In the hospitality industry, brands need to provide the experience that their customers want. Whether they are staying in a hotel, buying from a luxury retailer or getting a massage at a spa, customers place a heavy value on the encounter as a whole. This means that successful organizations should focus not only on the physical product they sell or the room they provide, but they must also think about the overall impression and feeling they leave for their customer or client.
These insights require an understanding of service excellence and the ability to not only tap into customer needs and requirements, but also their desires. It is the path forward for businesses that want to uncover the secret for standing out from competitors in the industry and grow.
Service excellence is an important area where many in the hospitality industry need to investigate and uncover new opportunities for adoption and development. These organizations may need to undertake a fresh study on the relevance of understanding customer service and how to achieve it within their organization.
Brands struggle to provide service excellence
Although many organizations understand the principle of providing outstanding customer service, they struggle to implement it in their regular interactions with their clientele. In fact, as many as 80 percent of brands believe that they provide excellent customer service, but only 8 percent of their customers agree.
In the face of this disparity comes the critical importance of positive experiences for customers when it comes to influencing a future purchase. Nearly three-quarters of customers for hotels and restaurants report that positive experiences influence their choices. In fact, two-thirds of hotel guests report that they would go out of their way to stay at a particular hotel because they had a good experience with the brand in the past, making it the top factor when it comes to selecting hotels.
Companies that want to excel, therefore, need to better understand what drives customers. They need to understand how to bridge that gap between the 80 percent of brands that believe they provide an outstanding experience and the meagre less than ten percent of customers who actually agree. This will give them the power to create stronger brand experiences and allow their organization to rise above the competition.
The importance of service excellence
The key to bridging this gap lies in understanding service excellence. Each interaction that customers have with a particular brand or business in the hospitality industry needs to reflect a commitment to customer service and should answer the needs of each client.
Particularly as digital communication and digital touchpoints begin to replace an increasing number of interactions between brands and customers, businesses need to focus on providing that high-quality service at every opportunity. Since there are fewer opportunities for customers to interact with representatives of the brand, they will remember how they feel after each one even more clearly.
Building your brand’s knowledge of service excellence
To help organizations interested in building their understanding of a service-oriented company culture and how to take steps to improve its implementation, we have compiled a list of four blog posts that walk you through the process. Incorporating these principles into a strong business, bringing everyone in the company on board with these ideas remains an essential component.
By exploring these particular posts, your hospitality business can become well-acquainted with the potential for customer service growth as well as learning how to implement it for the customers. These posts have been selected for their ability to clearly explain the important questions at hand and provide concrete suggestions to improve service excellence at your establishment.
What is service excellence? The service excellence definition
The definition of service excellence and its role in the world of hospitality has changed as the industry and customer expectations have evolved. Brands that want to stand out in the eyes of their clients will see the value in this intriguing piece by Kimberly Yoong. Yoong explores how the definition has changed over time, some of the latest technological innovations and their role in the industry, and what brands should focus on to better understand the needs and wants of their consumers. This article is for brands that want to nurture their understanding of this critical concept as they seek to improve their consumer relationships and their ability to stand out from the rest of their competition. It provides an excellent introduction and overview of the topic.
Is service excellence the new marketing?
This thought-provoking article explains the critical relationship between brand promotion and providing outstanding customer service. Customers have changed how they interact with brands across all industries and niches. They do not respond to overt promotions and company advertising the way they once did. Instead, the impressions of other customers, including recommendations and criticisms from those who have already frequented your establishment, play an increasingly central role in the likelihood of you attracting new customers. Explore what this means for businesses in the hospitality industry and how successful brands get started proving their worth to customers and demonstrating the value that they place in customer satisfaction. This piece presents an excellent argument for the importance of placing customer needs at the forefront of business growth and marketing plans for those who want to build a strong business in the modern digital age.
How to achieve service excellence: 7 critical steps
As you and your organization begin to understand the critical importance of excellence in service, learning how to implement it is the next step. This thorough and informative article from Kanav Mata outlines how brands can begin to incorporate their service goals into their company and set themselves up for success. Not only does Mata explore the importance of creating a customer-oriented and service excellence culture within the entire company, but he also outlines exactly how to achieve this. He breaks down the steps that your brand should follow in order to take the service already provided to the next level. By following the steps outlined here, professionals in the hospitality industry can begin to understand and implement the service excellence explored in the earlier posts. They will find it easier to enhance the critical foundation that their organization needs to grow and learn how to shape their business into one that customers can count on.
Setting customer service goals: 4 steps to excellence
Once you understand the value of providing a memorably outstanding service for clients and customers, you need to implement steps that will nurture this growth. These steps must comprise a company culture that extends to all branches of the business.
By making customers feel valued, it impacts their impression of the brand and how well they view your organization. This article provides concrete, measurable means of building a customer service culture. It explores insights and statistics regarding the value that customers place on the service they receive. It helps to motivate anyone in the hospitality industry to take steps in the right direction and create the necessary framework of service excellence. The step-by-step instructions make it easy for those in the sector to understand their customer needs and then create policies that help them to act on these preferences.
Building a service excellence culture into your organization
Creating a culture of service excellence in the hospitality industry prepares an organization for growth and outstanding performance. Service excellence lets customers know that they are valued and understood. The ability to provide that luxurious, desired experience can encourage these customers to keep returning, which in turn, attracts new customers and creates a favorable reputation.
These four blog posts help to gain a firm understanding of the term "Service Excellence" and give concrete advice about how to implement it. If you are interested in building a strong hospitality business, this reading list can help you take those important initial steps towards success based on customer awareness and understanding.
