Mainly, a service organization, like; hotels work on its operations and processes by establishing an effective coordination among its front stage and back stage divisions which offer the services to customers by considering their needs. In this paper, the reflective essay will examine the flow charts for front and back stage processes and activities of organization in service industry, i.e. Hilton Hotels. Further, it will explain the importance of service encounter. At the end, it will analyze managerial implications by considering the flow charts for different states.
Flowcharts
Flow charts of services is developed and designed according to the service standard, culture, needs and expectations of guests and visitors and quality services of competitors. Service means understanding the expectations and demands of customers, process of offering the services, evaluation of the limitations and related costs, which needs for the management of the standard of quality in service sector (O’Fallon & Rutherford, 2011). In this report, flow charts of hotel, i.e. Hilton Hotels, are developed, which will be very useful in managing the procedure of evolving and delivery of information, products and services to attain the objective of business in more efficient and professional way.
Front Stage Flow Chart
In the given scenario, by using the front stage flow chart, the organization is maintaining its hospitality services and data as per the global level and satisfying the customers. As per my observation, the primary tasks of front office staff is increasing communication with the visitors to collect the related data and then convey it to the back office division to offer the services to customer according to their expectations (Dabholkar, 2015). Once I visited the well-established hotel, i.e. Hilton Hotels, where the front stage flow chart of these hotels includes creating of reservation, check-in details, planning for waiting area and running the rooms. With this, check-out details have been noted by the front stage department of hotel. In this, my role is to administer and support the guests regarding the hotel services. At Hilton, I observed that front office members of hotel are carrying out the duties and responsibilities according to prefixed standard and process to achieve the organizational objectives (Mok, Sparks & Kadampully, 2013).
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Front Stage Flow Chart
The flow chart of hotels show that this service organization is creating decision, which is based on the details and information, which is offered by the front office members for each and every guest. It provides the direction to the members of back stage to improve the services. I realized that this type of process and flow chart is assisting Hilton Hotel to get the resources and manage the activities according to the needs and demands of guests (Raghubalan & Raghubalan, 2015).
Back Stage Flow Chart
At Hilton Hotels, back office division plays a vital role in working on internal business operations. When I visited the Hilton Hotels, I found that there are various operations and services, which has been completed by the back stage department. These operations includes receiving the phone calls and reverting to the mails with accurate filling of the forms (Wong, 2013). I experienced by looking at the Hilton Hotels. Moreover, the back office flow chart comprises the tasks, such as; housekeeping, cleaning, housekeeping and other post operational processes and activities have important role in managing the standard of services and application of new plan. This plan is suggested by the top management by using the data, which is given by front office employees. Apart from this, the back office flow chart of Hilton Hotels looks very flexible, because the top management can make the changes according to the situations and in order to meet the expectations and delivery time of the visitors.
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Back Stage Flow Chart
Significance of Service Encounter
Service encounter can be referred to the transaction between a service provider and clients, in which customers have experience in both primary service aspect and relationship aspect. The service industry organizations, like; Hilton Hotels are operating the business in global hospitality industry, needs to manage the quality of services to compete with effective potential in the hospitality industry. By my personal experience, I observed that for gaining the competitive advantage, the management always tries to enhance the service encounter by forecasting the requirements and trends of possible visitors (You, 2014). Communication between organization and customers affect the process and quality of service delivery, which includes different forms of service encounter with employees and management. There are three kinds of encounter in the service company, like; Hilton Hotel, such as; indirect encounter, remote service encounter and direct personal encounter. By considering the service encounters, the management creates the decisions about the procedure of organizing the resources, executing the functions and allocating roles and responsibilities of employees. It helps in increasing the efficiency of business operations to attain the business objectives (Zeithaml, 2013).
At Hilton Hotels, the service encounter that I experienced was worthy in some aspects, like; food delivery time, better quality of food, clean and managed rooms, gyms and spas. Apart from this, there are some factors, like; unethical behavior of front and back office members and obstructive demands from customers can create problems in service encounter.
When I look at Hilton Hotels, it is analyzed that organization is using direct, indirect and remote encounter for maintaining the quality of services (Sørensen, Sundbo, and Mattsson, 2013). Hilton Hotels is giving preference to the indirect personal service encounter to know about and notice the requirements of guests and customers. In service encounter, people and service providers come together to achieve the goals by coordinating the behavior of employees.
Managerial Implications
The standard of business processes of service industry organization is evaluated by looking at the service encounter between staff of organization and customers. In this process, communication helps in evaluation of needs of guests for sustaining the quality and efficiency of services. According to my experience at Hilton, an appropriate evaluation of services and successful service encounter has a good impact on managerial capability and image of Hilton Hotels. In this sense, I suggest that managers should engage in some additional activities, like; listening the concerns of guests, looking at their needs and offering them some complementary services. It will have positive impact on management process of hotels.
Although, Hilton Hotels have better brand image and high quality in services, but there is lack of service encounter is hindering the managerial approach. To fulfill the gaps, management needs to make the efforts in knowing the demands and needs of customers (Grönroos, 2007). The employees have to be very efficient, helpful and accountable towards the roles and responsibilities, which are defined by hotel’s management.
From this essay, it can be considered that in service sector, the companies need to establish and implement the back stage and front stage flow chart to define the services. The organization is using an effective managerial approach to fulfill the standard of coordination and communication. Service encounter is very important aspect for any service industry organization, especially for the hotel organizations; like; Hilton Hotels.
References
Dabholkar, P. A, 2015, How to improve perceived service quality by increasing customer participation. In Proceedings of the 1990 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 483-487). Springer International Publishing.
Grönroos, C, 2007, Service management and marketing: customer management in service competition. John Wiley & Sons.
Mok, C., Sparks, B., & Kadampully, J, 2013, Service quality management in hospitality, tourism, and leisure. Routledge.
O’Fallon, M.J. & Rutherford, D.G, 2011, Hotel Management and Operations, John Wiley & Sons.Raghubalan, G. & Raghubalan, S, 2015, Hotel Housekeeping: Operations and Management, Oxford University Press.
Sørensen, F., Sundbo, J. and Mattsson, J., 2013. Organisational conditions for service encounter-based innovation. Research Policy, 42(8), pp.1446-1456.
Wong, I. A, 2013, Exploring customer equity and the role of service experience in the casino service encounter. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, 91-101.
You, F, 2014, Design and Realization of Hotel Management System, Computer Modelling & New Technologies.
Zeithaml, 2013, Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
