A Review and Analysis of Efficiency in Front Desk Operations - Report Example

Section/# A Review and Analysis of Efficiency in Front Desk Operations Introduction: Regardless of the size for location that a given hotel or hospitality industry exhibits, it is necessary to review existing efficiency and to determine whether or not changes should be made in order to positively affect the way that customers interact with employees and the means by which the process itself is conducted. At a very basic level of understanding, it should be realized that efficiency within the realm of hospitality and tourism is one of the best ways that a company can set itself apart from the competition. In terms of this specific example that will be put forward below, and analyzed, this author will consider the case of Hotel management and the way that employees that can improve upon the overall level of efficiency that they represent (Heimerl & Kolisch, 2010). By focusing on this one aspect of hospitality and tourism, the hotel or company in question can drastically improve its rate of customer service, level of customer satisfaction, and overall profitability. As a result of the fact that each of these factors can be improved by engaging with efficiency and mapping out the way in which speed, productivity, efficiency, and zero defect service delivery can be increased, this obviously represents a benefit that all hotel and hospitality/tourism industries would be uniquely interested. Finally, the analysis will also engage an understanding of how training can be utilized in order to affect the changes that will be prescribed within the first part of this analysis. It is the hope of this student that such a level of discussion and engagement will encourage others to consider the way in which profitability and efficiency/consumer satisfaction can be improved by only changing a few basic approaches to the way in which customer service within the hotel and hospitality industry is affected. Zero Defect: One of the first ways that efficiency at the front desk can be improved is to establish a flowchart of operations. In many cases, the hospitality industry seeks to provide a high level of training without analyzing the progression area way that an individual employee should engage with the customer. For instance, a flowchart allows for the employee to fully understand the way that certain situation should be dealt with based upon cause-and-effect relationships. For instance, as the hotel guest is invariably anxious to get to their room and does not wish to spend a high level of time speaking with the employee, their interest is not developing a new approach to a problem but for the employee to apply a proven and standard technique to whatever issue or situation requires resolution (Li, 2014). In this way, reviewing the front desk check-in procedure and analyzing all potential issues that an individual guest may have serves as an extraordinarily useful way for the hospitality industry, and the front desk specifically, to determine what should be done in order to improve the process. Likewise, by performing a flowchart analysis and by focusing upon cause-and-effect relationships and how the employees should respond, such a level of analysis is likely to show many different problems that were not expected. Although this can be somewhat frustrating at times, the ability to deal with these gaps in knowledge and improve efficiency prior to these situations ever occurring is an extraordinary benefit and one that should not be wasted (Semenova, 2013). Another useful approach that many scholars have argued should be employed within the hospitality industry and has been employed within other industries is attempting to reduce the number of delays between steps. Although this is important within the realm of customer service, regardless of the industry or service being provided, it is especially important in terms of the hospitality industry; as guests are attempting to quickly check into their hotel with the least possible delays (Prati & Zani, 2013). This is oftentimes the result the fact that exhausted business travelers and anxious leisure travelers account for the vast majority of overall guests that any hospitality industry engages with on a regular basis. By analyzing the recommended flowchart and role-playing in terms of the guest and the service provider, supervisors and managers can seek to reduce the overall number of delays that are represented to individual guests upon checking into their rooms (Andrews & Kacmar, 2014). Speed: Another helpful approach and process to increasing the speed and efficiency of front desk check-in is to clarify the value or purpose of the process from the customer’s perspective (Jones & McCleary, 2005). Although this is so extremely obvious, is so oftentimes forgotten and disregarded. Essentially, rather than applying what the industry believes could benefit the consumer and improve efficiency from their perspective, a full and in depth analysis of how efficiency and speed can be improved from the customer’s perspective is the more valuable approach and one that should necessarily be engaged (Aarts, 2014). By viewing the process bottom up, instead of top down, the stakeholders within the hotel can come to understand which ways their approach should be changed to provide for greater speed, flexibility, and efficiency at the front desk. Another underlying tactic that helps to support the mission discussed in the previous paragraph has to do with encouraging employees at the front desk to analyze and reconsidered the flow of people and material at each and every step of the check-in process (Orgambídez-Ramos, 2014). This creates a type of synergy in which the ideas and hands on application of stakeholders is potentially able to redirect the process to a more cost and time effective determinants. In the eventuality that an individual employee sees that one particular process within the check-in period is inefficient or does not correspond to the ultimate goals of reducing time and improving service delivery, they can and should make note of this (Stander & Rothmann, 2014). They should also provide potential solutions for this and encourage a level of recommendation and 360° feedback from those within their workgroup. Efficiency: Another relevant approach to improve efficiency and reduce interaction time at the front desk is in terms of trying to eliminate any steps that do not add value. The previous level of discussion, in terms of flowcharts and cause and effect diagrams, is an effective way of understanding how this can ultimately be accomplished. Nevertheless, a review of the entire process and of specific instances in which interactions between the hotel guest and the front desk staff have taken place in the past is a valuable starting point towards determining the manner by which these non-valuable steps can be eliminated (Yeh, 2012). Although it might not seem important, one or more of these non-valuable steps can further complicate the process, agitate an already tired and exasperated traveler, and overall create a situation in which frustration and ill will is created as the result of a check-in process that is overly long and involving too many steps that do not create any specific value in terms of the customer experience. Many times, issues pertaining to this can be experienced in terms of legacy issues (Qing et al., 2013). What is meant by legacy issues has to do with the way in which certain things are done in terms of Hotel check-in as a result of the fact that individual employees were trained that way by prior managers and/or it may have been the way in which business “has always been conducted”. Targeting these legacy issues is a fundamental goal towards which any change manager should strive. Merely because something has been done in the past and/or an individual might have been trained to perform a given task at a certain time is not sufficient evidence in and of itself that such a task or set of tasks should be continually performed in customer engagement (Baeva et al., 2009). Another way that efficiency and speed can be encouraged as part of the front desk check-in process has to do with the way that problems are dealt with. Even if a flowchart is established and cause and effect analysis is performed to instruct employees as to how they should deal with specific situations, it is guaranteed that there still will be certain problems that will require further attention. Within this understanding, it is necessary that stakeholders understand the importance of asking the customer to step aside until the issue can be resolved (Dashti et al., 2007). In many cases, a secondary employee or an individual with a certain level of experience with the front desk can be called to help other customers that might be in line directly behind the guests that is experiencing a problem. Rather than working on the individual with the problem exclusively, this individual should be passed off to another employee and/or dealt with after the line behind them has been efficiently removed (Frash et al., 2008). Although it is of course possible that such an approach might frustrate individual that is experiencing a problem, this is an acceptable outcome if the alternative is that the individuals behind them in line will all become frustrated with the amount of time and focus that the employee is providing based upon a single guest and whatever issues they may have with the process. Productivity: Another relevant approach that can be utilized within the realm of the hospitality industry is instructing all employees to attempt a correct any and all errors at the exact moment in which they occur; instead of sending them down the line or progressing to the next step. This obvious approach is one that will reduce frustration and increase the speed and efficiency of product/service delivery in the future. In the eventuality that an individual is in fact pass on to another employee and the progression area step of check-in develops, and mistake or error that is made by one employee may be fully unknown to another (Ziqi et al., 2013). This creates a dynamic by which a cascading level of problems could effectively be ameliorated simply by the individual that notice is the problem dealing with it effectively, immediately, and efficiently. In tandem with this particular approach, it should also be understood that efficiency and speed of service delivery can also be improved by resisting the temptation to pass off a customer to another individual (Stander & Rothmann, 2009) Whereas there are of course noted exceptions to this practice, such as the case illustrated above in which a particular problem demands that a guest be directed to another individual, for the most part, it is necessary for the interaction between the guests and the front desk employee to be one that is person-to-person and not required to bring another person in to assist (Jyh-Rong et al., 2012). A final issue that will be discussed at some depth within this analysis in terms of improving the overall time and efficiency of the front desk has to do with the way in which individual employees understand their role within the process. Obviously, the need and requirement to process guests quickly, courteously, and efficiently is of Paramount importance (Zhao & Namasivayam, 2009). This can of course be reflected in terms of the culture that a given hospitality industry exhibits. Yet, rather than specifying a certain individual board task force to be responsible for analyzing the flow of guests and how processes could be improved, a far more effective, cost-efficient, and more directly responsible approach is to specify individual employees as having unique roles in determining what can be improved, how, and when (Brien et al., 2013). Existing research indicates that when an individual employee is given unique responsibilities in terms of understanding the process and offering suggestions for improvement, the overall benefits of the end consumer is vastly different as compared to if a consultant is brought in and/or a task force is created as a means of improving efficiency (Lo & Im, 2014). Whereas the recommendations for increasing the speed and efficiency of the check in process, defined above, are useful, none of these can be affected without a proper level of training (Peterson, 2006). Accordingly, the following section of this analysis will indicate the means and mechanisms by which effective training can be responsible for promoting a level of integration and engagement for these metrics and determinants that might not otherwise take place (Beygi, 2013). Training: One of the primary factors that comes to the mind of the reader when they hear the term training or seek to explain the importance that such a construct can bring to a given entity or organization, one of the primary thoughts that is entertained has to do with the level to which training can seek to impart a new skill set within the shareholders of the organization/entity (Pirnar, 2014). This is very much true with the hospitality industry as well. For instance, whereas basic consumer relations, phone etiquette, and best practices can be instilled within the culture of the organization and passed down from employee to employee in something of a seemingly unbroken line, these are virtues and factors of the company’s culture that are somewhat immutable (Sobaih, 2011). On the topic of culture, it is of vital importance for the reader/researcher to know, understand, and appreciate the role in which training can have with regards to providing a powerful and effective force in changing a company’s culture (Bardi, 1996). Culture of an organization or firm cannot be understood as either a net good or a net bad due to the fact that it engenders components of each. However, the fact of the matter is that culture is an extraordinarily difficult component of an organization or entity to effect a change upon (Pearce, 2012). As such, one of the most effective means that has thus far been realized in affecting such a change is training. In this way, the reader can and should appreciate training as one of the most powerful means of nudging an entity in a new direction while at the same time preserving the positive cultural positions that have helped to ensure the entity or organization has stayed in business as long as it has already (Chacko, 2012). Due to the fact that the need for these particular approaches does not change in time, the need for training and continual development within these areas of specialty is limited (Rigg et al., 2014). However, such cannot be said for the means by which employees and shareholders seek to integrate with the changing demands of the global business environment. One can of course use technology and its changing role as a case in point. Whereas 15-20 years ago the widespread use of computing to manage each and every process of the hospitality industry was little used, it is an aspect of best practice in business that cannot be ignored within the current construct (Balta, 2007). Naturally, the level of special skills training must evolve within the context of business development and should steer well clear of any training for training’s sake. As with any business entity, there is a marked and very real threat that training will become institutionalized aspect of work and performance and as a result will rob the organization of a level of efficiency as training on topics that are neither required or needed will be engaged as a means of filling the “training schedule” that the given organization has set to fulfill (Chun-Fang et al., 2005). In this particular context, training can oftentimes run the risk of merely being a coming together of work related individuals rather than the impartation of useful, relevant, and succinct information pertaining to the daily business environment. Conversely, engaging in training as has been described in the preceding section also offers the dual benefit of improving the morale of the shareholders involved. This can especially be true if it is a situation in which the shareholders are polled, queried, and analyzed in order to gain a level of shareholder support with regards to the evolution of services and industry standards with regards to a given situation (Luo & Milne, 2014). Similarly, with regards to the hospitality industry, the ability of training to instill a type of cultural dynamic and group identity is an ancillary benefit that all too often is ignored (Yi-Min et al., 2012). Whereas the impartation of key and specific knowledge that can be attributable to the daily business operations of the hospitality industry is both useful and highly important, the ability to congeal a sense of group dynamic that is focused upon providing a better quality of service to the shareholders it integrates with is at the very least an extremely important second place (Dewald & Self, 2008). Conclusions: From the information represented above, it is clear that there is not a simple “one-step” fix for increasing the speed, efficiency, productivity, and/or zero defect that the front desk is capable of representing the client. Instead, a variety of different approaches exist as a means by which these factors can be engaged and the overall utility to the customer can be increased. Within this framework, the reader can come to appreciate the complexity of operations that management has as a means of effecting meaningful and positive changes that will in turn be passed on to the client and be appreciated. Likewise, rather than approaching the issues relating to front desk efficiency, speed, and zero defect in a simplistic manner, the manager should be keenly aware of the fact that these issues require a level of finesse and expertise, as well as careful analysis in order to understand and implement effectively. effectively. 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