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ContentsExecutive 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

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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

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434,357 bedrooms serves 100 million of guest in every year and this is actually a chain of

U.S motel.

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

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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.

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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)

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There are five gaps that helps to identify the customer’s 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

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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 customer’s 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

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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.

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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

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.

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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

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:

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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

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 hasn’t 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”

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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

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:

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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.

Shouldn’t 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 don’t mind rather

them help to solve the problem (Anderson and Kerr, 2002).

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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)

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 can’t handle the customers rather they

dissatisfied customer. If the staffs don’t 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

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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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