Improving Customer Service For The International Hotel Group: A Case Study Essay.

Background Information

Read the provided information in the case study based on The International Hotel Group and complete the tasks below. Use the forms and templates provided to complete your tasks.

• A report, addressed to Bachar Naja, the CEO of The International Hotel Group” evaluating the performance of the Customer Service Department.

You are to participate in a role-play where you are the manager of the Customer Service Department at “The International Hotel Group” with your trainer/assessor and fellow class mates being your customer service team members.

Background Information

The International Hotel Group started business with two small boutique style hotels in Melbourne, Australia. The group is owned and financed by a large consortium of international business experts and several large investment companies. It is in a strong financial position for expansion.

Over a period of 15 years it has grown to now comprise a chain of 20 hotels across 5 different countries in the Australasian region. This growth was a result of an acquisition of a small hotel chain and establishment of some new properties, mainly in Australia. The group employs cultural specialists and prides itself on its multicultural expertise that assists with its success in welcoming guests from all regions of the World.

The Group now employs 1000 staff in full time, part time and casual positions.

The Head Office, located in Melbourne, houses the management team for the group.

The group is owned and financed by a large consortium of international business people and several large investment companies. It is in a strong financial position for expansion.

The vision for the Group is to expand geographically to provide a quality boutique alternative in key locations across the Australasian region, whilst maintaining its reputation for exceptional personalised service.

Organisation Structure

The Head Office of The International Hotel Group houses the Chief Operating Officer and the Strategic Management Team, the Chief Financial Officer and the Finance Department (finance officers are allocated a number of hotels to service), The Human Resources Manager and Assistant (the system is devolved with HR representatives in each hotel), The Development Team who manage building contracts and maintenance and The Marketing and Sales Team (a team of 15 culturally capable managers and staff), and the frontline management team that form the main liaison team of the company. Marketing and sales staff are constantly travelling to visit the Hotel Groups and may be seconded to a hotel or country for 6 months in the period leading up to acquisition or commissioning of a new hotel.

The majority of staff employed by the Hotel Group are located in the hotels. This includes Manager, Deputy Manager, Hotel Coordinator and Administrator/Events manager, Restaurant Manager and all the staff who cook, clean and wait in the hotel.ng the areas of poor performance and made some recommendations for improvement. Your CEO has approved your recommendations and has asked you to meet with the Customer Service team to implement your recommendations.

The first part of the paper deals with the analysis of a given case study of low customer satisfaction scenario of International Hotel Group (IHG). For the purpose of the paper, the researcher writes a letter to the CEO of the company identifying the reasons for such a low satisfaction score and recommends the resolutions for increasing the same, as below.

To

Bachar Naja

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Sub: Report on the Performance of the Customer Service Department of the Company

Respected Sir,

This is the report on the aforesaid topic, as mentioned herein.

Customer service may be considered to be one of the most success-critical factors (CSFs) of a business organisation as the same denotes the overall business performance in nutshell. There are a number of definitions of customer satisfaction flying around, but they are all focused on the same thing – how a company’s product or service measures up to customer expectation. Companies place a great deal of focus on customer satisfaction because it can have a major impact on revenue – the higher the level of customer satisfaction, the more likely customers are to remain as customers. Furthermore, a high level of customer satisfaction increases the likelihood of revenue generated from customer referrals and helps you to build your brand. A business with dissatisfied customer base may not be sustainable in the long-run in the competitive market and hence it is utmost necessary for the management to consider the customer service with grave importance (Pizam, Shapoval & Ellis, 2016). The instant report deals with the analysis of customer service, based on the relevant survey conducted, of IHG.

Customer satisfaction is an important metric for companies as it provides an insight into things like customer loyalty, likelihood of churn, and also helps identify issues with the product or service. Companies that provide a high level of customer satisfaction can also use it to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

The survey results on the customer service have shown that the company has been experiencing a gradual decline in the customer satisfaction score on a regular basis for the last few years. The same may be primarily attributable to the fact that the staffs are not engaged with the company. The staff engagement score has also been low on a consistent basis which denotes the fact that the company's mission and vision are not aligned with the individual staff level and as a result, the sales force and customer service team feel alienated from the company and its long-term goals.

Organisation Structure

In order to increase the customer satisfaction score, the management may need to undertake the following recommendatory measures:

1. Develop customer service communities
2. Treat customers like you would want to be treated
3. Provide multichannel support
4. Make employee satisfaction a priority
5. Encourage agents to take ownership of problems
6. Turn customer survey data into action
7. Figure out what the customer really wants
8. Focus on company culture
9. Stay current on customer reviews
10. Offer proactive customer service
11. Personalize
12. Slash wait times
13. Put a social media plan in place
14. Rethink the approach to doing business & building relationships
15. Demonstrate product knowledge
16. Benchmark customer satisfaction
17. Set clear expectations and exceed them
18. Study complaints and compliments
19. Hold daily stand up meetings with your team
20. Ask how your clients would like to be responded to
21. Provide additional benefits
22. Offer free product training and support
23. Press reset after every call
24. Ask for more feedback
25. Empower your agents ("25 Surefire Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction", 2019)

In nutshell, the following points may be considered to improve customer satisfaction score:

• Conduct staff engagement programmes through various training session whereby the corporate vision and mission are communicated to them with clarity
• Workplace environment may be made congenial for them so that the productivity gets improved and satisfaction is more.

Many call centers use customer satisfaction surveys at the end of calls. Customers are asked to complete a quick survey after every call to and rate the level of service they received and understand how the customer feels about your business. Similarly, a high level of customer satisfaction reduces negative word of mouth. McKinsey estimates that an unhappy customer tells 9-15 people about their bad experience. One thing companies who provide a low level of customer service sometimes overlook is the collateral damage caused by unhappy customers. It is bad enough losing business because you provided a customer with a low level of service, but what about losing 15 more customers as a result? Customer satisfaction can have a massive impact on your business and appropriate care should be taken.

You should also remember that acquiring new clients is a lot more expensive that keeping the clients you already have. Misallocating resources and overlooking customer happiness as you chase new business opportunities is a common mistake that must be avoided.

Taking reference from the preceding sections of the paper, it may further be elaborated that the recommendations provided earlier may be accepted by the CEO. On the basis of such assumptions, a formal notice may be sent to all the staff members working in the customer service team.

Such notice will be sent through email as below:

Hello Team,

Hope you are doing great!

As you may be aware, customer satisfaction score for past few periods has been declining and on scrutiny, it has been found that the low customer service staff engagement score may be one of the primary reasons for such fall. Hence, as directed by the CEO, this meeting is called to discuss the issues and find solutions to the problems.

Please find attached the details of the meeting as below. Your presence is highly solicited.

• Date: 14th October 2019
• Time: 9 am To 11 am
• Location: Training room
• Meeting called by CEO, Mr Bachar Naja
• Meeting Purpose: To discuss the reasons for low customer satisfaction score and undertake measures to increase the same.
• Attendees: CEO, Mr Alex, All staffs of the customer service team

 
Primarily 4 techniques will be discussed by applying which, the custoper satisfaction score will tend to improve.

Give every customer the same excellent treatment as you would like to receive yourself. It’s as simple as that! You could use some of the following approaches:

• Thank your customersfor their business, both in person and also printed on the receipt.
• Make a real effort to help your customersand assist them in every way you can.
• Keep your promises and integrity. If you say that you will contact them to let them know when an item is back in stock – be sure that you do! Every so often, businesses forget or fail to get back to their customers, who might very well find another supplier in the meantime.

Studies show that 91% of unhappy customers will never come back to a business they believe is below par. By frequently measuring customer satisfaction, you can reduce the number of unsatisfied customers. An effective and easy way to measure customer satisfaction is using an online survey tool from a survey provider, such as Netigate.

With a customer feedback survey, you are able to find out how happy your customers are with you, if and what you need to do to improve your product or service and to identify those customers who love your product and could possibly send new customers your way. A Net Promoter Score is the ultimate survey to find out how likely it is that your customer would recommend your business to others, with one simple question

When you track and monitor customer satisfaction on social media you are updated on both positive and negative feedback and can take appropriate measures to resolve them. The majority of people use their mobile phones up to 150 times per day and many of them turn to social media when they want to leave a complaint ("4 great ways to improve your customer satisfaction - Netigate", 2019).

Conclusion

Based on the discussion and analysis of the paper, it may finally be concluded that the a well-planned corporate strategy identifying the loopholes within the operations and undertaking the measures to resolve the same will help significantly a company to attain its long-term goal of sustainability through higher customer satisfaction and enhanced brand value in most cost and time-efficient manner in the industry (Mansor, Mostafa, Mustapha & Darman, 2018,

References

25 Surefire Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction. (2019). Retrieved 16 October 2019, from https://callminer.com/blog/15-surefire-ways-to-improve-customer-satisfaction/

4 great ways to improve your customer satisfaction - Netigate. (2019). Retrieved 16 October 2019, from https://www.netigate.net/articles/customer-satisfaction/4-great-ways-improve-customer-satisfaction/

Mansor, S. N., Mostafa, S. A., Mustapha, A., & Darman, R. (2018, August). An Emotional Agent for the Analysis of Customer Satisfaction Surveys. In 2018 International Symposium on Agent, Multi-Agent Systems and Robotics (ISAMSR) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Pizam, A., Shapoval, V., & Ellis, T. (2016). Customer satisfaction and its measurement in hospitality enterprises: a revisit and update. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), 2-35.