Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Quality in Tourism Services (Understanding Goods and Services - involved…
Quality in Tourism Services
Understanding Goods and Services - involved primarily in the delivery of services while others deliver both services and goods
Service
Deeds, performances, or efforts
Outputs of organizations that add value to our personal lives through a variety of intangibles they provide
Contrast to goods, services are intangible and perishable
Services are often accompanied by facilitating good
Deal with mainly services
Product
Offer to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need
Includes physical objects / goods, services, places, organizations, and ideas
Goods/Services Continuum
Difference between goods and services lies in the realization that these items are not completely distinct
Characteristics of Services
Intangibility
Cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelt
Products sold are intangible experiences
Implications
Difficulty in evaluating competing services
Perceive high levels of risk
Place great emphasis on personal information
Use price as a basis for assessing quality
Reduce uncertainty caused by service intangibility, buyers look for tangible evidences
Tangible evidences
Exterior of a hotel
Condition of the grounds, landscape, and overall cleanliness
Provide signals as to the quality of the intangible services
Inseparability
Services are first sold, and then produced and consumed simultaneously
Service provider and customer must be present
Implications
Customer-contact employees are part of the service
Customers are also co-producers of the service
Customers are often being co-consumer of a service with other customers
Managing employee-customer and customer-customer interactions
Service delivery system since they are co-producing the service
Ensuring of customer satisfaction
Selecting and training
Establishing rules of behaviour
Facilitating positive customer-customer interactions
Selecting and training customer-contact employees
Empowering customer-contact employees
Variability
Highly variable. Their quality depends on who provides them, and when and where they are provided
Several causes
Simultaneous production and consumption
Service provider’s skill and performance at the time of exchange
Fluctuating demand
Variability, or lack of consistency in the service, hence disappointed.
Ensure service consistency
Training
Standard Operating Procedures
Perishability
Services cannot be stored
Policies
Guaranteeing reservations with credit card
No-show charges
Last minute cancellation charges
Non-refundable bookings
Minimum length of stay
Service Encounters - tourism customers and tourism service supplier personnel bring to each encounter expectations
Movement of Truth
Customer come into contact with any aspect of the organization and gets an impression of the quality of its service
Elements of a Service Encounter
Customer
Most important element
Must be the satisfaction of the customer
Customer’s perception of loyalty
Service Provider
Service provider or employee is the other crucial human element
Service employee represents the organization
Force that keeps the delivery system going
Delivery System
Equipment, supplies, processes, programs, and procedures, as well as the rules, regulation, and organizational culture
Above the line of visibility refers to the part - direct contact
Physical evidence
Tangible aspects of a service or service organization that a customer experiences
Backstage facilities, or facilities below the line of visibility, are not considered part of physical evidence
Affect the behaviour of both customers and employees
The Importance of Quality - quality becomes more crucial for continued financial success
Definition
Form of measurement
Both objective and subjective in nature
Aspects of quality, they involving objective/measurable amounts of certain attributes
“Eye of the beholder”
Benefits of superior quality
Perceive a company’s product as superior in quality, customers pay higher price willingly
Increased market share
Generate truly brand-loyal customers
Judging the Quality of a Service
Reliability
Delivering on promises
Promised service accurately and consistently
Assurance
Ability to convey trust and confidence
Tangibles
See physical aspects of the service
Empathy
Caring, individualized attention to customers
Feel customer special
Cares about and understands needs and frustrations.
Responsiveness
Willingness to help customers and their promptness in providing service
Service guarantees
Confidence in guests regarding quality of service is by guaranteeing
More difficult to provide a guarantee in a service environment
Get refund you may not be fully satisfied
Customer satisfaction guarantee
Easy to understand
Meaningful by guaranteeing an important quality aspect
Easy to collect
Appropriate compensation