2. Guest Service in the Lodging Industry
Chapter 3
Guest Service in the Lodging Industry

3. Learning Objectives
To define quality and review its impact upon the level of service provided by a lodging property.
To describe the concept of “moments of truth” in guest service.
To explain the important role of employees in consistently delivering guest service.

4. Learning Objectives
To explain the tactics managers use to help ensure guests receive quality service.
To present the basic guest service philosophy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

5. The Importance of Quality Service in Lodging
Quality: The consistent delivery of products and services according to expected standards.
Service: The process of helping guests by addressing their wants and needs with respect and dignity and in a timely manner.

6. The Importance of Quality Service in Lodging
Service Concerns
Points of service:
Service is not the same as servility (to assist someone who is of a better social class).
Properly addressing a guest's "wants" first requires defining what they value. 

7. The Importance of Quality Service in Lodging
Service Concerns
Value: The relationship between price paid and the quality of the products and services received.
Employee-to-guest ratio: The number of employees relative to the number of guests. In the lodging industry, this is typically expressed in terms of employees per room.

8. The Importance of Quality Service in Lodging
Service Expectations
Important parts of a first impression include:
Minimal waiting time to check-in
A friendly welcome, including eye contact, a smile, and acknowledgment of your name
Accurate information about your reservation

9. The Importance of Quality Service in Lodging
Service Expectations
The proper type of room immediately available for you
Answers to your questions about the hotel and its services
Directions to your room

10. Avoiding the Commoditization of Lodging Products and Services
Commodity: A commonly available and most often unspecialized product.

11. Avoiding the Commoditization of Lodging Products and Services
When buyers consider an item to be a commodity, the item’s price becomes its most important characteristic.
To avoid product commoditization and its downward pressure, hoteliers recognize the significant impact of service inconsistency and inseparability.

12. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Recipe ingredients for developing and implementing a quality service team:
Consider the guests being served.
Determine what the guests desire.
Develop procedures to deliver what guests want.

13. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Train and empower staff.
Implement revised systems.
Evaluate and modify service delivery systems.

14. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Consider the Guests Being Served
It is important for managers to know as much as possible about all of the guests being served.

15. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Determine What the Guests Desire
Methods for gathering guest preferences and desires include:
Managing by walking around
Comment cards (questionnaire)
Talking with guests as they check-out

16. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Determine What the Guests Desire
Electronic surveys on the hotel's channel(s) in the guest room television
Asking line-level employees as they tend to have more guest interaction than their supervisors or managers

17. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Determine What the Guests Desire
Supervisor: A staff member who directs the work of line-level (non-supervisory) employees.
Manager: A staff member who directs the work of supervisors.

18. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Determine What the Guests Desire
To learn more, please visit:

19. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Develop Procedures to Deliver What Guests Want
Benchmark: The search for best practices and an understanding about how they are achieved in efforts to determine how well a hospitality organization is doing.

20. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Develop Procedures to Deliver What Guests Want
Cross-functional teams: A group of employees from each department within the hospitality operation who work together to resolve operating problems.

21. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Train and Empower Staff
Empowerment: The act of granting authority to employees to make key decisions within the employees' areas of responsibility.

22. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Train and Empower Staff
Before empowerment, staff must:
Be trained
Be provided with the correct tools and resources
Above all, serve the guests

23. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Implement Revised Systems
This involves:
Testing new strategies
Implementing the changes in an controlled environment
Roll out the revisions to all areas

24. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Evaluate and Modify Service Delivery Systems
Easier to retain existing guests than to find new ones.
Comment cards address current guest concerns

25. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Evaluate and Modify Service Delivery Systems
Repeat Business: Guests who return to the property for additional times after their first visit.
The process of quality guest service is cyclical.

26. Ingredients in a Quality Service System
Evaluate and Modify Service Delivery Systems
To see examples of the type of reviews posted,
go to:

27. Service and "Moments of Truth“
Moments of Truth: Any (and every) time that a guest has an opportunity to form an impression about the hospitality organization. Moments of truth can be positive or negative.
Wow factor: The feeling guests have when they receive or experience an unanticipated extra as they interact with the hospitality operation.

28. Service and "Moments of Truth“
The Evolution of Service
Moments of Truth can occur either:
Through planning
Or are spontaneous

29. Service and "Moments of Truth“
Managing Moments of Truth
Word of Mouth Advertising: The favorable or unfavorable comments made when previous guests of a hospitality operation tell others about their experiences

30. Service and "Moments of Truth“
Managing Moments of Truth
Zero Defects: A goal of no guest-related complaints established when guest service processes are implemented.

31. Service Delivery by Employees
Accountability: An obligation created when a person is delegated duties/responsibilities by higher levels of management.

32. Lodging Goes Green!
The need for green practices and products are increasing in demand.

33. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Checklist to Maintain a Service Priority:
Recruit and select service-minded staff
Provide effective orientation and training
Supervise with a service emphasis
Empower staff with service authority
Emphasize continuous quality improvement

34. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Recruit and Select Service-Minded Staff
Employer of choice: The concept that the hospitality operation is a preferred place of employment in the community for applicants who have alternative employment opportunities.

35. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Recruit and Select Service-Minded Staff
Turnover rate: A measure of the proportion of a work force that is replaced during a designated time period (month, quarter, or year). It can be calculated as:
Number of Employees Separated
Number of Employees in the Workforce
= Turnover Rate

36. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Recruit and Select Service-Minded Staff
Mission Statement: A planning tool that broadly identifies what a hospitality operation would like to accomplish and how it will accomplish it.

37. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Provide Effective Orientation and Training
Common mistakes while planning for and presenting training programs:
Emphasize only skills-"how to" training, rather than emphasis on a service attitude
Short-change the length of training-misconception that "everything that must be learned can be taught on the job"

38. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Supervise with a Service Emphasis
Managers should discuss service-related problems and mutually agree upon corrective action during times of performance appraisal.
Managers must role-model service.

39. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Supervise with a Service Emphasis

40. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Empower Staff with Service Authority
Lodging managers empower their staff as they:
Share their service mission
Provide the training and other resources required to meet the needs of the majority of guests
Encourage staff members to help guests with out-of-the-ordinary service requests

41. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Emphasize Continuous Quality Imporvement
Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI): Ongoing efforts within a hospitality operation to better meet (or exceed) guest expectations and to define ways to perform work with better, less costly, and faster methods.

42. Management Tactics for Superior Guest Service
Emphasize Continuous Quality Imporvement

43. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
Professional: People working in an occupation that requires extensive knowledge and skills in a specialized body of knowledge.
Licensing: Formal authorization to practice a profession that is granted by a governmental agency.

44. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
Registration: Acceptance for one to work within a profession that is (typically) granted by a nongovernmental agency such as an association.

45. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
Lodging employees provide superior service to their guests when they:
acknowledge guests and thank them for visiting
smile
maintain eye contact
reflect a genuine interest in providing quality service
consider every guest to be unique

46. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
create a warm environment of hospitality
strive for excellence in guest service skills
are courteous, polite, and attentive
determine what guests really want and need, and then provide products and services that address these wants and needs
pay more attention to guests than to machines and co-workers
invite guests to return

47. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
Certification processes typically identify the competencies required for job success, make available training resources that provide the knowledge and skills required for competency, and test to measure competencies.

48. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals

49. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
Malcolm-Baldridge National Quality Award: Award granted to U.S. businesses that demonstrate successful quality-related strategies relating to leadership, information/analysis, strategic planning, human resource development/management, process management, business results, and customer focus/satisfaction.

50. Lodging Property Staff Are Service Professionals
The corporate motto of Ritz-Carlton is:
“We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen”