ABSTRACT
The success of a hospitality organization’s business is dependent on meeting the expectations of the consumer in terms of service quality and customer care. The intangibility of services and other characteristics outlined in this chapter make that aim more difficult to achieve than might be anticipated. Awareness of the customer’s demands and the employment of talented service personnel are key factors. In aiming to provide a defined quality of service it is essential to recognize that some elements of service are only noticed by the customer if the factor is deficient in some way, e.g. slow service, poor room temperature and excessive noise levels. A number of different approaches are discussed here including a classification scale developed at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). SERVQUAL is another approach still used internationally in evaluating the quality of service experiences. It is based on a generic 22-item questionnaire that considers five broad aspects of service quality.
