Course code : TRSM6099

Course name : Hospitality & Service Excellent

Effective Period : February 2020
Load : 2 SKS

Hospitality & Service

Excellent

Session #9- Week 9 GSLC

The Service Delivery
System

Session #9- Week 9 GSLC

 Learning Objectives

LO-3 : Use service excellence, service quality and

service delivery method to gain customer
satisfaction in hospitality industry
 Sub Topics

1. The challenge of managing information

2. Information and the service product
THE CHALLENGE OF MANAGING
INFORMATION

• Creating a system that manages information effectively is

one of the most important and challenging issues facing
any hospitality organization.
• Information is data that informs, and an information
system is a method to get that which informs to those
who need to be informed.
• A well-designed information system gets the right
information to the right person in the right format at the
right time so that it adds value to that person's decisions.
• The right person in hospitality organizations could be
the employee, the guest, or both.
• Information that does not provide value to either the
guest or the organization is useless.
• Informing the Guest
• Since service is by definition intangible, the
information that the hospitality organization
provides to help the guest make the intangible
tangible is a critical concern of the information
system.

• What information should the organization provide, in

what format and in what quantity, to help create the
experience that the customer expects?
• Cues Communicate
• Regardless of the hospitality experience being offered, all informational
cues in the service setting should be carefully thought out to communicate
what the organization wants to communicate to the guest about the quality
and value of the experience.
• If the experience is themed, all cues should support the theme and none
should contradict or detract from it. The less tangible the service, the more
important this communication will be.
• By recognizing that information can glue together the service product, the
service environment, and the delivery system to make a “whole"
experience for the guest, the organization can use information to make the
guest experience itself seamless.
• The organization can manage its information and use the available
information technology to tie together all the elements of the guest
experience to ensure that the guest enjoys it and will want to come back.
• Similarly, an organization that looks at each manager and employee as a
customer for its information can design the organization's information
system to facilitate the optimal flow of useful information to those people.
• Adding Quality and Value through
Information
• Information can be used in many ways by organizations to
add quality and value to the service experience.
• Occasionally, information technology becomes so
important that it can even transform the organization itself.
• Information can enable personalizing the service to make
each customer, client, or guest
• feel special. For example, having Caller ID to allow the
service representative to address the customer by name
when answering the customer's phone call adds a special
touch to the experience.
• Getting Information Where It Needs to Go
• The whole challenge of information systems is to figure
out exactly
how to do this.
• Hospitality organizations that are effective in getting
information where it needs to go recognize that providing
information is in itself a service to guests, often as
important as the primary service itself, and a necessity for
employees.
• They must therefore identity the information needs of
both guest and hospitality employee in regard to all three
components of the guest experience: the service product
itself, the environment, and the delivery system.
INFORMATION AND THE SERVICE PRODUCT

• Information about services offered is usually found

within the environment rather than as part of the
service itself.
• Information as Product: Red’s Market

• A good illustration of a sophisticated system properly used is that

developed by Red's Market. Red’s sells more fresh fruits and
vegetables to Central Florida restaurants, hotels, theme parks, and
other hospitality customers than all of its competition combined.
Red's has so developed its information system that it can accurately
predict what all of the customers will need and when they will need
it. In effect. Red’s has moved beyond the business of fruits and
vegetables into the business of managing customer inventories. The
computer models are so powerful that Red's Produce frequently
knows better than its customers what they need and when. Fruits
and vegetables are extremely perishable. Having this information
system allows Red's to maintain the freshness of products that
restaurants serve to their customers because Red's manages the
inventory' carefully.
• Informing the Employee-as-Customer
• For the employee-as-customer, the service provided is often the delivery of
the information that the employee needs for making decisions about how to
serve external customers. This information-as-product is provided to the
employee-as-customer by an employee or employee unit acting as an internal
"hospitality organization." This concept is perhaps easier illustrated than
explained in the abstract. Consider a health-club manager who must decide
whether to revitalize or replace a room full of weight machines that have
become obsolete or that for whatever reasons are no longer used at the
expected rate. The manager will need such data as customer counts and use
rates, wait times, customer surveys, and forecasts of future demand for
weight training. Each of these pieces of information is the end product of
some other employee’s or unit’s information production and delivery' system.

• Providing information is the service activity for many internal

employees/customers, and all hospitality organizations seek to provide it as
effectively and efficiently as they can.
INFORMATION AND THE SERVICE SETTING

• The Environment and the Service

• First, the service setting can be a source of information related to the
service itself, and that information must be efficiently and effectively
provided.
• If the tangible product in the guest experience is a quick-service meal, then
the patron needs to know how to get quick service, which quick-service
meals are available, and when the meal is ready.
• Signs are therefore placed in the service environment to facilitate quick
customer access to the order taker, menus are posted in easy-to-find
places to aid the diner in selecting the meal, a picture of what the meal
looks like may be located next to each menu item so that the diner knows
what the menu item is, and the customer order number may be displayed
on an overhead video screen to let the customer know as soon as the
order is ready.
• The Environment as Information System
• In a larger sense, the environment itself can be thought
of as an information system of sorts by the way it is
themed and laid out.
• The information provided in the environment can help or
detract from the service experience.
• This information ranges from a simple orientation map
that tells customers where they are to more elaborate
interactive computer systems that allow customers to
obtain the information they need to enjoy the service
experience most fully.
• MACS and ECS
• Two other Epcot information systems that literally help create
the environment are the Monitoring and Control System (MACS)
and the Environmental Control System (ECS).
• The MACS checks the park's crucial maintenance and operating
factors such as security alarms, critical bearing temperatures on
various attractions, operational status of refrigerators and
freezers, and wastewater lift station operations.
• The ECS is the park s central nervous system. It receives
information front the environment and sends instructions to
the environment to change or maintain it. This computerized
system also runs the lights and sound for all non theater shows.
 Discussion
1. What is the difference between providing a guest with
information and actually communicating with that guest? Give an
example of each. How can hospitality organizations know if
information has been communicated effectively to both guests and
employees?