Service Quality Gaps Audit Free Essay Example

History

Hotel

The history of the Fairmont Royal York starts in the nineteenth century in the year of 1843 (AccorHotels). Captain Thomas Dick a respected boat captain constructed Ontario Terrace which contained four walls houses. Knox Theological College soon occupied the building, and, in the year of 1853, refurbishment took place and the building’s name changed to Sword’s Hotel (AccorHotels). To add on, change of ownership took place soon and the hotel was named Revere Hotel this time around.

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In 1862, Captain Dick rebought the hotel, did renovations in the hotel and was named Queen’s Hotel (AccorHotels).

The hotel became one of the biggest hotels in a boomtown. Rumors were made that the hotel hosted Sir John A. Macdonald’s meeting with the sympathies of the American Civil War as they plotted retaliation.

Queen’s Hotel was demolished as the Canadian Pacific Railway announced to construct the biggest hotel in British Commonwealth. The construction started in 1927 suddenly from the Union Station to Canadian Pacific Railway (AccorHotels).

The construction finished in 1929, as the hotel was officially named The Royal York which was at that time the tallest building in the British Commonwealth (AccorHotels). The hotel set the standards for the industry of hospitality. The hotel’s magnificent architecture, engineering, and mechanical genius made it popular in the whole of Toronto. The hotel stood 28 floors high which consisted of 1,048 rooms which were pre-installed with radio, bathtubs and private showers (AccorHotels). The landmass of 1.5 acres of public rooms consisted of a hospital of 12 beds, 10 passenger elevators and a 12,000-book library (AccorHotels).

The hotel has a Concert hall which was a full stage of pipe organs weighted over 50 tons (AccorHotels). It was one of the biggest areas of copper in Canada over a radius of 300 miles. Renovations of 100 million took place from 1988 to 1993 to restore the original charm, elegance and the guestrooms, health clubs, public spaces and skylit lap pools (AccorHotels).

To this date, Fairmont hotel has hosted over 40 million guests (AccorHotels). Renovations brought changes to the hotel over the years, but numerous features of the original hotel are still intact. Even after all these years, the hotel remains one of the luxurious hotels in Toronto.

Restaurant, Bar, and Bakery

Fairmont hotel has a restaurant, a bakery and a bar which is called the library bar. The restaurant mainly serves Canadian cuisine with a bit of French touch. The restaurant represents the living history of the riches of Canada.

The bakery in Fairmont hotel is one of the biggest hotel bakeries in Canada which would produce over 15,000 French rolls in a day (AccorHotels). It is located just behind the bar, has satisfied the morning hunger of the guests with fresh bread and roasted coffee for decades.

The library bar of the hotel is serving the traditional tea since 1929 (AccorHotels). Tea at the library bar is generally served with fine vintage china and handmade sandwiches.

Service Quality Gaps Audit

Customer Gap 1 = Poor

10 = Excellent

Customer Gap score 17.5/20

Closing the Gaps

Customer Gap- The first gap is the customer gap which contains the quality of service provided by the company to its customers. The second question in the customer gap is how customers perceive the service expected from the hotel. After doing the audit I concluded that the service expected from the customers is higher than the service provided by the restaurant. However, the difference is minimal, so this gap does not need to be closed.

Listening Gap- the Listening gap is the first provider gap in the audit and it focuses on the research by the restaurant to know what the customers are telling them and how are they responding to the needs of their customers. The listening gap is also about the reporting of staff to the administration of what the customers are expecting of them and how the senior staff in the restaurant reacts to the needs and expectations of the customers. In my perspective, the score for the listening gap is below the desired score. This gap needs to be closed to enhance customer satisfaction at the hotel.

Service Design and Service Performance Gap- This gap is based on the tangibles and physical evidence blueprint planned by the restaurant which gives a customer a physical experience to the customer. Standards set by the restaurant are challenged in this gap as to how the restaurant maintains its standards consistently. The Fairmont Royal York hotel is having hosted millions of guests in its lifetime and the reason that so many riches and celebrities stayed in this hotel is because of the standard set by this hotel and restaurant in the hospitality industry. Over the years the restaurant has changed to its service to adapt to the new needs of the time, that is why this restaurant has survived for so long. This gap does not need to be closed as this ap received the maximum score in the audit and compared to other gaps, this gap provides the most satisfaction to the customers.

Service Performance Gap- This Gap is an emphasis on the performance of the delivery of service directly by the restaurant staff to the customers as it covers all aspects of the delivery of the service. This gap does need to be closed as according to the scores it received the performance is slightly below the standard set by the luxurious Fairmont Royal York restaurant.

Communication Gap- This gap focuses on the macro communication of the restaurant. It ranges from the communication of the staff to its senior departments, supervisors to mangers, mangers to executive mangers and ground staff to the customers. The communication in this gap travels both ways as the listening gaps focus on the listening part on the communication. However, this gap is about listening and speaking which makes good communication. After reviewing the scores, this gap seemed to underperform than its standard. This gap needs to be closed to increase the customer satisfaction of the hotel

Detail Examination and Strategies to Close Gaps

Listening Gap- After analyzing this gap in depth the key factors contributing to this gap came out to be as follows:

• Lack of upward communication- The lead cause of this problem is the lack of interaction between the customers and the restaurant management. Apart from this, there are too many layers between the contact personnel and the upper management (Zeithaml, et al. xx).
• Inadequate service recovery – The error occurs because the staff fails to make amends when things go wrong, and service failure takes place (Zeithaml, et al. xx).
• Listening to customer complaints and train the staff to provide satisfying service recovery when service failure takes place.
• Asking customers for their feedback and do a primary search on the customer satisfaction consistently and the top management reviewing the survey. Come up with improvements where ever there is room.
• Communication Gap – After reviewing this gap in-depth, the following shortcomings were discovered
• Overpromising – This a common mistake experienced in the hospitality industry many times, in a luxurious hotel like Fairmont customers expect a high-end service from the restaurants. Overpromising becomes huge stress for any company if it happens frequently (Zeithaml, et al. xx).
• Inappropriate pricing – The restaurant at Fairmont has high prices and sometimes even for small to little things the prices seem unfair to the customers. Not all the customers can afford to pay a lot of money for just one appetizer or a bottle of sparkling water. A leading cause of the decline in customer satisfaction is overpricing everything to make more revenue (Zeithaml, et al. xx).
• Limiting overpromises by training staff to teach them possible and cost-friendly promises to make to the customers. Overpromising causes a lot of headaches to the management; therefore enough training is required to provide to the staff by the human resource department.

Another strategy the management can use to enhance customer satisfaction is by not overcharging the customers and come up with new prices for small meals, appetizers, and types of water, so the customer does not feel that they are getting ripped off by the restaurant.

Works Cited

• AccorHotels. “Toronto Royal York Hotel History – Fairmont Royal York.” Luxury Hotels & Resorts – Fairmont Hotels – Fairmont Hotels & Resorts – Fairmont, 2019, www.fairmont.com/royal-york-toronto/hotelhistory/.
• Zeithaml, Valarie, et al. Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. 7th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2017, p. 46.
• Zeithaml, Valarie, et al. Services Marke
• ting: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm. 7th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2017, p. 48

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