The Service Encounter & Customer Relationship Management

For this report, it is to find out the Importance of Service Encounter and Customer Service Management and then select a Tourism, Hospitality or Event Organisation and assess whether they attempt to manage or gain Customer Loyalty using CRM – with all this it is then to evaluate and make recommendations for improving where necessary.      

The Organisation that as the author has chosen is the Hotel chain Marriott Hotels which offers a place to stay, events, Hospitality, Conferences, Weddings etc. With this it will be to analyse these two points with the Marriott and to mention in the report, other topics such as the Moment of Truth, Zone of Tolerance, Intercultural Service Encounter, Self-Service Technologies, and Social Exchange. Plus, talk about the Intercultural Service Encounter through the Marriott and explain the importance of understanding the difference. Then any recommendations to improve the Social Exchange Program and to assess whether the Marriott attempts or managing to gain customer loyalty using CRM and the provision making appropriate recommendations for improvement where necessary.

Introduction to the Marriott Hotel

Marriott International is the best leading company that operates international and it has more than 4,000 lodging properties located in over 70 countries under the brand Marriott Hotels & Resorts. JW Marriott started the long tradition over 90 years and states that “doing whatever it takes to take care of the customer” to which he will executes this it will keep the focus of the employees by training them to care of the customers always.

Within its strong culture it is committed to the care of its employees and customers, so contacting customers occurs in a variety of ways, such as direct mail, e-mail, the company Web site (which is most popular pages on Marrriott.com), the online community, is an addition to direct customer contact at the Marriott.

Within a Service Industry, the Service Encounter and Customer Relationship are always to be considered and can be improved between the customer and the company. Within this report, it will include information about the Marriott and it will explain how the company applies to the Service Encounter and Customer Relationship (CRM) within the real world. Plus, will focus on the Intercultural Service Encounter, and how it will improve on negative comments or failed services.

Definition of Service Encounter and Customer Relationship Management Service Encounters are transactional interactions in which one person provides a service or good to another person (Solon, 2013). refers to the person-to-person interaction or series of interactions between the customer and the person delivering the service (Ford, 2012). Within the company, the service encounter usually focuses on five aspects: the moment of truth, the zone of tolerance, intercultural service encounter, self-service technologies and social exchange.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) describes how it handles customer interactions, and it practices, strategies, and technologies that are use to manage and analyse the customer interactions and data within its customer lifecycle, to create a better business relationships with the customers, and to make the sales grow (Rouse 2013).

“The Relationship between variables in the model is based on the organizations having valuable resources to which can successfully implement business strategy to create competitive advantage and consequently improve organization.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Hotel Industry: A framework Proposal on the Relationship among CRM Dimensions, Marketing Capabilities, and Hotel Performance.

The Moment of Truth

In customer service, the moment of truth means that moment when the customer comes into and contact with the service provider. Usually, it is the first contact between customer and company, the first 50s is essential to delight the customer, when the customer has been served in a manner that exceeds his expectations, it is easy to build a good image to the customer. this also be called as ‘moments of truth”

All these little moments of truth are combined and to improve the product and service, which will be overall a top level of customer’s satisfaction. (Baker, 2007), And to increase customer loyalty.

Moments of Magic = over-expectations (delighted customer) // Moments of Misery = under-expectations (disappointed/angry customer)

A gap exists between moments of delight/disappointment and the reality, since service delivering depends also of the customer behaviour.

• Marriott Employee’s benefits: training, work-life programs, safety nets, profit sharing, promotion or willingness to investigate concerns.
• BUT Benefits are not as essentials as having ‘hands-on managers’ that ‘possess the people skills to support, encourage, lead, inspire and listen to associates’.

Marriott manage ‘moment of truth’ through their manager’s skills

Zone of Tolerance

The zone of tolerance is defined as the range of customer perceptions of a service between desired and minimum acceptable standards (Zeithaml, Berry, Parasuraman (1991).

The distance between the adequate and the desired levels is known as the ‘zone of tolerance’ (Parasuraman et al. (1991) )

The zone of tolerance is usually defined as the range of customer perceptions of a service between desired and minimum acceptable standard (Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman, 1993)

The tolerance zone can be different within each country, but within the Marriott Hotel industry it is important for it to analyse everything and show the evidence that evidence shows within the differences to tolerate widely.

The zone of tolerance for different service dimensions

Intercultural Service Encounter

Hospitality organizations internationally create real challenges for their employees and managers to interact and effectively work with people from different cultural environments.

The Need for Intercultural Communication in an International Company is to have within the Marriott is:

• Success of a business
• Allows workers from different cultures to work together as a group
• Worldwide marketing campaign
• An increase in the Business internationally

Interestingly, recovery from cross-cultural service failures is often easier since customers consider them to have happened due to cultural difference or confusion. Such an opportunity must not be ignored. Rather it should be built upon for better understanding.

Recommendations

Have good customer-to-customer interaction has rarely been studied in a cross-cultural context and the lack of such research in the case of the hospitality industry seems to be particularly surprising [Nicholls 2011] To ensure hospitality business have well-qualified managers and identify the key managerial competencies needed for future leaders to operate effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds.

Moment of Truth are about interacting with the ‘human touch’ to customers and thanks to the NT’s, it has become easier to communicate through Internet, the next challenge in term of MOT is to create value and Moments of Magic from Social Media, Content Marketing and Mobile Device (Procter & Gamble).

Conclusion

JW Marriott started the long tradition over 90 years and states that “doing whatever it takes to take care of the customer” to which he will executes this it will keep the focus of the employees by training them to care of the customers always. It has a strong culture that is committed to the care of its employees and customers, contacting customers occurs in a variety of ways, such as direct mail, e-mail, the company Web site (which is most popular pages on Marrriott.com), the online community, is an addition to direct customer contact at the Marriott.

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The service industry grows globally and managers are exposed to more cross-cultural dealing; and to work with the force and be diverse to expect the consumers based on core cultural values increase. Competition in hotels and other sectors of the hospitality industry increases customers to be more knowledgeable about the hotel and organisation. So, with the increasing pace of globalization, hospitality within hotel chains are serving more and more international customers and different cultural backgrounds. So, to improve this within the Marriott hotel chain it is to consume intercultural experiences, and improve communication, accommodation and the hospitality strategies to match the cultural background of the service provider and the customer and/or use the customer’s native language to facilitate communication.

References

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