Based on the previous discussion, the table of following recommendations are proposed:Firstly, room cleanliness standard and presentation standard should be designed for Hotel X. On the grounds that housekeeping job has been outsourcing from a third-party company, duty manager needs to liaise with housekeeping company to conduct intense training on room attendants. Plus, a revision of linen standard should be carried out to make sure the finest linen used to make up room guests. This may help in reducing the negative review in terms of cleanliness and narrowing the gap related to Tangible dimension of service quality.
Secondly, staff hiring and training also should be revised to minimize the gap in Assurance dimension. Innovating the hiring methods could aid in engaging and selecting appropriate candidates effectively (Ladkin & Buhalis, 2014). Importantly, training programs need to be conducted properly to ensure that all staffs understand Brand promise, Brand pillars, Brand service guidelines and Brand standard thoroughly. Daily briefing and weekly training are a must to keep the staffs informed and updated with any changes and incidentals occurring in hotel. Thirdly, managers should value both negative and positive feedback as there is a positive correlation between value placed on customer reviews and perception of service quality betterment (Torres, Adler, Behnke, Miao, & Lehto, 2015).
Also, reviews need to be monitored in a quick and deep manner to resolve in-house guest complaint at hand, reward staff for positive actions, make changes in service operating procedure or even train staff. Doing so may lead to an increase in hotel’s e-WOM and service quality improvement in the long term.Fourthly, the majority of hotel guests are corporate and stay more than 3 times in a year according to the descriptive data collected from surveys. If so, managers of hotel X should identify the characteristic of this market segment and then design or adjust the current service delivery in order to meet the demand of target audience. For example, customized loyalty/membership program could help in acquiring potential guests and retaining the current guests. Plus, special benefits such as express check-in and check-out, promotional laundry fee, free Wi-fi and customized towels would make them stay over and over.
