The Comparative Evaluation of Hotel Service Quality from a Managerial Perspective

ABSTRACT Total customer satisfaction is one of the most important strategic weapons of best-practice hotel organizations, because it reflects the effectiveness and efficiency of the hotel's service delivery system. To achieve total customer satisfaction, a hotel needs to build and sustain a loyal customer relationship. The establishment of a loyal customer relationship often starts with the monitoring of hotel employees who represent “internal customers” as a front-line, initial contact with hotel guests. With this in mind, this paper analyzes feedback of both hotel employees (internal customers) and guests (external customers), compares their perceived differences in the importance of service attributes to overall hotel service quality, identifies service gaps, and takes corrective action to reduce such gaps. Based on the longitudinal surveys of both hotel employees and guests who have stayed at first-class hotels in Korea, this paper develops customer retention and continuous service improvement strategies.