HC2112 Service & Relationship Marketing | Hotel Chains in Australia

Choose a real-life service organisation that you are familiar with. 

Prepare a flowchart of the back stage as well as the front-stage operations of this business. Using this flowchart, explain the significance of the service encounter, and its managerial implications. 

 

1. Flowchart Backstage Front stage 

2. Explanation of significance of the service encounter 

3. Analysis of managerial implications

Introduction

Metro Hotel is a group of hotels that are located and operated in Australia. Metro hotels are owned by Trans Metro Corporation Limited. It is one of the oldest Hotel chains in Australia. This assessment is all about service encounter, front stage and backstage services that are provided to the customers (Metro Hotels, 2018). In order to better understand this assessment Metro Hotel has been chosen for the evaluation. The analysis with respect to the customer service as well as to the employee satisfaction in this organization has been made in the assessment. This assessment also analyses the implications in the managerial aspects regarding the services that are provided to the customer by this hotel.

Service Encounter

A service encounter is a difference between the interaction that used to be done between the customer and the provider that is the part of the service encounter and the activities that are carried out to make it happen. The possibility of such of the activities can only be because of 2 stage services that carried out in an organisation. This can be understood with its significance in the following mentioned detail: -

The interaction of the customer all the service consumer with the services that are provided to the particular customer represents the front stage services. The participants that are included in providing such type of services is known as front desk team of an organization. Customer relationship manager, receptionist, present, product managers are the front stage participants in hotel operations (Chathoth, et. al., 2013).

(Figure – Schematic Flow Chart Diagram of Back Stage and Front Stage Services provided in Metro Hotel)

The part of the services that are unseen by the customer which is the part of service value chain represents back stage services. The participant that provides such type of services comes under the category of backstage participant. The leaders, strategist managers, chef, are included in the backstage operations of Hotel.

The interaction between the customer and employees of the organisation is known as Service Management. To understand the service management of the particular organisation it is very necessary to understand the backstage and front stage operations that used to accomplish in the organisation. Some of the hotels are not having the back stage and the front stage operation team. In this case, 'search hotels' is used within the traditional concept of service. In the traditional concept of service, the offering to the customers depends on the availability of rooms at the time of booking. The welcoming pitch that is used by the manager and the hospitality services offered by the staff play an important role in attracting and retaining the customers. In order to meet out such type of problems the concept of backstage and front stage management is introduced so that effective management can be possible and good services can be provided (Sørensen, et. al., 2013).

Backstage and front stage while providing services

The operations that are performed by the front stage, as well as back stage, can be understood with the help of different scenarios that used to take place in the hotel. The services at the time of different situations by the backstage team and the front stage team can make the operations successful or not successful (Wong, 2013). It wholly depends on the management's strategies and staff behaviour towards the customers' needs.

The guest can arrive at the hotel with the vehicle. The parking instructions are provided by the responsible employee who will be considered as a front stage employee of this hotel. This employee will provide good services in such a way so that parking information can be provided to the customer. This information can be helpful in the easy parking of the vehicle of the customer OK then customer goes in the Reception area of Metro Hotel.

The guest used to arrive at the hotel. If the particular guest is having pre-booking then there can be two type of situation. In the first situation, the particular guest is welcomed with warmth by the front stage employee of the Metro Hotel. The customer is provided with the room that is like buy this customer in the previous visit. All the details about the check-in are provided to the customer with the informative way and at Good Pitch. This will make the customer mood good. In this situation, customer used to check-in happily in the hotel. The second situation can be such that there is the availability of the room even the customer pre-book the room (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012). The customer might be tired. In this situation, the front stage manager or Employee give the right information about the unavailability of the room. This will affect the mood of customer greatly. Customer is provided with the offer to get a hotel room in the nearby locality which will be arranged by Metro Hotel. The whole expenses of the one day stay are accomplished by the metro hotel. All such information is provided by the front stage employee of this hotel. Customer is also asked to wait for sometime in the waiting room so that the mentioned process can be possible. At this time the front stage employee used to inform the backstage employee to serve the water and the refreshment to the customers.

Situation1 can be considered again to understand the further operations that are accomplished by the front stage operations and back stage operations by this hotel. The same operations will also be operated in the case of if a customer is not having a pre-booking and there is the availability of the room. After the parking a vehicle and welcome of customer, the front stage employees used to provide checking book in which information is written by the customer. These employees used to help in all queries of the customers (Xie & Heung, 2012). After providing all the necessary information to the customer with an effective pitch the front stage employee or the manager handover the keys to room boy. This is the staff that used to carry the luggage of the employee to the room and provides a small introduction about the room to the customers. In this situation, these staffs work as front stage employee.

According to Lovelock & Patterson, (2015), the role as a front stage and the back stage of some of the employees can be changed according to the situation. If the particular customer is staying in the room then customer can ask for the water and the food. The managers that are receiving the call of the customer will be categorised as back stage employee. This employee used to provide services by informing about the order to the chef. The chef will cook food for the customer. In this situation, The Chef is also a back stage employees of the customer. The Chef will ask the housekeeper to supply the food and water to the customer’s room. The food is supplied to the customer. In this situation, the housekeeper is the front stage employee of this hotel.

The customer who stays the in the hotel is provided with different services like security, filling the tank of water for water supply in the room. All such type of services comes under the backstage services. The security guard here is the backstage employee of this hotel. the customer stays for the night and Awake in the morning and after taking breakfast the customer goes for work while giving keys to the manager, the customer asked the manager to make the room clean. The manager here acts as a front stage employee of this hotel. The housekeeping staffs are informed by the manager. The housekeeping staffs that clean up the room will be considered as the backstage employee of this hotel.

The customer who arrived at the hotel will check out according to the wish of the customer. At the time of checkout, the billing information is provided by the manager to the customer. The front stage manager used to provide the information on all the questions that are asked by the customer in the context of the bill. The customer used to leave the hotel after signing a register of check out in the hotel. The front stage staff used to give instruction to the backstage employee for post-operative instruction. The post-operative instructions can be cleaning up the room. Making the room in a condition so that a new customer can check in in the room with full of facilities and amenities. This can provide customer satisfaction to the customer that will arise (Stickdorn & Schwarzenberger, 2016).

Managerial implications

The front stage service provides or creates the services that can be enjoyed by the customer. The services are provided to the customer according to the needs and preferences of the customer. The customer Centre services with effective human interaction are helpful that give the output of non-accomplishment of any issue. The service blueprint and modelling artifacts are designed by the front stage manager of this organisation. On the other hand, the backstage employee of the organisation used to focus on the efficiency, scalability and the standardization of the services that can be provided to the customer. Some of the backstage activities are carried out by the people and some of the backstage activities are the automated process. Treating people as an abstract actor is the mindset of backstage employee.

The service quality that is provided to the customer is totally depending on the outcome of the services that are provided. Therefore front stage used to focus on the method by which the output of the service can be positive (Radnor, et. al., 2014). Unlikely the back stage employees used to provide the policies and the support structure for the service so that the services which are designed by the front stage manager can be easily accomplished.

There is the effective coordination that used to be created because of the backstage and the front stage service that is provided by metro Hotel. The important Information sharing between the employees is easily possible. The transparency can also be provided to the customer. Easy assignment of the work and the task to the employee can be possible with the help of service encounter of front stage and back stage (Milton & Johnson, 2012). With the effective Information sharing among the employee's good services can be provided to the customers that are arriving at Metro Hotel.

Summary

There are different types of duties that need to be performed by the employees that belong to backstage and front stage employees of this organisation. Service encounter is the necessary part by which customer satisfaction can be accomplished. This can be beneficial for attracting and making a loyal customer for Metro hotel. Services creation, designing, and standardization of services can be effectively possible with the help of services that are provided by the front stage and backstage employees of this organisation.

References

Ariffin, A.A.M. and Maghzi, A., (2012) A preliminary study on customer expectations of hotel hospitality: Influences of personal and hotel factors. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(1), pp.191-198.

Chathoth, P., Altinay, L., Harrington, R.J., Okumus, F. and Chan, E.S., (2013) Co-production versus co-creation: A process based continuum in the hotel service context. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, pp.11-20.

Lovelock, C. and Patterson, P., (2015) Services marketing. Australia: Pearson Australia.

Metro Hotels, 2018. About us. [Online]. Available at: https://metrohotels.com.au/about-us. [Accessed: 24 September 2018].

Milton, S.K. and Johnson, L.W., (2012) Service blueprinting and BPMN: a comparison. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 22(6), pp.606-621.

Radnor, Z., Osborne, S.P., Kinder, T. and Mutton, J., (2014) Operationalizing co-production in public services delivery: the contribution of service blueprinting. Public Management Review, 16(3), pp.402-423.

Sørensen, F., Sundbo, J. and Mattsson, J., (2013) Organisational conditions for service encounter-based innovation. Research Policy, 42(8), pp.1446-1456.

Stickdorn, M. and Schwarzenberger, K., (2016) Service design in tourism. Entrep. Tour. Unternehmerisches Denk. Erfolgskonzepte Aus Prax, 2261, pp.835-848.

Wong, I.A., (2013) Exploring customer equity and the role of service experience in the casino service encounter. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, pp.91-101.

Xie, D. and Heung, V.C., (2012) The effects of brand relationship quality on responses to service failure of hotel consumers. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), pp.735-744.