People: Services and Service Quality

1. Chapter 11 People: Services and Service Quality

2. Roles Played by People in the Marketing Mix • Personal service is the key component of the marketing mix in hospitality and travel • People alone can make or break a guest’s experience • No amount of good facilities can make up • for poor service

3. Two Main Groups of People Involved in Hospitality and Tourism • Guests (customers) • Hosts (employees)

4. Total Quality Management (TQM) A process designed to cut down on an organization’s defects, to determine its customer requirements, and to satisfy these requirements

5. TQM’s Critical Principles • Top management commitment and visionary leadership • Human resource management • Technical system • Information and analysis system • Benchmarking • Continuous improvement

6. TQM’s Critical Principles (continued) • Customer focus • Employee satisfaction • Union intervention • Social responsibility • Servicescapes • Service culture

7. Employee Recruitment, Selection, Orientation, Training, and Motivation • Staff recruitment and selection • Orientation • Training • Motivating and retaining • Empowering

8. Empowering Employees Giving employees the authority to identify and solve guest problems or complaints on the spot, and to make improvements in work processes when necessary

9. SERVQUAL Model Dimensions Tangibles Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy

10. Relationship Marketing Managing service encounters Providing customer incentives Providing special service options

11. Relationship Marketing (continued) Developing pricing strategies to encourage long-term use Maintaining a customer database Communicating with customers through direct or specialized media

12. Customer Mix • The combination of customers (or target markets) that use or are attracted to a specific hospitality and travel organization • They must mix well and not conflict with one another