CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Quality customer service means different things to different people. We can not assume everyone of employee understands how to provide “quality” customer service the way trainer or executives or human resource intend it to be. It is their responsibility to teach front-line staffs and all customer service providers your company’s quality customer service’s standards. (Haneborg, 1998)
It is important to invest in continuous quality customer service training for everyone. Organization should provide all employees with continuous education on customer service. Don’t stop with one session. If customer service is important to company in the market, company has to be sure staff members attend annual refresher or advance courses, whatever it takes to ensure consistency and quality.
In hospitality industry, achieving outstanding customer service requires much time, energy and money in the customer service training and call center performance and service enhancement areas. (Kelley, 1999) Professional and courteous customer service does not just happen. It requires a company commitment with training extended to all departments and all levels of the company. Training must be an ongoing commitment. Regular and comprehensive measurement of performance and customer attitudes is central to maintaining the commitment.
Customer service and worst customer satisfaction in the hotel industry. She stated that the hotel industry scored 71 out of 100 points in the industry’s best-known customer satisfaction survey, compared with drop from 75 points in 1994 when lodging companies were struggling to pull themselves out of a recession. The year of 1998’s score was the lowest since Andersen began its American customer satisfaction index five years ago. The survey found that guests don’t believe hotels are providing services that justify the rising room costs, giving the hotels a score of 73 in this category, the lowest in five years. Nearly one-quarter of the consumers surveyed said that hotel guests had voiced complaints over such things as sloppy housekeeping, time-consuming check-outs and tardy room service. As time progresses, hotel's room rate continued to increase but customer service is still more and more poor.
In this highly competitive lodging industry, each company must analyze and consider their training program. Good training will benefit the entire organization. Training reduces tensions, turnover, and cost and improves product and quality of service. (Shriver, 1988 & Tanke, 1990) Customer count is certainly going to improve the company image and the bottom line. Now many companies in the hospitality recognize training and have developed systematic training program. However not everyone in this industry sees training as an investment. Many managers of small operations consider training an exercise in futility because they believe it takes more time than it is worth, employee do not stay long enough for it to pay, people are not interested in being trained, and the like. Also people in entry-level service jobs tend to think, they should be able to do these jobs without training. So in fact, it is hard to convince these people that training is worth investment. It is difficult to measure and prove the difference training makes because there are always many variables in every situation. One way to reassure whether training pays off is to compare individual operations where the training is good with those that do little or no training. The differences will be obvious in “atmosphere,” in “smoothness of operation,” in “customer’s satisfaction in improved quality of service.” (Miller, 1998)
Davidoff (1994) stated that once an educated person gets into the workforce, there is little training in service available. Even though service companies provide a training program, most of the training concentrates on the technical aspects of the job. They neglect the significant real intangible service training. What separates one hotel from another is the quality of service. It is what people remember. (Rowe, 1998)
Davidoff suggested one of the things it takes for service to succeed is training system and education. He said the major reason why service is so bad today involved the lack of proper education and training. To make matters worse, most of businesses are not well prepared to provide the necessary training when a potentially good employee comes out of the education system. American companies must remember that a few days and dollars of training will more than pay for itself in the long run. Education and training are an essential part of the modern organization's efforts to support customer-contact personnel in hospitality industry.
Without general education on customer service, employees can not possibly be equipped to handle the rigorous regular interchange with customers. Without specific training on the processes involved with a particular company and its products, even the most talented service provider will sometimes fall flat on their face. As more and more organization realizes this, the service standard in the hospitality industry will rise. (Davidoff, 1994).