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Contents
Executive summary:...................................................................................................................3
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
LO 1: The chosen company, its history and background and its provided service....................3
History....................................................................................................................................4
Services..................................................................................................................................5
LO 2: Importance of SERVQUAL in terms of brand image and customer expectation............6
SERVQUAL...........................................................................................................................6
LO 3: Areas of government regulation and its impact on organization.....................................9
Taxation..................................................................................................................................9
Issuing of visa......................................................................................................................10
F&D regulation....................................................................................................................10
FOREX and exchange control.............................................................................................10
LO 4: Misrepresentation of marketing massage in print media and electronic media and its
impact on organization.............................................................................................................11
LO 5: Complaint handling system and how an effective customer relations is maintained to
encourage repeat business........................................................................................................13
Complaint handling process.................................................................................................13
The customer relationship management process..................................................................15
LO 6: Areas of training and support needed to prove professional SERVQUAL and
consequence of having untrained staff.....................................................................................16
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................17
References................................................................................................................................18

Executive summary:

Hotel Holiday Inn is chain hotel which has been serving efficiently from the beginning of this
hotel in 1942 and providing service to various country. To describe the customer relationship
management here I have used some process such as SERVQUAL, complaint handling
process. There are History of this Hotel Holiday Inn, its background and provided services.
The process to maintain qualitative service SERVQUAL process is used and to manage
customers CRM process is helpful. In tourism and hospitality business there are some
government regulation to follow as this the most contributing sector in economy whics
includes tax, visa issuing, food and beverage etc. and the rules regarding these sectors must
be followed by this industry. At last to maintain a good customer relationship every
organization uses CRM process which is described and necessary training for the staff.

Introduction:
Managing effective customer relationship is now a burning question for tourism and
hospitality business and to maintain this they use different technique. Here the chosen
company is Hotel Holiday Inn, here is the description of managing customer relationship of
this company and the discussion of its taken technique. There are some government
regulations and it affects the tourism and hospitality industry but SERVQUAL process helps
to improve service quality and CRM process to develop customer relation.

LO 1: The chosen company, its history and

background and its provided service.

From the multinational brand of hotels I have chosen Holiday Inn which is operated by the
British InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). This hotels having 3,414 hotels globally with
434,357 bedrooms serves 100 million of guest in every year and this is actually a chain of
U.S motel.
3

Figure: Hotel Holiday Inn

Source: ihg.com

History
Dissatisfied by the inefficient serving quality of a roadside hotel in the time of staying there
on the occasion of a family trip to Washington D.C, Kemmons Wilson who is a habitant of
Memphis at Tennessee, took the responsibility to start a business of hotel and built Holiday
Inn. His architect Eddie Bluestein named this hotel inspired from the musical film Holiday
Inn released in 1942 and inaugurated at 1941 Summer Avenue in Memphis in the month of
August in 1952 named Holiday Inn Hotel Courts.
In 1953, this company built its other three hotels along with first hotel partnered with Wallace
E. Johnson and located 51 South Highway, 61 U.S and 51 North Highway respectively.
In 1956, this hotel was operating 23 hotels with seven more. Just passing after one in 1957
Wilson started the chain of franchising called Holiday Inn of America, operating its
properties be probable, easy access to road travellers, amiable environment, qualitative. It
grew its chain to 50 by the time 1958, to100 by the time 1959, 500 by the time 1964 and to
1,000 in San Antonio, Texas by the time 1968.

This hotel introduced its call centre to reserve over phone after confirming the toll free
telephone number of +1-800 by AT&T and started its promotion with the tag line "your host
from coast to coast" in 1967 and developed its desktop microcomputers system when it was
invented in 1970s and started as travel agencies.
From that time it developed its service year by year and enhanced its franchises.

Services

It serves such amenities which are as follows

On site restaurants and bars

Kids stay and eat free

Free high speed internet

It also serves water Park with trilling slides, food, outstanding scenery, seating and others
and also holidomes which include guest activities, food and drinks, pool slides etc. There
is also Holiday Inn club vacation resorts.

LO 2: Importance of SERVQUAL in terms of brand

image and customer expectation
SERVQUAL

Figure: SERVQUAL
Source: comindwork.com
To evaluate the service sector Berry, Parasuraman & Zeithaml introduced in the mid 1980
SERVQUAL which is now also called RATER and this is a quality management framework.
To create brand image and to satisfy the customer expectation of Hotel Holiday Inn
SERVQUAL helps in high quality.
This is a technique to provide high quality service of the main components. At the invention
time there were ten determinants originated by the author which was related to the service
quality and that was constricted to five determinants that is called RATER. Hotel Holiday Inn
use SERVQUAL to evaluate and ensure service quality that evaluate both expectations of
customers and qualitative service in regarding with the five factors. The quality of service
Holiday Inn is perceived as low if the expectation of customer higher than expectation of
delivery that they receive (Berry, 1990)

There are five gaps that helps to identify the customers poor service experience of Holiday
Inn.
Gap 1: between management perception & consumer expectation: When the Holiday Inn
cannot provide the expected service of customer there arises the gap 1. Some important
factors of this gap are:

Poor marketing research

Fault circulation of information about the expectation of customers

Customers demands are not followed by Research

Existing gap among the personnel line and high level management.

Gap 2: between management perception and service quality specification: After perceiving
the customers demand, if Holiday Inn cannot serve the standard product the gap 2 arises.
Other reasons are:

Inappropriate procedures of planning.

Inappropriate service design

New service development process in a wrong system

Gap 3: between service quality specification and service delivery: If there exist inefficient
training, poor capability to deliver standard service, Gap 3 will arise. Some predicted cause of
this gap:

Fault policies regarding human resource for example poor recruitment quality,
conflict of role, biased evaluation.

Insufficient internal marketing

No match between demand and supply

Infertile training and education of customers

Gap 4: between service delivery and external communication: The reference of company
personnel affects the Consumer expectations. If this company cannot be able to satisfy the
expectation of customers by service delivery, the Gap 4 will arise.
Gap 5: between expected service and experienced service: If the customer of Holiday Inn
delivers poor quality of service below the expectation of them, there will arise the gap
between experienced service and expected service.
Determinants

Competence: the ability of any employee to deliver the service of this hotel having
qualitative knowledge and experience.

Courtesy: as the Holiday Inn pay respect to the property of customer and a clear
appearance to its customers.

Credibility: this hotel follows this determinant by keeping the information secret and
being honest to them.

Security: customers in Holiday Inn enjoy a tight safety of their life and property.

Access: this hotel serve online reservation to ensure an easy access to this hotel.

Communication: there is CRM to circulate the news of this hotel to every customer of
every nations to ensure the right communication.

Knowing: they offers different offers depending on the customers knowledge that
they acquire through customer research.

Reliability: by performing the service that they have given word to the customer to
keep in right manner.

Responsiveness: the employees of Holiday Inn listen customers carefully and take
complains to solve it.

In 1990s, RATER was introduced by the writer which is decreased to five dimensions:

Reliability: the service it provides based on the word it has given

Assurance: they provide assurance to keep their information secret.

Empathy: the careful attention to the customers.

Responsiveness: to give the customers the right feedback to the complaints in order to
solve it.

The above discussion of SARVQUAL of Holiday Inn determines that this helps this hotel to
increase its brand image and satisfy the customer through their expectation. This company is
serving in right way by following this process and thus they have been able to create an
powerful brand image.

LO 3: Areas of government regulation and its

impact on organization
Taxation
Tourism taxes are imposed on the tourist and the industry respectively (UNWTO, 1998).
Tourism taxes are the indirect tax, fees and charges related to tourism. Indirect taxes are such
as sales tax, VAT, general tax, import duty tax which contribute to the economy. To impose
tax every country gives importance on some key dimensions

Efficiency: the system of Taxation will affect positively to the efficiency of tourism
and hospitality sectors.

Competitiveness: competitiveness must be increased through Taxation policy

Growth: to increase the growth of this sector Tax incentives are introduced.

Sustainability: tax also helps to increase the sustainability of this organization.

As the tourism and hospitality sectors contributes a lot to the economy, taxation in this sector
helps to increase the economy. If budget helps in taxation to increase the sector of tourism of
any country, it will helpful for those industry. When high tax is imposed on tourism sector the
cost in tourism related service grows high in return customer becomes less interested to tour.

Issuing of visa
There always exist a problem regarding visa issuing which sometimes makes the tourist
ignorant of going abroad for recreation. This creates a great impact on tourism sectors.
Nowadays for the arrival terrorist to issue visa every country takes much time to evaluate
whether to issue or not. But some famous hotels like Holiday Inn has been serving this
facilities over online to make customers satisfied and feel them free of responsibility.

F&D regulation
Food and Beverage regulation must be followed by the hotels to serve the quality and safety
food to customers. In regarding to maintain the safe product The FDA act is now modified to
FSMA to ensure the safety of food in U.S. There is an international organization that ensures
the food safety is ISO 22000 which keeps food standard some system including HACCP
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principles, Systematic management, management interactive communication system. WHO

and FAO also have introduced some guidelines for food safety which the Holiday Inn follows
and the further modification must be followed (FDA and FAO, 2014).

FOREX and exchange control

FOREX or foreign exchange control controls the currency trades internationally which works
with the financial institution. It buys currency with other currency to regulate to tourism
industry and this must be followed by Holiday Inn.
The regulation imposed by the government to control the transaction of foreign currency is
Foreign exchange controls.

Common foreign exchange controls include:

Restricted use of foreign currency in local country

Restriction on locals to amass foreign currency

Government currency controls to regulate currency exchange.

Imposition of Fixed exchange rates

There is limit on the import and export of currency.

This two regulation are followed by the Holiday Inn to ensure the government that they are
obeying the rules of government in working with tourism and hospitality sector. This
regulation has impact on the organization of tourism and hospitality to follow and safe the
customer.

LO 4: Misrepresentation of marketing massage in

print

media and

electronic media and

its

impact on organization.
To circulate the information of product to customers is the effective way in marketing by
which consumers are able know the product features and they will go for that product which
will satisfy their needs. The misrepresentation of marketing message in print media or
electronic media considered as illegal and deceptive which occurs when the company
represents their worse product as high quality. As a result, the customer who are price
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sensitive switch to other product if they know the actual information. Marketing message
misrepresentation leads customers to become victim. If the any Company use this kind of
illegal marketing, they will become profitable for the short run but will suffer in the long run
(kim, 2013).
For example this car of this brand possesses lifetime fluid to transmit
There are some guidelines on marketing loss to avoid misrepresentation introduced by The
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are:

To advertise marketer must use authentic information and no to deceive customer.

Moreover there must be existed substantiated claims.

This commission regulates the marketer to avoid using false information in advertising to
protect customer. From the Section 5 of the Act, this can be said that any act of marketer can
be said misrepresentation if they try to

Misguide customers and

Influence customers perception to the product

Some examples of misrepresentation of marketing message on both print media and

electronic media are:
Representations relating to supplier or supplier's business:

Nature, size and market position of the business: A representation that interprets
false news showing a retail business as manufacturer. Examples: If Z Company says
that it is manufacturer though it is a retail business

When the result is cheating the words only should not be used.
Examples:
False representations such as:
The electrical work is done under licensed only oil service company.

Employment or business opportunities: Where the business opportunity does not

exist, if the company circulates the news having this opportunity is called
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misrepresentation. Examples: "Receive money by working on free time where it

does not exist.

Attributes of the supplier: To make an advertisement to have that agreement whereas

no agreement exists, this is called misrepresentation. Examples: "ISO Approved,"
whereas this company hasnt get any approbation

Image advertising: Here companies say that they are contributing to the society
whereas they are not. Examples: Z Co. provides the information as advertisement
which describes its contribution to the society whereas it is not doing anything
charitable.

Representations relating to products: Every companies should advertise all necessary

information regarding product to inform them about the product feature. Here the
organization misrepresents the product information which it does not possess.

Examples:
This product has real juice of mango, where there is used chemical
This products sale for only $50, where there is additional charges.

Representations as to price

50% less on all product, where these product are being sold a general price
This are the examples that how marketer cheat customers through misrepresentation of
marketing massage and this is a crime which is punishable in many countries. This make
huge impact on the organization where customers switch to other organization and they are
punished by government. But Holiday Inn is out of this risk to misrepresent the message, they
are very loyal to the customers and circulate the authentic information.

LO 5: Complaint handling system and how an

effective customer relations is maintained to
encourage repeat business
Complaint handling process
Advantages of good complaint handling of an organization
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The discomfort after using the product by a customer raises complaints.an effective
organization must have a complaint handling department to listen the customer and handle
their complaints this creates values for customer to retain.
There are three advantages which can be achieved through handling complaint efficiently and
they are as follows:

The discomforted person can get solution through this process.

Efficient handling of complaint is a promised mission of qualitative service.

If an organization can handle complaints in an effective way, it will be able to increase its
good will to the customers and they will feel this organization as liable one.

Effective complaint handling system

Step 1: enabling complaints:
Procedures for making people able to do complaints which are customer related, accessible
and backed by management team.
Step 2: Responding to the complaints:
The management of any organization must be responsive to the complaints and make them
feel that they are caring well and take necessary steps to solve that problem.
Step 3: Accountability and learning:
Here the management become accountable to that complaints and maximise the improvement
of any organization.
In an efficient complaint handling system there are 5 steps and these are:

Give attention to the customer concern: When a customer is saying his problem,
listening carefully to make him feel that he is taking cared.

Make them floor to describe their problem: Feel the customer is an effective way to
give him space to describe the problem and then understanding the problem and take
the responsibility to solve is an effective way.

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Shouldnt be biased: The manager must consider the problem. If he take any decision
without hearing both parties he is doing biasness.

Give the customer opportunity to clarify the problem: To solve the problem manager
must make necessary clarification to the problem

Search for a solution: After hearing the problem the important task is to find a suitable
solution to solve the problem what is expected by the customer. The only way to
retain the customer value is to serve the customers properly by solving the arisen
problem.

To handle the customer data in handling the customer complaint is the most wanted in the
market. If the customer feels that they are not well cared they will switch to other companies.
In this regard hotel Holiday Inn is doing well, they have a customer complaint department to
handle the complaints. They care the customer value so that they can retain them. They create
customer value through make the customers flexible to complain anything against this hotel
and they cordially appreciate their problem and then they take necessary measure to solve
them. Though they always try to maintain world standard in delivering service and product to
satisfy customers, there arise some complaints from the customer but they dont mind rather
them help to solve the problem (Anderson and Kerr, 2002).
This hotel also maintain a complain box to get the problem from customer. When they get
any kind of problem they go through the process to satisfy the customers.

The customer relationship management process

The CRM helps to create an effective customer relation if it is maintained properly. There are
some process through which an effective customer relationship management helps to create
an amiable environment to retain customer value and build up an effective relationship with
them.

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Figure: Customer Relationship Management

Source: barnraisersllc.com

Communicate with customer: Make the customer responsible to the organisation and
interact with them regularly. Keep them updated with information and make them
involved in that organization. Regular basis communication helps to create a friendly
environment and create an understanding between them

Evaluate customer service level: After providing the demanded service the
responsibility of an organization has not finished, there exists the post purchase
decision. Evaluate the key criteria of the service and take the feedback from them.
After providing the service, the manager must ensure about that whether they are
satisfied or not. Evaluate the provided service with that of competitors to justify the
service quality and circulate the information to the customers (Kumar and Reinartz,
2012).

Amass regular response: To search for regular response make the customer to feel that
they are valued. Survey the customer to gather feedback of their after use experience
and appoint some employee to talk with them face to face to amass the information of
the product usage.

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Measure the resource level: Identify the resources and evaluate them to assess the
capacity of providing service through this process an organization become aware of
their capability to serve the customer in what level.

Evaluate delivery capacity: By this process one organization becomes aware to deliver
the services regularly and timely. If they are served properly and timely, they will be
satisfied and a good image is created for the organization. Standard delivery can be
ensured to satisfy the customer and this can be possible through this process.

Efficient employee and technology: To serve the customer properly and in effective
manner an organization needs qualified and well trained employee and they must be
recruited by the organization. Besides this an organization needs up-to-date
technology to support the employee to serve effectively.

Holiday Inn ensures their effective customer relationship management to create an efficient
customer values and relation. They have a CRM department to serve the customers properly
and by this process they are most popular and famous hospitability providing organization.
The CRM department follows some process to become an effective part. As they are working
efficiently, Holiday Inn becomes the successful organization and satisfying the customers
regularly.

LO 6: Areas of training and support needed to

prove

professional

SERVQUAL

and

consequence of having untrained staff

SERVQUAL is a process through which an organization improves the quality of its service
and satisfy the customers. This process is used to determine the quality of service which is
demanded by the customer. The service provider organization needs this process to improve
the quality of service and by delivering the service they retain customers value. Holiday Inn
also follows SERVQUAL process to provide qualitative service regularly and satisfy the
customer to make them come back to this hotel. There are ten determinants which are
introduce by Berry, Zeithaml and Parasuraman to help to improve service quality and by
following each of these determinants one organization can easily be competent to satisfy the
customers(Zeithaml, 1990)

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There exist some gaps which are the fault line of any organization. A management team must
be formed to fulfil the gap between customers and organizations. The sectors needed to be
trained to deliver the qualitative service are the management sectors, employee and the CRM
department. These areas must be trained to support the SERVQUAL process where they
should be informed about the determinants and the gap between management and customers.
After providing the information, the organization must provide training to the managers,
employees and CRM department. These areas should be trained to serve the customers
properly and make the service qualitative.
If the organization fails to improve the quality, the organization will lose its customer. When
there are so many untrained staff to communicate with, the customers become dissatisfied
and they switch. Untrained and incapable staff cant handle the customers rather they
dissatisfied customer. If the staffs dont know the SERVQUAL process as this is a long
process having ten determinants, they will not work on it and fails to serve the customers.
Knowing the SERVQUAL process the employee can become capable of improving the
quality of service and serve the quality service. The Holiday Inn take proper care of the staff
to train them to provide SERVQUAL process and ensure the quality service and create
effective customer relationship (Hudson and Hudson, 2012).

Conclusion:
Customer Relationship Management helps every organization to retain customers and satisfy
them. Holiday Inn hotel has its own CRM department to handle the customer problem and
make them feel valued. In tourism and hospitality sectors customer relationship manage plays
a vital role to attract and retain customers. As this sector introduced the service and provides
service to the customers, they needs to give more attention to the CRM. Moreover the
organization of this sectors should not allow misrepresentation that leads to deceive
customers which is illegal. By maintaining an efficient customers relationship management
creates customers value and helps to become successful and able to create a good image.

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