The Application of Service Recovery in Hospitality Industry - Research Paper Example

THE APPLICATION OF SERVICE RECOVERY IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY Introduction In the management of businesses, challenges emerge from time to time no matter how much care is implemented is trying to prevent their occurrence, some are inevitable. In the event that such challenges occur, there is a disruption in organizational performance, which in turn affects the satisfaction or delivery of service to customers. This is what can be referred to in other terms as service failure or poor service. With the facts in mind that having a perfect business free from service failures is next to impossible, it calls for every business to have mitigation strategies on standby so that in the event that service failures occur, the business can rectify the said errors and get back to its feet without disappointing its customers. That ensures smooth, uninterrupted, and reliable business conduct, and is a key factor to success. To elaborate on the application of service recovery, this study text will conduct a research based on the hospitality industry, and particularly tourism in demonstrating the effective application of the said mitigation measures of maintaining business. Why service recovery is important The likelihood of service failure occurrence is created by three constituent aspects of the industry; first of all, tourism relies on extra factors beyond the business context such as tourist attractions, terrorism, or weather. Second, there are vast stakeholders involved in the delivery process who act as inputs such as transporters, airlines, and marketers all of who must cooperate for the industry to exist. Finally is the notion that the industry is much dependent on people factors, and as such, one person has the power to influence more and more people beyond themselves (Enright & Newton 2005, p. 339). All these combined, it creates the reality that upon breaching any of the three pillars of tourism, which exposes the entire business hierarchy to the danger of underachievement. That would be service failure. That is where service recovery comes in; that with the service recovery measures, it is possible to retain a business’ dignity, and impact negatively on all the involved parties (Hudson 2012, 213-215). In a nutshell, it is sustenance of business success. The following section offers the methodology applied in determining the potential service failures that can occur in the tourism context. These failures are specific to the tourism (hospitality) sector, and are the most inevitable. This section will be followed by another section addressing the most effective responses that can be used in telling whether a service failure has occurred, and concerns mostly the customers. The final part of the research paper will highlight the approaches best applicable in service recovery, and what the expected outcomes of service recovery are. Collectively, the research paper seeks to achieve two objectives; analysing the process of using service recovery methods in the hospitality sector, and two, investigating the effectiveness of the service recovery strategies applied. Types of service failure Owing to its widespread constituent branches, tourism can hardly offer services that are 100% free from defects (Grzinic 2007, p. 83). This is because even if a particular context of tourism, say a hotel had all systems in check ready to receive tourists, other parties in the industry might affect its business, for instance if an airline delay or detains the tourists aboard a plane. Other factors within the same organization can impact on its business, such as staff misbehaviour, or badly prepared food. Generally, these are just a few potential service failures which may affect the business. In the light of this, it can be deduced that a service failure occurs if a customer’s original expectation is not met, or if it is met under lower standards (Dutta, Venkatesh, & Parsa 2007, p. 351). To better understand the service failures, they can be classified according to the wider context in which they exist. Service delivery failures These types of service delivery failures are categorized into three as Reid & Bojanic (2009, p. 65) highlight; overly slow services, unavailable services, and other significant services that support tourism. In the event of slow service, this means that the clients feel that the speeds at which their demands are being met are extraordinarily delayed. For example, tourists may be delayed in being booked into their hotels. On unavailable services, these are the services usually incorporated in tourism, but at one point of time, they lack completely (Ennew & Schoefer 2006, p. 3). These might be lack of flights to certain destinations or unavailability of a certain menu in an international hotel. Unmet customer requests or demands These failures arise in the event that a business fails to meet special requests from customers otherwise known as individual requests (Berndt 2004, p. 74). In failing to respond to special customer requests such as provision of special facilities for disabled tourists, or vegetarian dishes upon request, a hotel is said to have failed in that respect. In most cases, responding to such requests requires of the service providers to modify their terms of service so that the customer feels considered, and that their needs are met. There are more special needs which arise from the customers’ mistakes, but which, if the provider helps in correcting can promote their business dignity (Holmlund & Kock 2006, n.p.). This can be for instance a guest in a hotel loses their luggage out of their mistakes and their hotel helps in recovering it. Finally, there are the customer requests termed as disruptive and these occur in mass scenarios such as buses, trains, or cinema halls. It happens when some customers are, for instance, making too much disruptive noise and a client request an attendant to intervene and ask the noisy batch to be quiet. Unexpected employee actions These are types of service failures orchestrated by misconduct arising from unexpected employees. They are in no way created by the customers, but the employees supposed to provide the services. These can be of different categories; cultural norms, level of attention, gestalts, unusual actions, and adverse conditions. Cultural norms, these will occur when for example a customer from a different region [thus different culture] is treated in a way they do not find welcoming. Under the level of attention, these can be brought up by employees’ negativity which affects the customers such as ignorance, bad attitude, or generally inconsistent behaviour (Schofer 2003, p. 36). Under gestalt, this is the event where a customer evaluates a whole package such as a holiday offer and ranks the entire thing as poor or not equivalent to their monetary value. Unusual actions refer to actions that service providers may portray and which violate customers. This might be inappropriate touching, rudeness, stealing from clients, or misleading them (Hoffman & Bateson 2010, p. 48). Adverse conditions refer to the level of consideration shown to the customers during desperate situations such as the way air cabin crew can react in calming the passengers during emergency landings or mechanical complications. Having understood these categories of service failures likely to emerge from the tourism industry, it makes it possible to come up with the most effective strategies towards service recovery. In addition, the occurrence of the above can be instrumental in enabling the tourism industry service providers to devise means of handling the recurrence of such failures in the future (Lewis & McCann 2004, p. 6). The following section highlights the different ways that can be used in telling that a customer has been dissatisfied with a service offered to them; Understanding customer responses to service failures Understanding the level of satisfaction that a customer feels was offered to them is quite crucial in the hospitality industry. As earlier highlighted, zero defect services are not achievable and as such, it is quite important to devise means of telling when a customer felt let-down. Such means would be effective in preventing the word-of-mouth type of response from clients which would otherwise result in tarnishing of a brand name, and loss of business. There are different approaches that customers can take in airing their dissatisfaction. The first one scenario is that a customer may decide to air their grievances, or choose to remain silent instead (Kau & Loh 2006, p. 109). The second scenario is that a client may choose to address the matter in a private manner, which is usually done away with the organization, or use a public agency such as complaining to the hotel management. The other way of expressing grievances is through seeking some form of redress, that is compensation from the disappointing organization, or spreading negative information about the organization to other customers or potential customers (psalm 2012, p. 147). The other method of airing complains can be through voice responses in which case the customer speaks to the concerned parties directly (word of mouth), or they may go for third party intervention which in this case refers to inclusion of parties unrelated to the hospitality industry such as courts of law. In short, one may opt for legal action (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons 2000, p. 280). All the above stated response mechanisms can act as channels through which the hospitality industry can derive information which may be used in evaluating their levels of meeting customer needs. It is therefore important that for any business entity seeking to provide the best customer service to implement means of capturing such information and devising the corresponding means of addressing service failures. The most common strategies of addressing service failures as discovered and implemented up to date are discussed in the following section. Service recovery strategies As Battaglia, et al, (2012, p. 949) states, the idea of service recovery is entailed with the resolving of highlighted service failures, or better put; it is the effective handling of taking action to address customer dissatisfactions. It is important that business perceives of complains as positive in that they contribute to the organizational betterment by revelation of shortfalls in their dissemination of services. There however, remains a challenge in service recovery in that of the total number of service failures, approximately 5 to 10% are brought up by the customers (Boshoff 1997, p. 110). The following approaches are the most effective service recovery strategies applied in the hospitality industry today. Collectively, service recovery will apply any, or all of the following principles in addressing service failures; giving apologies upon revelation of some failure, soonest efforts to reinstate the negative emergence, empathy towards the rising situation, where applicable; a sincere means of compensation, and finally, implementation of a follow-up strategy for the customer as a means of telling whether the customer was in the end satisfied. These are expounded further below. Apology According to Fisk, Grove & John (2007, p. 176), offering apologies is a key strategy of showing the customer that the matter has been taken into consideration and that the issue was indeed a mistake which the organization is sorry for. An apology caters for reversing the psychological disappointment of a customer, thus bridges the existing emotional gap between the two parties. Apologizing means that the responsibility for the mistake has been taken by the service providers. In so doing, there is a platform for reform created and the client can give their grievances and settle on the best resolutions. Timely action The response speed is essential when a customer complaint is being addressed (Barsamian 2009, p. 15). Customers differ in nature, meaning that some might or might not be as patient to wait for long before their grievances are addressed. As such, the best thing to do is ignore all assumptions and find the best way of resolving complaints. In so doing, there are less chances of the client taking to alternative [negative] ways of expressing their dissatisfaction such as word-of-mouth (Oliver 2010, p. 413). Compensation Compensation is one of the most effective means of resolving service failures in that since failures are due to dissatisfaction, a means of “filling up” the gap will calm the negative response (Mok, Sparks & Kadampully 2013, p. 212). For instance, if a hotel realizes that all its reservations are fully booked, they can save the situation by directing the guests to similar-standard hotels so that they retain the good relationship between them. This works by the fact that in as much as they do not get to board in their hotel of choice, they are saved the trouble of seeking alternatives. Follow-up strategies This final strategy is similar to the feedback element in that it is used to evaluate the summed up or overall experience that the customer experienced while using the services of a certain provider. The difference is that in this case, it is used to evaluate the handling of a particular dissatisfaction and seeks to tell whether the issues were effectively handled (Verma 2012, p. 518). From this, a service provider in hospitality can know what to do with preventing a re-occurrence or how to react next time the same issue resurfaces. Effectiveness of the service recovery strategies The effectiveness of the discussed service recovery measures is stated by Rai (2007, p. 306). The first one is that there develops a notion of customer loyalty in that they feel that some care for them exists from the provider. As is known, a loyal customer is an investment and the chances of losing them are low (Kim 2007, p. 76). The other element is that there is greater customer retention. The working of this is in that upon complaining and a measure is taken towards their grievances, customers develop a positive perspective towards the provider of service. Thirdly, there are bettered chances of repurchase from customers in that resolving emerging issues betters or restores customer satisfaction, and a satisfied customer has no reason to boycott the responsible brand name (Petzer & Steyn 2006, p. 167). The fourth and very sensitive aspect is that there is more positive perception and generation of positive attributions towards the service provider who takes customer matters seriously and seeks to satisfy them. This is quite effective in that the resulting word of mouth is bound to attract potential customers and maintain the existing ones. Finally, with all the above factors combined, the hospitality organization is assured of stability, or better still, growing business, thus increased profits. The idea is; more customers equal better business, thus a succeeding business (McDougall & Levesque 1999, p. 6). Conclusion This research paper has addressed the facts relating to customer expectations, service providers, and business growth. It first revealed the expectations that customers have when they go in search of services and that if the service provider fails in satisfying them, then a service failure occurs. It is further stated that service failures are inevitable and that the next thing to do about them is to have control measures on standby so that in the event that they occur, they can be straightened, minimizing inconveniences and dissatisfaction. Finally, the study suggested the applicable mitigation strategies, which is service recovery measures, and finalized that their effectiveness translates to better business relationships; and more profits. Bibliography Barsamian, A 2009, Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Patient Advocate Program in the Department of Food and Nutrition Services, Rush University. Battaglia, D., Borchardt, M., Sellitto, M. A. & Pereira, G. M., 2012. “Service Recovery: a method for assessing performance”, Business Process Management, 18(6), pp. 949-963. Berndt, A 2004, Customer Relationship Management and Customer Service, Juta & Co. Ltd. Boshoff, C., 1997, “An experimental study of service recovery options”. 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