The case of missing reservation
- Were the hostess’s actions consistent with a customer-focused quality philosophy? What might she have done differently?
The hostess’s dealings were incoherent with a client attentive eminence values. This is due to the fact that the hostess failed to obtain any responsibility for the loss of the reservation that Donna and Mark, customers had made over the telephone. Moreover, Mark and his entire family unit were not be supposed to stay until other parties with bookings were accommodated but rather they would have settled by the hostess at their right planned reservation period. The hostess having claimed that she was the manager in charge, she would have restructured other bookings so as to accommodate Mark and his relatives alongside other bookings that were made for mealtime at the hotel (Evans 2016). This possibly will have involved the reorganization of the already on hand tables so as to produce open tables that would accommodate for more reservations. She should have also arranged for new tables to be added and be set up so as to ensure that more space for reservations was made. Her conduct to Mark and his relatives clearly demonstrated that the hostess was not client oriented entirely as she went nonstop with her other roles right away after pointing out that she was the supervisor. She failed to give the customers all the attention that they needed and thus delivering poor quality performance and hence representing a poor reflection of the entire hotel company. The hostess should have done things in a different way to ensure that her customers were offered quality services (Evans 2016). She should have offered them some drinks as they waited for her to find a way to fix the issue that was at hand that time. She should have taken the time to explain and apologize for the inconveniences that she caused and this would have demonstrated a good image of the hotel.
She should have been more friendly and polite in handling Mark and his family and this would have made them feel welcome and appreciated at the hotel.
Thus they would have been able to understand the situation and thus they would have been patient with the hostess.
- How would you have reacted to the letter that Mark received? Could the Total Quality Lead have responded differently? What does the fact that the hotel manager did not personally respond to the customer tell you?
I may possibly have perceived the letter in two dissimilar ways. First is that they were justifying their mistake by trying to put the blame on me as they clearly stated that still, Mark had no reservation recorded? This meant that according to the company Mark and his family had not booked a reservation and this was not true. On the other hand, the quality lead confirmed their concerns on the same and explained that they were going to look into the problem and ensure that they have a continuous improvement thus avoiding such a scenario in future.
The total quality leader would have reacted differently despite that he wrote back to Mark, he should have also offered to make it up for their mistake through welcoming them back for a free reservation. This would have acted as a strategy for winning back their customers’ trust. He should have also offered to speak to the hostess on her conduct. They could have refunded the time that they wasted waiting for a table and for the bad experience through welcoming them back to the hotel for a meal treat from the hotel’s management as a way of apologizing for their shortcoming. Any of this action to Mark and his family would have made it up for the bad experience at the hotel (Evans 2016).
The hotel director failed to in person react to the complaints of the client means that they did not take seriously the accusations and that he or she did not think that the hostess did any wrong. This also shows that the management cared less about what Mark and his family felt in regards to the experience at the hotel.
The fact that he delegated the work to the quality lead employee shows that this was a minor issue that he or she thought was not worth correcting. This shows that the hotel is facing a poor management as clearly demonstrated by the manager himself and this has been transferred to the junior employees and this has in general contributed to the poor quality performance.
- What other tools of quality would you use to solve the problem? And why?
It is always important to realize the essence of having a good culture in the business. A good culture that is that is embraced and practiced well by the administration down to the employees is important as it acts as a guiding principle to the organization and it determines the vision and the actions of the organization; in this case, a review of the hotel’s culture was important as it would ensure that the hotel shifts into becoming more customer oriented. This would involve calling in all the employees and laying out a plan on how they would improve their services towards their customers. The employees need to be having an on the job training where the company organizes for workshops where the employees are trained on customer services that they ought to deliver and how they should deliver those services. This would make them understand the role of customers in their business as the promotion of business starts from the customers. Thus good service delivery is essential as it ensures that the customers are happy with the way they are served at the hotel and hence they are able to recommend others to visit the hotel.
This improves customers rating on the hotel and with a good rating; there are high chances of increment in the number of visitors into the hotel. Thus the customers are always right even if they are at times wrong.
Hence, the administration should have acknowledged the mistake of their staff, the hostess and then fix the issue with the reservation through giving Mark a call and apologizing for their mistake. Communication is very is key to the success of every business, thus the hotel should ensure that they have a workable communication with a skilled employee in communication who should call a day or two before the reservation date so as to confirm the reservation date and time (Evans 2016). The hotel should also advocate for employing of the best employees in the hotel as a method of learning to improve on other’s skills. This will ensure an improvement in customer satisfaction in the hotel.
References
Evans, J. R. (2016). Quality and performance excellence: Management, organization, and strategy.
