Obsidian Hotel: Business Essay, Report, And Analysis.

Service Quality Dimensions

Write a Business Report on Obsidian Hotel.

This business report is based on the Obsidian Hotel and the services and the management strategies that are in place. For the services and management strategies, the customer and employees surveys were referenced to. The findings were presented from the study and recommendations on how to improve the services and management of employees laid out.

Service quality dimensions

Service quality is an essential aspect of any business and determines the overall success of the company. In the Obsidian hotel, there were three main dimensions of service quality. These were relating the employees concerning their behaviour and appearance, tangibles and reliability, assurance, empathy and employees (Stefano et al., 2015). The survey focused on these dimensions of hotel service to determine whether the hotel was up to par with the quality of services that they offered. These dimensions were measured by the SERVPERF scale which is a performance scale. The hotel found the scale to be more reliable and the most effective in measuring the hotels quality of service (Fraj et al., 2015).

Most customers look at the service quality of a hotel to determine if they will revisit the place in future. They also recommend their peers on what hotels to stay at depending on the service quality of that place. If it were good, the hotel would be highly recommended, and the guests are more likely to come back to that place. The service quality is measured by the dimensions already mentioned above.

Tangibles are the general appearance of the Obsidian Hotel. These include things such as the facilities, equipment the employees and the room hotels. The customers usually look at the physical appearance of a hotel as a determining factor of whether they will like it or not. In this case, the obsidian hotel what is the condition of the rooms. Are they welcoming and easily accessible? What are the conditions of the bathrooms and toilet? Are they clean and hygienic? The customers also look at the outside appearance. This is regarding where the Obsidian hotel is located. The environment has to be suitable to enable relaxation of the guests. Most guests tend to prefer a quiet environment for relaxing and one that is not busy (Tuntirattanasoontorn, 2018).

Also, tangibles include the interior décor of the hotel. They will look at the interior decoration in the Obsidian hotel to determine whether it is exquisite or shoddily done. A significant aspect of tangibles is the appearance of the employees. This is because the employees are the ones that the guests will have a one on one interaction with; therefore, their general appearance has an impact on the guests. The general appearance is how they are dressed and also how they behave with the customers (Dedeo?lu & Demirer, 2015).

Tangibles

Reliability is the ability of the employee to complete the service they are required to in time and accurately. Customers usually depend on employees to ensure that they have delivered what is requested of them and thus are highly dependable on them. The employees in the Obsidian Hotel need to ensure that they are reliable to the customers in providing excellent service. Reliability is looked at regarding checking in and out. Customers want to have an easy time with checking into the hotel room and also checking out. Also, the information about the hotel services and prices falls under this dimension. Guests want accurate information on this so that they can be knowledgeable of the services offered and their costs (Liat et al., 2014).

Responsiveness is the willingness of the employees to help the guests and to provide efficient and fast service. In this dimension, the guests at the Obsidian hotel will gauge how the employees offer to help and how fast they respond when asked for something. This goes toe to toe with empathy. Here the guests assess whether the guests are caring and how they can attend to one customer at a time without divided attention. The guests look at factors such as whether the employees are friendly and polite, they have excellent communication skills, they perform the services right the first time and if they are too busy to attend to a customer (Saleem & Raja, 2014).

Management strategies

The employees also play an essential role in any business and determine its success. The employee force is driven by the management which employs and trains individuals to work in a certain way to achieve the organisation's objectives. The administration has to set up strategies for its employees. Management strategies are the techniques that an organisation uses so that they can achieve the goals that they have set (Nieves & Segarra-Ciprés, 2015).

Some of the management strategies that the Obsidian Hotel can apply are leadership development, goal setting, job rotation, team building and team culture, training and seminars, problem management, relationship management. These strategies will help the Obsidian Hotel achieve their needs and also provide better quality service (Molina-Azorín et al., 2015).

Leadership development involves the development of the abilities of all the employees such as they can gain leadership skills and be leaders in their way. It aims at building influence by the service to others.

Goal setting is when the organisation or the management in the organisations set out the goals they want to accomplish in a specified period. Goal setting gives the company, and the employee's direction, and thus the employees are aware of what is expected of them

Reliability

Job rotation is done by placing an employee in different roles in the hotel so that the individual can be trained. If there is a new employee in the Obsidian Hotel, they can be placed in various positions in the hotel so that they can gain experience (Benavides-Velasco et al., 2015).

Team building is activities that the hotel sets up away from the workplace that involves the employees performing them together to build a good relationship between them. Team culture, on the other hand, is the team member's behaviour, habits, values and language. It has a significant influence on how the employees will engage and what motivates them to work (Walker, & Walker, 2016).

Training and seminars are simply conducting training for the employees especially the new ones and attending seminars on motivation and building communication skills. The obsidian hotel can do one-week training each time they employ a new person (Nejabatkhah et al., 2015).

Relationship management is when the organisation fosters a good relationship between with its employees and customers. Problem management, on the other hand, is when the organisation comes up with solutions to the problems that the organisation faces.

Findings

According to the survey, most guests were not impressed with the intangibles in the hotel. Most of the guests were not impressed by the room and said that it was cramped and rundown. The bathroom and toilet facilities also did not impress the guests and termed the porcelain used as old. Another guest said that their room was old and another was not impressed by the lobby. They found it uneventful, and the lobby bar and front desk appeared cramped to them. However most found the location of the hotel convenient (Krasnoperova et al., 2016)

Also, most guests did not see the employees as reliable. One guest complained that they did not find their room ready when they were told it would be. For another, they were not even greeted by the staff, and one hotel staff grabbed their bags from them instead of asking politely. The employees also cancelled a guest's reservation after he came in late due to delayed flights without consulting him first. They could not offer any explanation for this (Helms & Oliver, 2015).

The employees were also not responsive and did not show any empathy. Many guests complained that the employees were not caring at all and were also not polite. They did not deliver services as expected of them by the guests. For example, one client complained that one staff member only changed the teapot and the bathroom towels when ‘cleaning' the room and they had to ask for another staff member.

Responsiveness

On the other hand, on the employee survey, the following were the findings. Most employees complained of being overworked, and this was not compensated in their salaries. They thus lacked the motivation to improve their work output in the workplace.

Also one of the employees said that the relationships in the workplace were poor. The employees hardly work as a team, and the group dynamics were lacking in the workplace. This was seen especially between employees at the front desk and those working in the rooms such as the concierge. There was an apparent conflict between these two. One employee at the front desk mentioned that the employees cleaning the rooms blamed them for wrong information. In this case, we see that the miscommunication in the workplace was very high (Domínguez-Falcón et al., 2016)

Also, the work ethic in the hotel was very poor. Some of the employees complained that the workers at the front desk and concierge did not help in other jobs that were not under their jurisdiction especially when the hotel was at its peak season. The lack of work ethic and not wanting to help caused a rift among the employees.

Some of the employees complained that the manager lacked management skills. Since they had been employed at the hotel, they were not aware of what the manager expected of them. Also, the training services that they got were different from what they were doing and also were unannounced. The employees also said that most of the employees were not trained and they doubted the manager's system of picking the employees. The new employees did not work professionally and also when confronted with stressful situations they panicked and froze. This put a bad reputation on all the employees including those that worked professionally.

Some of the suggestions that the Obsidian hotel can follow to improve their service quality and also to have better management strategies are:

Train their staff. The Obsidian hotel should conduct one-week training for all the employees and also the new employees in the organisation. By training them, the employees will be able to work professionally in offering quality service, and thus the guests can rely on them. Events like the cleaning person just changing the towels instead of cleaning the whole room will not happen again because the employees will be trained (Soliku & Schraml, 2018).

Also, the hotel needs to conduct seminars on group dynamics and efficient communication schools. At most times there was a conflict between the members because of miscommunication. Learning about communication skills in the workshops will help improve the way the employees communicate and thus improve the work efficiency. Also, the employees need to be taught about work dynamics. It was very evident that the employees in the hotel had poor group dynamics. They were not able to work together especially during the peak season when the hotel was busier. They thus need to learn to work together as a team because their end goals are the same (Forsyth, 2018).

Management Strategies

Learning communication skills will not only help the employees but also the relationship with the clients. Many guests complained that the employees could not attend to them thoroughly and were not polite. By learning communication skills, they will be able to effectively communicate with their guests by providing them with their full attention and speaking in a courteous manner (Henningsen & Henningsen, 2015).

The Obsidian Hotel can also adopt the leadership development strategy to improve the leadership in the hotel. Many employees pointed out that the manager did not have any leadership skills. This will enable all the employees to gain leadership skills including the manager. Also, the manager needs to set goals that they hope to achieve in a given period. This will provide the employees with a sense of direction which they initially lacked because they were not aware of what was expected of them (Khakimov & Shalimova, 2014)

Team building is also a very effective strategy that will ensure the staff at the hotel has good group dynamics. The hotel management, therefore, has to set up team building activities every month. This will help the staff in learning how to work together so that they can achieve their goals. The hotel management also needs to be aware of the team culture in the group to know how to interact with the employees (Levi, 2015).

The hotel also needs to improve its facilities by creating a budget plan. The budget plan should include the development of the facilities such as the interior décor, the furnishings in the rooms and lobby and the toilet and bathroom facilities and any other types of equipment that need an upgrade. This will ensure that all their guests are satisfied with the physical appearance of the room and thus will want to come back and also recommend it to their peers (Papenhausen & Parayitam, 2015).

Finally, the hotel needs to motivate their employees so that their work output can be efficient. Many workers complained that their salaries did not match the services they delivered. The organization can set up bonuses for employees who work overtime and also offer encouragement regarding money when an employee performs work that is not under their jurisdiction.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Obsidian hotel needs to highly consider the recommendations given to improve the service quality of the hotel and the management strategies. By adoption of some of these strategies, the hotel will be able to work efficiently and attain their set objectives. The hotel needs and their input is very crucial. If they complain about a particular service, then this should be corrected immediately. Also, they need to foster a good relationship with their employees because this leads to efficient work output.

Leadership Development

References

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