Customer Service at Hampton Inn Chattanooga - Article Example

Service at Hampton Inn Chattanooga-Downtown Swimming Pool Recreational Facility Background I visited Hampton Inn Chattanooga-Downtown swimming pool twice in September 2012, on 14th and 25th. On 25th, I slept over since I had a business function in town. During this visits, I learnt a lot in terms of service provision to customers and even the attachment of clients to the facility. Service standards Guest inconveniences In the context of consumers, value for money is the mostly used slogan (Woods & Zemke, 1998). This implies that any client is entitled to get the best out of his spent money. Unfortunately, customer service at Hampton Inn Chattanooga-Downtown swimming pool presented a different scenario. I found out that a visitor in one of the guest rooms bordering the swimming pool was complaining a lot. He was raising concern that he had been awoken at night several times by the flashing lights outside. Upon investigation, the guest alleged that the lights served the swimming pool. Ideally, such disturbances compromise the services the facility offers its clients. At the end of the day, the service offered does not match the amount money paid for it. Poor and Inadequate Employee service From outside, it is easier for any person visiting the facility for the first time to describe the behaviours of workers as above average, but this is not the case. Based on the customer response and researches on the same, a good fraction of guests alluded that some of the workers they had come in contact with were not well behaved, or on some occasions they did not have people to assist them at all. For instance, the available information shows that, on one occasion, some guests had reported earlier than the usual time only to be rudely dealt with by the receptionist. The available information indicates that the person who received the call was extremely rude and prompted the guests to cancel the reservation. Still on the same, during the night that I slept over, the main drain of the swimming pool had not been cleaned. There was a waxy material around the main drain and on the floor tile. Even with this poor service, the hotel charged me $20 more than the usual amount. Swimming Pool’s Backyard disorganization Many clients visiting the facility seem to like it, but to some, the management needs to tighten up the nuts in order to raise the standards of service. For instance, the organization’s swimming pools backyard is not pleasant at all, and this seems to be supported by publicly available information on the same. First and foremost, the door to the facility opens to the outside, a thing that is not characteristic of recreational facilities. This organization predisposes the guests to disturbances and risk from outside the swimming pool area. For instance, one time a female guest was much subjected to the noise coming from the pool side as well as conversations from the adjacent rooms. In addition, dressing rooms serving the pool at Hampton Inn Chattanooga-Downtown are exceedingly small, and this coupled with disturbances from adjacent rooms compromises the services offered to guests. Also, same doors do not have weather stripping materials in spite of the fact that the hotel is located in areas susceptible to much cold. Money-back guarantees When an individual visits their website, the first thing to come across is that if one is not satisfied with their services, the guest is assured of his money back. Precisely, the money back guarantee policy states that if any guest is not hundred percent satisfied with the stay and hotel service, the facility does not expect any payment from the guest for that period. This is a welcome service in the hospitality industry where consumer satisfaction and preferences vary so much. However, based on research and my personal encounter at the facility, this it is purely a lip service. Just to mention, online complaint sites like complaints.com are dominated with complaints from guests about the failure of Hampton to honor on their guarantee promise. In addition, some publicly available information reveals that the facility only honors some clients who might have a direct and positive impact on their business but only on a partial compensation basis. Recommendations With regard to the general service standards, Hampton managers should ensure that their employees work professionally to avoid causing unnecessary discomfort to the guest. For instance, maintaining the swimming pool rooms by cleaning out all the dirt and making sure they are in exceptional condition to be used by the next person. Importantly, the managers should also empower the guests to fix some basic problems like blown bulbs and closing of running taps. Besides, the management should prohibit clients from smoking in the backyard of the swimming pool, as this presents a bad picture on the manner in which the guest rooms are managed. In case of poor employee’s services, like failure to respond to guests grievances, the management ought to introduce the employee’s performance contracts whereby any worker who breaks the terms listed in the contracts risks being dismissed. Moreover, the facility as established is dominated by the low skilled personnel; hence management should consider retraining them if it has entirely lost touch with the highly trained. In case of labor shortages, the Hampton Inn management should instigate innovative strategies for attracting and keeping high profiled employees. In addition, the management should explore alternative strategies that will help them achieve labor objectives like gain sharing, which has in the essence proved successful for maintaining front line workers in the Canadian context. Also, the management should liaise with the training institutions in order to get access to the trainees before they are absorbed by other competing firms. Conclusion It is evident that the management team at Hampton Inn Chattanooga-Downtown swimming pool is not up for the job. This is because the pool future is seriously confronted with issues which, if not well addressed, might easily make it lose its potential future clients. In addition, the consumer complaints, on the other hand, seem endless. These complaints majorly base around the bad location of hotels and the organization of the swimming pool. Ideally, some of these problems are within the control of individual workers and should, by right, be easily addressed, but this does not seem to be forthcoming since workers themselves, and sometimes managers, have been found to be rude and conformist. However, the facility itself is well positioned in the high end market of the United States where nearly everybody is drifting towards fitness and leisure, but can win the confidence of customers if it improves its services. References Woods, J., & Zemke, R. (1998). Best practices in customer service. Amherst, Mass.: New York. Read More