Conway Inn & Restaurant - Research Paper Example

? Conway Inn & Restaurant: A Project Outline Anand A. Patel patelanand@att.net MGMT-591 Richard Swersey July 16th, Conway Inn & Restaurant: A Project Outline Overview of the Organization The organization that will be covered in my final project paper is Conway Inn & Restaurant. The hotel is a privately owned company, in which I work as a manager under the leadership of my father. The hotel has been open since 1975, and its goal has always been to make guests and patrons feel at home. The hotel was brought in 1978, and it was franchised into Friendship Inns. We removed the franchise tag in the late 1980s because the customer flow was excellent, and there was no need to pay the franchise fee; therefore, we made it into an independent hotel. Conway Inn and Hotel has been a Better Business Bureaus (BBB) accredited enterprise since mid-2010. The BBB came to the determination that Conway Inn and Hotel complied with its accreditations standards. These include the organization’s commitment to resolving all complaints of the consumer in good faith. Nestled in Panhandle, Texas, the Conway Inn and Hotel is a traditional establishment that seeks to be successful in today’s business environment. It has a living room style eating area, a traditional pub area, as well as comfortable fireside sofas. The establishment also has an outdoor area for guests when the weather is permissive. In the hotel and inn areas, there are blackboard areas that offer daily seasonal specials, classic pub favorites as well as some of the establishment’s own quirky dishes. The bar area has a great wine list while also serving a selection of ales, all available by the glass and the bottle. In the past few years, the customer flow has slowed, and we can see that trend by looking at the registration logs, which we keep for our records to show us the rate of drop. By offering amenities such as refrigerators in the rooms, a free Wi-Fi connection, and cab services for tipsy guests, the organization has always been popular with locals and a preferred hotel for those traveling through the town. However, Conway Inn & Restaurant began to suffer a downturn in the customer flow in 2010, and this decline has been a major area of concern ever since. The organization used to have diverse visitors of various races, but of late, a trend towards senior citizens has been seen, which has reduced the customer flow drastically. This concern has caused the organization to cut back on some of its services such as the discounted cab services. The reduced customer flow has also led to staff layoffs, although this has not been on a large scale. With the decrease in the customer flow, Conway Inn & Restaurant has been forced to cut back on its discounted cab service as discussed. While Conway Inn & Restaurant has always tried to offer the best possible services to its customers, this has become more difficult with the decrease in the customer flow. At the present time, the management is even considering scaling back on its room service as well as subletting some of its rooms. This decision is because Conway Inn & Restaurant has been trying to cut back on costs given the reduced revenue stream. The loss of the discounted cab service altogether would be a big loss given that it has been a major selling point for the organization, especially for the inn customers. I work as a manager with Conway Inn & Restaurant, where I started in 2009. It is under my watch as a manager that the customer flow has decreased, and for this reason, I feel it is up to me to find the underlying cause of the issue and come up with workable solutions. The long time employees at Conway Inn & Restaurant often remember with nostalgia the days when customers would turn back to the inn as well as the fully booked hotel rooms in summer. Last summer, we only had half occupancy, which shows the problem is stark. The recent state of the customer flow has given the employees reasons to worry, as there are constant rumors of layoffs. Problem Statement Conway Inn & Restaurant has been undergoing customer flow reductions in the last two and a half years. This has led the organization to cutting back on some of its services, making some services leaner, and laying off the redundant staff. The latter has been occasioned by the fact that some services cannot be offered with the reduction in the customer flow. This has led to the decreased revenue and wavering employee confidence in the organization’s capability to keep them employed. These issues can only be solved, in my opinion, by increasing the customer flow and transitioning to a high performance organization, or an HPO. We would also like to look into franchising the organization into Best Western. Customer flow can be defined as the number of customers who pass through Conway Inn & Restaurant. It is also the number of customers, and their pattern as they come into the inn and restaurant and access the services that are offered by the establishment. It can be monitored through observation, normal or time-lapsed CCTV, or even through an analysis of data gathered. By using these methods, Conway Inn & Restaurant is able to get useful information concerning flow patterns, customer numbers, areas not visited by the customers, bottlenecks, and other essential aspects of the client behavior. A high performance organization is one that outperforms its competitors on a consistent basis. This goal will be accomplished at Conway Inn & Restaurant in order to realize increased revenues through our HR functions. The research will attempt to compare us to other organizations based on the customer satisfaction, profitability, market share, and revenue growth as well as the effects that these factors have on the customer flow. In the paper, there will be five interrelated human capital areas, which will be studied: market, culture, talent, leadership, and strategy. Literature Review In the article Marketing in Selling the Hotel Product (Branka, Perisic, & Berecic, 2010), the authors argue that hotels need to be market oriented to be successful performers. They also contend that the hotel must satisfy the customer’s needs through its products by improving its structure and quality. For the hotel to meet the wants and needs of its customers while also meeting its business goals, it must combine its marketing mix elements to achieve as much success as it can by selling its services and products to the customer. Additionally, on top of implementing external marketing to attain performance results, the hotel needs to use interactive and internal marketing techniques. Customer satisfaction is ensured with this interactive and internal marketing, according to the authors. As an example, the article uses Opatija’s Milenij Hotels as a hotel that has applied modern marketing concepts successfully in selling its product. Another resource that will be used is E-CRM: Customer Relationship Marketing in the Hotel Industry (Luck & Lancaster, 2003). This article explores how many hotel groups in the UK have exploited E-CRM. They incorporate research that investigate the Internet use in verifying the implementation of CRM within online operations, or if it was simply used for basic functions like hotel reservations and provision of information. They contend that hotels mostly use the Internet for the provision of information rather than for gathering it. Most hotels have only implemented few E-CRM elements with some indicating that there was no intention to be led online by E-CRM. Their research indicated that while there was general awareness of the Internet’s strategic potential, most hotels were not implementing any of the knowledge already in the public domain with regards to E-CRM. They concluded that hotels in the UK did not take advantage of opportunities presented by E-CRM. Finally, the research paper will also make use of the article My RevPAR is Rising, But My GOP Is Not: Taking a Channel Diagnostics Audit (Green, 2013). In this article, the author starts by claiming that most hotel establishments feel that they are properly managing their operating expenses, although they felt that they were missing marketing expenses. The author also addresses the costs of attracting the client, getting reservations, and getting the clients to visit the hotel again. The article proposes that for a hotel to carry out a proper diagnostics channel audit, they must determine their reservation costs, establish what their optimal channel mix is, and determine the hotel’s marketing and sales efficiency. Analysis Studying the customer flow at Conway Inn and Hotel will aid the organization to determine where to place various items to ensure that they are visible to all customers. By drawing a floor plan and marking the manner in which the clients walk around it, the organization can tell if there is a common pattern when clients visit the establishment. In addition, the organization can identify places that they rarely visit, places that they do not spend a lot of time in, areas that most of them visit as well as what captures their imagination most (Branka, Perisic, & Berecic, 2010). For the first time customers, the majority makes a quick decision on whether they like the ambience and service, having little time for complicated navigating. To optimize customer flow, therefore, Conway Inn and Hotel must actively manage the clients towards areas that they prefer most. It is essential that the clients spend their time buying products, rather than looking for what they want. Should the organization decide to use promotions, targeting missions in this manner will enable them to maximize returns and cash flow (Green, 2013). Preliminary Solution Options In order to increase traffic at Conway Inn and Hotel and draw customers to the establishment, there are some important principles that the organization should follow. They should try to place their counters in a manner that it is not the first thing clients see when they come into the establishment. Seeing cash registers simply reminds the client that they are there to use their money, which forces them to engage with the salespeople prior to deciding whether they like the establishment. This reduces likelihood of return visits. Conway Inn and Hotel should use layouts and lighting to improve the establishment’s ambience. This will ensure that clients can see the store properly, especially since most clients who feel uncomfortable at the establishment will leave early and may never return. It would also be advisable for Conway Inn and Hotel to create aisle space that allows the customer enough space to navigate, but also narrow enough to give them a chance to take in the improved ambience at the establishment. If the aisles are made too big, they will encourage clients to move quickly through without time to take in the ambience. Finally, they should consider improving an access for the clients with special needs and disabilities. For instance, aisles, whereas narrow, must not be cluttered to allow wheel chairs to pass. Reflection At Conway Inn & Restaurant, we will seek to integrate successful practices that will move, beyond the customer flow and numbers, to identify tactics that we can implement and execute. For instance, by using data we collect about customers it will be possible to identify critical positions within the organization, design appropriate strategies for the best performers, focus on the metrics of talent management, and finally, foster innovation through emphasizing a transparent culture. Organizations need to influence, predict, and understand the behavior of their clients, in order to apply this concept in other areas of the organization like finance and marketing. It is prudent to question the assumptions that are held in organizations relating to human behavior to better understand the organization and its relation to the customer. It will also enhance decision-making skills and leadership. Intuition must be replaced with systematic study in order to improve a predictive ability (Branka, Perisic, & Berecic, 2010). This will also enhance the organization’s understanding of what the customer expects, improve on interpersonal skills, and enable them to better deal with customers and exert influence on their decisions. References Branka, B., Perisic, M., & Berecic, J. (2010). Marketing in selling the hotel product. Faculty of Tourism and HospitalityManagement in Opatija.Biennial International Congress.Tourism & Hospitality Industry, 771-782. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/763422486?accountid=44759 Green, C. (2013). Channel management. My RevPAR os rising, but my GOP is not. Retrieved from http://proxy.devry.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hjh&AN=88407172&site=ehost-live Luck, D., & Lancaster, G. (2003). E-CRM: Customer relationship marketing in the hotel industry. Managerial Auditing Journal, 18(3), 213-231. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/274533778?accountid=44759 Read More