How to Improve the Service Quality of Your Hotel
Hotel service quality is about exceeding customers’ expectations and building customer confidence. Highly competitive, the hotel industry relies heavily on word of mouth to build a reputation and loyal customer base. Hotels strive to develop better, higher-level rapport with their customers to differentiate themselves from competitors.
A popular way to measure service quality is via SERVQUAL, a five-element questionnaire that consists of reliability, assurances, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness. In the hotel industry, reliability means the ability to deliver the promised service consistently. Assurances assesses employee behavior, both toward other employees and guests, and the extent to which employees instill trust and confidence. Tangibles focuses on the hotel’s features, appearance, website, employees, and equipment. Meanwhile, empathy determines employee attentiveness and level of care toward guests. Lastly, responsiveness refers to employee willingness to perform above and beyond their duties so that guests receive timely service.
Hotels must implement steps to improve all facets of their operation to enhance service quality. Training is one way to achieve this. By investing in employee training, hotels can mitigate mistakes and associated costs in the long run. Training should not be a one-off session; rather, hotels should develop and implement a learning protocol system in which employees make continuous efforts to improve their performance. Similarly, hotel management must put the right tools in place, offer coaching, and reward employees who deliver excellent results.
Moreover, hotels must make an effort to personalize their guests’ stay. Employees can do this by keeping track of the guests’ preferences, showing genuine interest in their requests, and anticipating their needs. They should design packages and add-ons that appeal to their guests. For instance, when guests consist of families traveling with young children, hotels can offer playpens, activity booking, and access to a babysitting service. Meanwhile, couples may enjoy a bottle of complimentary wine and an intimate dinner reservation at a romantic restaurant.
Hotels should always maintain the building’s appearance and physical facilities by implementing preventive maintenance measures. Hotel maintenance staff should ensure that sprinkler systems, alarms, fire extinguishers, and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are working properly. They should also inspect the locks regularly, including to the main entrance, bedrooms, bathrooms, and storage closets. Hotels must periodically check electrical panels, outlets, and circuit breakers to avoid power outages, and a backup power supply is essential.
Water supply and drainage issues are costly to repair, unsightly, and disruptive. Hotel maintenance should conduct regular inspections to assess water pressure and repair leaks, cracked pipes, toilet malfunctions, and damage to the floors and ceilings. High-traffic areas, such as the guest lobby and hallways, may experience wear over time. Hotel maintenance must ensure that the flooring can withstand excessive foot traffic and luggage carts that wheel back and forth over them several times daily. Hotels should also invest in maintaining decor, paying close attention to dents, scratches, discoloration of furniture, and worn-out upholstery, sheets, and pillows.
Technology plays an important role in scaling the hotel business, especially during troubled times. Having a user-friendly website, multiple channels of communication, and a monitoring system can improve guests’ overall experience.
