Writing a memorandum
Order Instructions:
Application Question (35 points): Write a 1-2 page memo
Note: this question is adapted from p. 186 in the textbook.
THE SCENARIO
You are the director of training for a chain of suite hotels. Each hotel has 100 to 150 rooms, a small indoor pool, and a full service restaurant. The hotels are strategically located near the exit ramps of major highways in Southeastern college towns such as Raleigh, NC and Athens, GA. You just received the memo on the following page from the vice president of operations.
YOUR TASK
Prepare a one to two page memo that you will send back to the vice president of operations, answering the questions. The vice president values your opinion but also likes to know what other experts have to say, so support your statements and opinions with appropriate citations from the textbook. You may also cite other scholarly sources published within the last 10 years. There is no minimum number of references required but you must cite the textbook. The vice president is not familiar with training and development, so remember to provide definitions for the key concepts and theories that you believe apply to this situation.
Hint: you might be tempted to propose conducting a detailed needs assessment but remember that VPs are busy people and this one is eager to get started with the training.
Feel free to make up details about situation. You can give the hotel chain and the VP a name.
You might also want to read a bit about service recovery. Here are three articles that are available through the library:
Kim, T., Yoo, J. J-E., & Lee, G. (2012). Post-recovery customer relationships and customer partnerships in a restaurant setting. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (24)3, 381-401. doi: 10.1108/09596111211217879
Komunda, M., & Osarenkhoe, A. (2012). Remedy or cure for service failure? Effects of service recovery on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Business Process Management Journal, 18(1), 82-103. doi: 10.1108/14637151211215028
Lewis, B. R., & McCann, P. (2004). Service failure and recovery: Evidence from the hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(1), 6-17.
MEMORANDUM
To: Director of Training
From: Vice President of Operations
Subject: Service Recovery Training
As you probably know, one of the most important aspects of quality service is known as recovery – that is, an employee’s ability to respond effectively to customer complaints. There are three possible outcomes to a customer complaint:
• the customer complains and is satisfied by the response,
• the customer complains and is dissatisfied with the response, or
• the customer does not complain but remains dissatisfied.
Many dissatisfied customers do not complain because (1) they want to avoid confrontation, (2) there is no convenient way to complain, or (3) they do not believe that complaining will do much good.
I have decided that to improve our level of customer service we need to train our hotel staff in the recovery aspect of customer service. My decision is based on the results of recent focus groups my team held with customers. One theme that emerged from these focus groups was that we had some weaknesses in the recovery area. For example, last month in one of the restaurants, a waiter dropped the last available piece of blueberry pie on a customer as he was serving her. The waiter did not know how to correct the problem other than to offer an apology.
I have decided to bring in two well-known business process consultants to give a presentation about recovery. These consultants have worked in the hospitality industry as well as in manufacturing. I heard them speak at the International Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Show last year and they were very dynamic.
The consultants will deliver their presentation in three sessions. Each session will last approximately three hours. There will be one session for each shift of employees (day, afternoon, and night shifts). The session will consist of a presentation and a question-and-answer period. The presentation will last one and a half hours and the question-and-answer period will last approximately 45 minutes. There will be one 30 minute break. My expectation is that after this training, the staff will be able to successfully recover from service problems.
Because you are an expert on training, I want your honest feedback on this training. Specifically, I am interested in your opinion regarding whether our employees will learn what they need to know about service recovery after attending this program. My most important question is will they be able to recover from service problems in their interactions with customers after they complete this training? What recommendations do you have for improving the training? Thanks so much for your help.
Your company has decided to automate the process for reporting travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses. Instead of completing a manual T&E report and giving it to the manager for signature, employees will now log into the new T&E reporting system, record their expenses, and forward the report electronically to their managers. You have been asked to design training to teach a group of sales people how to use the new system. The group includes both Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. Assume that you have an unlimited budget and approval to design the training in multiple formats. How would you design the training to appeal to both Baby Boomers and Gen Xers? Be specific in describing the training.
SAMPLE ANSWERS
Writing a memorandum
Memo
From: Paul Young (Director of Training)
To: Tom Miller (Vice President – Breeze Resort Hotels)
Re: Service Recovery Training
The need of customer is very critical to the success of any hospitality business. The cost of getting or acquiring a customer is higher than actually maintaining or retaining one. The service industry makes it a little complicated as its process driven and the customers must always have an opinion. It’s very rare to a have a zero defect situation in a human based interaction set-up as in the case in hospitality industry where each customer has different individual needs and the key solution to most of customer the recovery situations is how they have been addressed and the reaction of the customer. (Kim, Yoo & Lee, 2012)
To provide clear recommendation on the customer recovery training exercise, it would be necessary to conduct an assessment on the overall nature of the responsibility and the individual level of customer interaction between the hotel staff and the customers. These would make it possible for me to analyze the nature and scope of training required. Some hotel staff may be well versed with the requirements of customer recovery procedures and may require just a few refresher lessons while others may need the whole training exercise.
My general recommendations to the exercise however is that, it’s imperative to implement an effective service recovery procedures that are applicable to particular situations and which can be implemented easily by the hotel staff.
The stronger emotional and personal characteristics that are attached to services in hospitality industry by most clients make some responses to their complaints very critical to service recovery especially the word of mouth. To effectively address the issue of service recovery, the wider issue of customer retention model that literally integrates service excellence, reliability, recovery and other service feedback systems that have mechanism to evaluate customer satisfaction. The primary focus of the hotel should be provide a problem free stay for its clients that will enhance more customer satisfaction, positive customer image and advocacy, re-patronage and good public relations with other potential customers.
Poor service recovery is more damaging than actually not acting at all. The inability of the establishment to act to the complaints of its customers results to more losses as other customers may be negatively influenced by the hotels inability to address its own shortcomings. A strong strategy for service recovery processes have to be implemented in order to maintain an effective customer retention model. (Lewis & McCann, 2004)
To reduce the rate of service failures, the Breeze Resort Hotel chain must come up with a diagnostic blue print that will identify the potential weaknesses in the hotels service delivery and how the hotel can develop efficient and effective recovery operations. For example, the order delivery time can make a customer judge the efficiency of a hotel or even the time taken for a waiter to approach a customer may be the only deciding factor between retaining the customer in future. These issues can only be resolved by continuous observation to reduce service failures.
The recovery exercise has to be done in the right way. An effective service recovery system has to have an operating philosophy that may reprimand the hotel staff for poor service recovery procedures. The hotel has to empower its own employees to own up and resolve the customer complaints. Recovery rules and procedures must be established that positively reach out to the customers. These procedures should also be implemented in a way that encourages the customers to speak out freely about their experiences and expectations about the services offered as well as their stay at the hotels. (Komunda & Osarenkhoe, 2012)
Finally, the hotel has to be committed to offering good service and excellent recovery exercises. It should focus on positively reaching out to its customers and eliciting feedback from them.
The training for automated T & E expenses would be based differently depending on the basis of the generational needs. The Baby Boomers generation, mostly born between the years 1946 – 1964) have very different and distinct needs, values, motivations, career goals and even different working styles. To maintain effective, motivated and productive baby boomers generation successfully engaged, the management has to come up with clear strategies that will address the generational initiative and ensure that the project is implemented successfully.
Baby boomers will require a web site that can be easily explained verbally and which requires simple coaching as these generation prefers or requires relationship based learning systems. (Cheung, 2007) They can also do well with a mentor who has some training on the web based systems where the expenses can keyed in and entered electronically by use of an iPad or by use of any smart phone.
The generation Xers, mostly falls between the years 1965 and 1980) require more autonomy and they like discovering their own way of working. A menu driven option should be provided on the website to guide them on how to file their travel returns electronically. Most of this generation abhor trainer led training environment and they would rather learn from their peers or colleagues.
To succeed, intergenerational teams should be formed to coordinate the training exercise.
References
Cheung, E. (2007). Baby Boomers, Generation X and Social Cycles, Volume 1: North American Long-waves. Longwave Press. ISBN 9781896330068.
Komunda, M., & Osarenkhoe, A. (2012). Remedy or cure for service failure? Effects of service recovery on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Business Process Management Journal, 18(1), 82-103. doi: 10.1108/14637151211215028
Kim, T., Yoo, J. J-E., & Lee, G. (2012). Post-recovery customer relationships and customer partnerships in a restaurant setting. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (24)3, 381-401. Doi: 10.1108/09596111211217879
Lewis, B. R., & McCann, P. (2004). Service failure and recovery: Evidence from the hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(1), 6-17.
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