Group 37

2022/07/21
2022SP Service Management

Think about your service venture. You are asked to come up with suggestions about how to

increase the productivity of your processes. Answer the questions for one of your main

services processes.

1. What is a good productivity measure of your service (google for inspiration)?

Given that our core service is accommodation, the Occupancy Rate (OR), which is the

total number of occupied rooms divided by the total number of available rooms, is a good

productivity measure for our service. This measure takes into account not only the occupied

rooms but also the empty ones and therefore provides a brief overview of the productivity of the

service. Moreover, this measure enables us to see our productivity over a given period of time,

not to mention that it is perfect for determining the significance of marketing and advertising

campaigns on hotel room occupancy levels.

2. What do you assume is the bottleneck activity in your process.

The bottleneck activity in our service venture (Hotel 37) is the check-in process. Our

hotel does not yet have self check-in kiosks and employs two reception staff who manually help

guests check in when they arrive at the hotel. As such, the cycle time is higher. Additionally,

during this step of the service process, housekeeping is being done to prepare the rooms for the

guests, which increases the wait time for guests. Therefore, the check-in step is the bottleneck

activity in our service venture.

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2022SP Service Management

3. How can you make one or several of your processes more productive?

There are many ways (better match of demand and capacity, self-service, less idle time,

more equal distribution of work per staff, technology that supports staff, outsourcing,

multitasking of staff, etc.)

The check-in process would be more productive if it were turned into self-service, instead

of meeting with the front desk. This could be helped with “ticketing” machines that customers

are greeted with as soon as they enter the hotel lobby. The customers would come up to the

kiosks, enter their booking number, and be printed a receipt of their room number and passcode

to enter their rooms. Additionally, a better booking and housekeeping system could be put in

place, of which the rooms that will be used on the next day should be cleaned during the

checkout hour until before the check-in hour (e.g., rooms that will be occupied on Monday but

were booked before Monday, should be cleaned on the day of check-in at a set time, which is

before check-in time). During the checkout hour (10 AM), all rooms should be opened, cleaned

(if used the night before), or dusted and sprayed with hotel perfume (if not used the night

before). Prior to the check-in hour (2 PM), all rooms will be double-checked and the doors will

be closed. For customers that book the rooms on the day of the check-in, they may occupy the

rooms that were not used the night before but have been dusted and sprayed with hotel perfume

during the checkout hour. This way, when guests come to check in, they are able to immediately

head to their room without having to wait for housekeeping to finish.

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4. Discuss if these methods would have a negative or positive effect on customer service

quality.

The method mentioned above regarding a self-service check-in is not inherently a

negative idea as it would improve the customer service quality. However, completely removing

the human-to-human interaction from the check-in process would also diminish the customer

service quality. There are several issues that arise from having only self-check-in service: those

who are elderly and those who prefer interaction with other people. It would be best if there were

both choices for the guests who stay at Hotel 37. For larger families, they have the option of both

self-service check-in or going to the counter and talking with the receptionists and having that

one-on-one connection, which builds rapport between the hotel and the guests. Those who come

for business purposes or are more technologically savvy or even not willing to interact with other

people can use the self-service check-in for convenience and speed. The ticketing machine;

however, is convenient for both parties as that gives them a rough estimate of when they will be

served and if they so wish, can explore the surrounding areas until they are up for check-in or

their rooms are ready for them as the receptionist when they receive the ticket number can begin

on doing a check-in with what information they are able and when they require more information

they can ring up the guest with the number.

The creation of a better booking and housekeeping system would benefit greatly and

could most likely increase the customer service quality as everything can be done in a timely

manner making it more effective and convenient for, if not all, parties involved. There could be

some issues that come up along the way - such as site traffic, information mistakes being relayed

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2022SP Service Management
to the relevant parties, and a blackout. Nevertheless, it is a good practice/idea to have within the

hotel as that would make the relevant departments work well together and less likely to

encounter issues of double booking, or a mistake on which room to clean for which guest that

arrives at what time as everything is written in clear and plain form. Overall, both of the methods

pitched forth are more than likely to have a positive effect on the customers, given that some

changes are kept rather than completely thrown away, as most guests do not want to be waiting

too long in the hotel lobbies for check-in if they are staying for less than a week.