Management perception of service quality in the hospitality industry

participants were from hotel 3 and hotel 4, however it maybe be believed that the 
underlying factor for these answers being so close to the working definition of service 
quality to be the fact that both these participants have had an educational background 
in the hospitality industry. 
It cannot be concluded if this is the real factor, since participant number 1 did also 
mentioned of having an educational background in tourism but failed to address the 
question. Observation would indicate that when participant 1 was ask this question, 
participant 1 did mention that service needs to be at a certain standard and 
concentration should be given to the customer. This can be translated into ensuring 
standards in service delivery to meet the need of customers. If interpreted this way 
then it may relate to service quality. 
4.2.2
 
Measurement concepts 
Issue number 3 revolves around the service quality on the job, mainly focussing on the 
service quality management, service delivery and staff trainings and customer 
satisfaction and putting the information to use. 
This issue brought up some interesting facts forth. First of all, this issue followed on 
the question whether functional of technical quality is more important than the other.
The purpose of this was to build a foundation to stress the importance of employees. 
Most of the answered indicated that functional quality would have the most impact on 
a customer experience because of the human element and the interaction between 
employees and customers. 

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Secondly, an array of methods was described when it came to measuring customer 
satisfaction. One interesting trend that came up was that of the four participating 
hotels only one of the hotels use an online questionnaire to determine the factors of 
customer satisfaction whereas the others mainly rely on verbal conformation, written 
confirmation on comment cards and then others had a service index. This is where the 
service is measured by standards and procedures. More like a mystery audit. 
However, participant two explained that from his perspective, spontaneous feedback 
from guests such as comment cards, are irrelevant because the guest would only 
provide feedback when they are satisfied with the service and not when they aren’t 
satisfied. Yet this is not the interesting part, the interesting part is the fact that 
customer satisfaction is only measured once a year. It was not explained what this 
measurement entailed but it doesn’t seem that feasibly to measure customer 
satisfaction and the factors that influence this only once a year. 
Furthermore, mention of using word of mouth and social media was really interesting. 
It shows the importance of customer feedback, it also shows initiative of interacting 
with customers even when they stay has ended. In addition, it was mentioned that the 
use of these, were proposed to better understand customer expectations and so by 
better understanding the expectations, these could be met during service delivery. 
With an answer from participant 3 such as:
“After this there is social media. We follow people that like or talk about our hotel. We even answer 
sometimes as it acts as a tool that we can use to understand what we can improve.” 
Indicates the importance of using tools to reach out to your customers and better 
understand them so to provide a better service for them. 
This relates to Gap 4 of the Gap model by Parasuraman et al. (1985). 
The gap exists when there is a lack of insufficient coordination between marketing and 
operations departments but also promises are made which cannot be met. 

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And this issue addressed the importance of following what is being communicated to 
guest even when there is no interaction with other departments. If management can be 
aware that their website already provides significant information for guest to create and 
expectation from, then they would consolidate using more tools to better understand 
customer expectations for the sake of service quality. 
Last but not least, three cases were mentioned were feedback was given and was used 
to improve business. Interesting enough the participant who did not provide this 
information was the same participant that doubted the validity of customer feedback as 
well as their establishment measuring customer satisfaction only once a year. 
The others presented clear examples where feedback was given, passed on to upper 
management and then a solution was implemented. 
This shows how far you can improve if you have the commitment of management. 
Management commitment to service quality is one of the factors determining gap 
number 2 or in other words from management perception of customer expectations to 
the translation of these into specifications. Without management commitment, there 
will be no planning, no goal, and no motivation. In addition, the involvement of 
management in service quality is imperative to closing this gap. (Grönroos, 1990, 61)