The Measurement Mechanisms of Service Quality - Case Study Example

Systems for Measuring Service Quality: A Discussion of Strategic Outcomes By YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANISATION HERE 21 January 2008 Systems of MeasuringService Quality: A Discussion of Strategic Outcomes Introduction The contemporary client in the hospitality industry can often be categorised as being difficult to predict in terms of their unique consumer behaviours. Differing demographic and psychological characteristics of the hospitality customer tend to illustrate a widely-diverse consumer clientelle with radically-different needs and motivations (Fitzsimmons & Fitzsimmons, 2006). Hence, modern marketing and operations management theories tend to illustrate that measuring the impact of service quality can be accomplished with a strategic approach, utilised to illustrate customer-related outcomes as well as secure the profitability needs of the business. The strategic systems available for measuring quality of service delivery involve revenue enhancement strategies, routine and in-depth staff performance evaluations and tools which are directed specifically at the firm’s clientelle. This project discusses the aforementioned strategic tools whilst also highlighting the potential positive and negative outcomes of these approaches to measuring service quality. The measurement mechanisms of service quality One dimension of service quality pertaining to customer perceptions of the appropriateness of service delivery involves the functional elements of service delivery, such as the tangible methodology of practice regarding how the service was delivered (Miguel, Silva, Chiosini & Schiitzer, 2004). These delivery elements include basic concepts such as the friendliness of staff members, availability of staff, quality of food preparation, ease of check-out in the hotel environment or any other aspect which involves the facility and the service aptitudes of the industry’s internal staff (Grossman, 1999). From a different researcher perspective, these elements of service delivery are categorised as interaction quality which directly involves the customer-staff interventions and associations during the process of patronising the hospitality firm (Alexandris, Kouthouris & Meligdis, 2006). The strategic approach to measuring the quality of the aforementioned aspects of service delivery can be accomplished, in theory, in a distinct process: Assessment of customer-based revenue streams utilised comparatively to changes in service methodology to determine a correlation between frequency of customer re-visit to the facility and changes to the service delivery practices in the firm between strategic groups. As a step toward strategic revenues management, the process of obtaining the firm’s highest conceivable revenues based on the sale of the firm’s total capacity (Ng, 2006), revenues assessment is a viable measure of service quality. Extraction and analyses of financial documentation in any modern business is often cited as the basic foundation of strategic management expectations and aptitudes at the executive level (Landy & Conte, 2006; Boyes & Melvin, 2006; Meyers, Klein & Artemis, 2001). As it is a likely assessment that most firms in the hospitality industry maintain profitability and longevity through the receipt of customer-driven revenues, strategic management of service quality relies on accurately pinpointing trends in quarterly and yearly reporting, making comparisons to whether trends in revenue changes can be attributed to changes in process methodology. To justify the aforementioned revenues assessment, consider this hypothetical scenario. A hotel firm determines to slash available staff as a profit objective in the area of banquet and conference services. In 2006, the firm associated a theoretical 40 percent of its revenues on this aspect of service delivery. However, after implementing the staff reduction in 2007, comparative financial data illustrates that profits decreased to 25 percent. Can this be attributed to customer perceptions of diminished service quality? Do the financial reports illustrate that staff reductions in this division of facilities management were an improper strategic decision which impacted perceptions of service quality? It is hypothetical questions such as these which can be extrapolated from financial aspects of cash flow and total revenues analysis which can be a foundational aspect of determining the quality of service delivery. The aforementioned scenario maintains a rather notable disadvantage as it only offers a starting point for linking strategic decision-making with total customer-driven profitability, though it can supply the rationale necessary for further research into whether the staff reduction was perceived as a service failure. Revenues assessment would likely only offer a small snapshot of the impact of customer-perceived service quality, however for a firm struggling with issues of maintaining a competitive edge, financial comparisons provide a starting point for assessing the strategic elements of service delivery. La & Kandampully (2004) offer that a hospitality business’ ability to provide consistent services directly impacts the customer’s perception of quality, suggesting that strategic staffing reductions might well impact the customer-driven revenue streams. Hence, theoretically, a firm with a market reputation of providing excellence in banquet and conference facilities which suddenly restructures available service staff could be perceived as failing to deliver on its historical service promises and viewed as unreliable (La & Kandampully). Hence, there is the implication that revenues assessment provides a template by which to maintain internal flexibility, thus searching for new methods to boost profitability other than staffing reductions in the event that a strategic decision has met with revenue declines. The advantage to this type of strategic assessment to measure service quality is that it likely keeps the senior executive focused on the long-term impact of current strategic decision-making whereby the leader fulfills his or her obligation to sustaining growth through financial assessment and trends monitoring. At the executive level, fulfilling profitability objectives is often cited as the primary expectation for corporate performance (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy, 2005; Louis, 2000). It would be a logical assessment that measuring quality through process intervention, from the level of strategic decision-maker, would be a non-value-added activity which should be delegated to layers of middle-management. In addition, the aforementioned concept of strategic groups is the categorisation of elements of service and identifying the tangible and causal relationships between them, perhaps assessing how foods services can be related to customer perceptions of quality in conjunction with staffing proportion (the availability of staff to delivery prepared meals). Claver-Cortes, Molina-Azorin & Pereira-Moliner (2007) suggests that strategic grouping for assessment allows for determining whether some elements of strategic behaviour produce higher levels of performance than the rest of the strategic groups. Strategic groups analysis would seem to further support revenues assessment, as highlighting and monitoring trends in revenues, per division, would likely begin to indicate whether service failures are occurring (or perceived to be occurring) within each area of the firm. Again, this would theoretically act as a launching point for ongoing investigations at the middle-manager level to identify and subsequently report to management what aspects of divisional performance are causing disruptions to revenues generation. Solnet (2007) offers that customer-contact employees are generally the primary elements of service delivery which can satisfy or diminish customer perceptions about the firm overall. Hartline, Maxim & McKee (2000) support this notion, suggesting that revenue streams can be greatly affected by strategic staffing decisions or ineffective management of labour resources. Netemeyer & Maxham (2007) identify the notion of extra-role performance as a strategic initiative and competitive tool for quality in service delivery in which subordinate staff members are cross-trained and motivated to accept aspects of customer focus outside of their traditional job description. Extra-role performance initiatives and the implementation of these strategic role functions can work as a system to identifying service quality in relation to assessing increases or decreases in divisional revenues where extra-role performance is initiated and consistently delivered. Outside of revenues analyses is the creation of in-depth performance evaluations designed to identify areas of individual contribution to service delivery as well as highlighting opportunities for individual behavioural changes. Mathis & Jackson (2005) suggest the implementation of the 360 degree feedback system, which assesses the capabilities of individual contributors to the business by eliciting responses from internal colleagues, clients or even external entities such as the business’ vendors in order to determine the impact of service quality. Cited as employee-related tangibles (Hoffman, Kelley & Chung, 2003), routine and structured performance evaluations can provide the motivation and incentive to increase individual contribution to service and total organisational performance (Griffin & Moorehead, 2006). The performance evaluation would identify specific elements of job function, such as appearance and grooming (highly important for an upscale hospitality facility) as well as, as one additional relevant example, communications aptitudes. Combining thoughts and opinions from internal associates and external representatives, such appraisals consider various strengths and weaknesses in the assessed subordinate staff member so as to instil a greater sense of personal competency in delivering a quality service experience to the customer. Have associates or customers indicated historical misgivings with a particular staff member who maintains responsibility for a moment-of-truth encounter? If so, why was this individual singled-out in higher proportion than others? This type of assessment would theoretically provide a template for a skills-training programme which serves to strengthen the capabilities and motivation of the assessed employee, making them more diverse in skill-set and in focus toward sustaining the long-term goals of the hospitality facility. This type of appraisal takes on a strategic purpose as it can identify and proactively redesign an individual’s total capabilities as a service provider. Hence, it might be offered that such systems build a more cohesive organisation and remove opportunities for customer-perceived service failures or a poor quality experience based on development and training initiatives. One additional tool for measuring service quality involves taking a direct customer intervention and assessment approach, generally in the form of the consumer survey (Lewis & McCann, 2004; Boone & Kurtz, 2006). The notion of post-purchase evaluation can be associated with the customer survey, as two marketing professionals identify that it is often only after an experience with a service provider that the individual begins to determine whether to re-visit the service facility (Boone & Kurtz, 2007). Hence, for a firm to gain increased knowledge of how the hospitality facility is viewed by the consumer, designing a series of questions about the entire facility experience can identify whether trends exist in any particular division or aspect of the service delivery process which is perceived negatively. Utilising the quantitative data that such a survey can provide can serve as tool to reassess internal capability for service redesign or even structural facility-related changes (i.e redecoration, expansion, etc.) to better provide a quality service experience. Utilising the results of ongoing consumer surveys and determining whether any noticeable trends exist in customer expectations, such as comparing perceived service failures to demographic differences, can allow for a more streamlined, strategic approach to delivering service aimed at specific market preferences. One notable weakness of these surveys is that they typically do not measure the cognitive or psychological elements of what motivates different perceptions of quality, hence they limit responses to a series of structured answers which do not offer the broader underlying motivations of customer preferences (Boone & Kurtz). These tools’ most logical strengths are in their ability to coordinate a quantitative approach to measuring service quality by providing correlative information in regards to various segments or elements of the total facility experience. Conclusion Though there are a wide variety of tools available for measuring service quality, notions of revenues assessments and analyses appears to be a rather under-researched strategic function, making it an interesting topic of discussion as a quality-identification system. In virtually any business, evaluating the performance of employees appears to be a time-tested and accurate methodology for boosting employee motivation to perform to expectations which can be illustrated as a positive outcome on customer interaction. Survey generation, in equal measure, is a relatively common tool for assessing service quality, allowing the firm to redesign or redevelop its processes and policies pertaining to service delivery and can recognise where elements of service have been perceived by clients as a total service failure. This would theoretically allow the executive leader to institute new policies for service recovery strategies and make the facility more in-line with customer expectations. Whatever method that hospitality strategists choose to utilise, it is clear that service quality is of significant importance for higher revenues and total business longevity as a competitive entity. Bibliography Alexandris, K., Kouthouris, C. & Meligdis, A. (2006). ‘Increasing customers’ loyalty in a skiing resort; The contribution of place attachment and service quality’. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 18(5): 414. Boone, L. & Kurtz, D. (2006). Contemporary Marketing. 12th ed. United Kingdom, Thomson South-Western. Boone, L. & Kurtz, D. (2007). Contemporary Marketing. 13th ed. United Kingdom, Thomson South-Western. Boyes, W. & Melvin, M. (2006). Economics. 6th ed. United Kingdom, Thomson South- Western. Claver-Cortes, E., Molina-Azorin, J. & Pereira, J. 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