Assessing the Quality and Effectiveness of Customer Service

Assessing the Quality and Effectiveness of Customer Service

The issue of customer service has become very important to companies

in competitive industries such as travel and tourism. There is not

much point in spending huge sums in advertising for new customers to

grow the business if the existing customers are defecting to

competitors because they are not satisfied.

On the other hand, a company, which has a solid base of satisfied

loyal customers, will probably gain demand through personal

recommendation which is the basis of a good reputation. It is clear,

therefore, that good customer service which results in customer

loyalty can have a direct impact on the long-term profitability of

tourism enterprise.

To Assess the Quality and Effectiveness of Customer Service in ONE

travel and Tourism organisation I selected the Holiday Inn Garden

Court in Ashford, Kent because I have visited before so I already have

a sound judgement on how efficient the customer service is. The hotel

has 100 bedrooms, a lounge bar, restaurant, 6 small meeting rooms and

a separate pub in the car park which is owned and operated by another

company.

There are three main criteria's that I will analyse in the

organisations customer service quality, they are: -

* What are their performance standards like?

* Measuring to see if the standards are being met

* Putting in place measure to correct any shortcomings

I will also be analysing the quality criteria using the spider diagram

shown below: -

Value for money

Staffing qualities/levels

Reliability

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TASK B - give a full explanation of the key customer service quality

criteria relevant to the organisation, giving examples of the

procedures and practices used to achieve them.

The delivery of customer service in this hotel involves several parts:

1-Brand Standards

The hotel is privately owned and operated under a franchise agreement

with 6 Continents, the company which owns the Holiday Inn brand. This

means that all of the brand quality standards and operating procedures