possible reasons for particular relationships between variables and to produce models of these relationships (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). Survey strategy generates findings which are representative of the whole population at a lower cost as compared to collecting the data for the whole population (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). However, the data collected is unlikely to be as wide ranging as those collected using other research strategies (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). This is because there is a limitation in the number of questions a questionnaire can contain, and richness of the data to be collected is dependent on the goodwill of the respondents. In spite the shortcoming, this research will employ a survey strategy (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). A self- completion survey method involving the use of structured questionnaires will be used to collect data. A structured questionnaire contains a predetermined set of questions designed to capture data from respondents. Self –administered questionnaires will be administered electronically to a cross-sectional of employees of the firm and customers (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). The customers who will receive the questionnaires will include previous customers and any customer who made inquiries at the firm in the last six months. This will allow easy administration, faster and cheaper data collection and analysis. However, the draw back is that it is limited to only computer users and cannot probe complex issues (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). Since most questions on questionnaire are simple and straightforward, they do not allow for searching of new issues. Questionnaire containing both closed and open questions will be developed from the literature review. A small pilot study will be carried out to establish the effectiveness of the questionnaires. Sample selection A sample of any quantitative research should be a representation of the whole population. The employees to participate in this study will be those who have worked at the firm for at least six months (Olorunniwo, Hsu, and Udo, 2006). The target customers of the study are those who have visited or inquired about the firm in the last six months. Twenty employees will be involved in the study of which two will be in the management position, three in supervision position and fifteen in the frontline position (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). The employees will be sampled randomly using computer software from the different branches of the hotel. Customer selection to participate in the study will only be those who have visited or inquired about the firm in the last six months (Hsin-Hui, Jay, and Devi, 2009). Thus purpose sampling will employed. The authors used purposeful chosen sample to carry out their study. Ethical consideration A consent form will be send together with the questionnaires to both employees and customers (Reimann, Lunemann, and Chase, 2008). The participants will be expected to sign the consent form prior to filling the questionnaires and both are send back (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). To ensure anonymity and confidentiality of data to be obtained will go directly to the database. Thus ethical issues will be adequately covered in the research. Data analysis Microsoft Excel will be used to analyse the data obtained (Kumar, Smart, Maddern and Maull, 2008). In order to use this package the data obtained will first be coded, entered in the software, checked and cleaned prior to its analysis. This will allow us to store collected data in spreadsheet format, and apply a spectrum of analyses. Thus we shall be able to generate a summary of our findings in form of tables, graphs and charts. Thus the software will mainly be used to carry out descriptive analysis of the data obtained. References Hsin-Hui, H., Jay, K., and Devi, T. 2009. Relationships and impacts of service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and image: an empirical study. The Service Industries Journal, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 111-125 Kumar, V., Smart, P., Maddern, H., and Maull, R. 2008. Alternative perspectives on service quality and customer satisfaction: the role of BPM. International Journal of Service Industry Management, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 176 - 187 Olorunniwo, F., Hsu, M., and Udo, G. 2006. Service quality, customer satisfaction, and behavioural intentions in the service factory. Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 20, no. 1, pp.59 - 72 Reimann, M., Lunemann, U., and Chase, R. 2008. Uncertainty Avoidance as a Moderator of the Relationship between Perceived Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction. Journal of Service Research, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 63-73 Appendix I Questionnaire for employees What is your gender? How long have you worked at R-Group Hotels? a. Less than six months b. More than six months but less than one year c. More than one year Are you in constant contact with customers of your firm? Are you satisfied with employee treatment at R-Group Hotels? Do you think that the way the management treats employees at the firm impacts on your service delivery to customers? Do you think the firm’s customers are satisfied with the way you treat them? Are there some customers at the firm who insist being served by you? Briefly explain how you treat your customers to ensure they come back? Are there customers whom you dislike serving? Have you ever picked a quarrel with any customer? Are there customers who you know used to viusit the firm but no longer comes there but instead go to other hotels? If yes why do you think they have opted to stop visiting your firm. Appendix II Questionnaire for customers What is your gender? Have you ever enquired about services offered at R-Group Hotels? After inquiring did you ever visit it? If yes, why? If no why? After visiting were you satisfied with: a. Services b. Food c. All How many times have you visited R-Group Hotels? a. Once b. Twice c. Frequently Are you planning to visit there again? If yes why? If no why? Read More