Hilton Hotels A Name That Has Been Synonymous Marketing Essay

Hilton Hotels A Name That Has Been Synonymous Marketing Essay Chapter 1 Introduction Overview The hospitality industry has from time in memorial revolutionised to ensure business in this service industry is conducted in a unique way such that at the end of the day, customers get value for their money. In brief, that is Satisfaction. Hilton Hotels, a name that has been synonymous with excellence in hospitality is a hotels and resorts worldwide that goes a notch above and believes that their customers are not only customers but they are their guests. Therefore, ensuring customers stay is memorable has always been paramount and of great concern to Hilton group of Hotels. Furthermore the hotel ensures that they supersede their customers expectations and always guarantees satisfaction. The research focuses on Customer satisfaction in the Hospitality industry with a Particular reference to Hilton London Hyde Park hotel. Located a mile from Oxford Street and the west End, the hotel is one of the distinct, exciting hotels on the city doorstep. The researcher sought to find out the unending process of ensuring and guaranteeing customer satisfaction at this hotel property which forms part of the entire Hilton hotels fraternity. (Hilton Hotels and Resorts, 2010) Customer Satisfaction in Hospitality industry has been the bottom line in earning competitive advantage. It should be of interest to the reader that there has been enormous competition in this industry that is always highly competitive and all Hotels whether for business or leisure strives to ensure they meet and exceed their customers expectations. Meeting Customers expectation ensures customer satisfaction, and that is what all customers look for when they check in at the Hilton- London Hyde Park. Aims and Objectives of the study. This research sought to evaluate customer satisfaction at the Hilton- London Hyde Park. To ensure a clear guideline on how this research was going to be conducted, the researcher developed the aims and objectives which have been outlined below; To review the existing literature on customer satisfaction and add to the body to of knowledge how to ensure customers expectations are met and exceeded in achieving customer satisfaction. To find out competitive advantage that Hilton- London Hyde Park has earned that guarantees customer satisfaction. To investigate on regular customer complaints and ways in which customer complaints are handled at the Hilton London Hyde Park. To recommend suitable ways to ensure good customer care at the Hilton London Hyde Park that would be part of ensuring customers expectations have been met. Research Purpose and Rationale. The main purpose of this study is to independently ascertain in details the process of customer satisfaction at the Hilton- London Hyde Park. When customers needs and expectations have been met, customers are said to be satisfied. It is every customers desire that businesses take their needs and expectations at heart, this in the end has a long term results since it compels them to come back to the business hence becoming loyal. Businesses also benefit by ensuring customer satisfaction. This is evident when the same customers frequent the business daily or regularly, it creates loyal customers who will purchase more and even recommend that business to their friends and colleagues. Its from this fact that the researcher sought to evaluate customer satisfaction at a Hotel that champions it. Hilton -London Hyde Park has been on the fore front in ensuring and guaranteeing customer satisfaction, as a matter of fact the hotels has also been used as a benchmark for other properties that are struggling or yearning to achieve satisfy their customers. The research also sought to tackle customers perception of products and services at Hilton- London Hyde Park. Customers perception is always as a result of what they have experienced first hands at they Stay in the Hotel or what they have heard about the Hotel, the issue of perception cannot be ignored since it affects business performance. Hilton -London Hyde Park has put in place brand standards in every area of operations; this is for the sole reason of ensuring that customers expectations are met and exceeded as well as to maintain a positive image to the customers who are in the Hotel either for business, meeting and conferences or leisure. The researcher therefore was prompted to find out customers perception on products and services at the Hotel. Scope and Limitations Due to lack of funding and inadequate resources to support the project, the researcher focused only on Hilton London Hyde Park out of the hundreds hotels around London. Some of the customers who were presented with questionnaires most of them didnt fill them in because the hotel also provides questionnaires to the guests on arrival. Most of them always felt in a rush due to their busy schedules and lack of time to respond to the customer satisfaction questionnaire. Questionnaires that were returned, some were half filled or poorly filled. The other challenge was lack of information from first time customers at the hotel. On the questionnaires, it showed lack of knowledge and that some customers dont care about customer satisfaction especially those who dont pay for their bills such as business customers. Summary The introduction chapter highlighted the pre amble of this research. This has been achieved by giving a simple synopsis of the research aims and objectives, presenting the background information of the research conducted as well as the importance of the research and all the limitations that were encountered while at it. In the following chapters an in-depth and detailed piece of this work is presented that will shed more light on the various literature and scholarly works that has been carried out on customer satisfaction. Chapter 2 Literature Review 2.1 Introduction In this chapter various scholarly articles on customer satisfaction are going to be examined and compared, further more academic literature on the same will be reviewed and this will help the researcher relate to the research findings. This chapter will highlight various literatures on customer satisfaction and all the factors related to customer satisfaction. It describes in depth how good customer service from business acts as a catalyst in achieving satisfaction. However from this section it will be interesting to note that, not all customers appreciate what businesses does for them and hence the issue on customer complaint which can either be genuine or not. This opens the eyes of the potential reader to note that customers whose expectations are met tend to be satisfied, those whose expectations were exceeded tend to be delighted and those whose expectations were not met at all tend to be dissatisfied, this categorised the various kind of customers as much as customer satisfaction is concerned. 2.2 Who is a customer? There have been various definitions as well about who a customer is, but regardless of any definition its fundamentally clear that a customer is the most important person in any business. Every business must realise that a customer not dependent upon the business but on the contrary the business is dependent upon them since they are the sole reason as to why that business exists and favours the business when they come to buy the products or services that a business offers. Any business therefore knows that the customer is an essential part it, not an outsider. (Robert, 2005) The customer is the person who comes to the business with his needs and wants and its ultimate for that business to fulfil their requirements. A business should also accord every customer the most courteous attention they can give them since the customer is the lifeblood of every business, as a matter of fact Its Important to realise that without the customer any business would have been behind to closed doors. (Don and Martha, 2004) 2.3 Customer Satisfaction A result of good customer care is referred to as customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction therefore is a derived term that shows the results of offering good customer care in a business. It should be noted that customer care therefore involves the planning of all activities in customer supplier relationship including the pre, during and after stages so as to ensure the customer expectations with regard to transaction process are met or exceeded (Withey and Lancaster, 2006). This clearly shows that for customer satisfaction to be achieved the process towards customer satisfaction starts before the product or a service is offered to the customer. Customer care involves more than just customer service, as a matter of fact; customer service is an important facet of customer care especially in ensuring that customer satisfaction is achieved. The latter necessitates the involvement of every facet of the company marketing and customer related programmes and should affect every single stage of the marketing planning and implementation process (Withey and Lancaster, 2006). Its therefore important for marketing managers to ensure that good customer service is put in place and addressed in the marketing process since this will be part and parcel for ensuring that customer satisfaction is finally achieved. Kotler (2009) approaches customer satisfaction from a different perspective. He refers to customer satisfaction as the customers feeling of pleasure or disappointment that arises from comparing the products perceived performance to their expectations. This means that customers have a certain perception towards every product they use hence its evident that if this products or service doesnt fulfil the customer expectation according to his or her perception about the product there will be dissatisfaction. Furthermore if the performance of the business matches the expectations in which the customer had perceived the product or service the customer is satisfied and if the performance exceeds expectations, the customer is highly satisfied or delighted. Customer Satisfaction therefore starts even before the product or service is provided to the customers, its important to note that every aspect of the business contributes to the overall customer satisfaction. It is vital for all the companies to realise that investing in good customer service and care will result in total customer satisfaction. But as much as companies that are customer focused is concerned will create customer satisfaction, its not the ultimate goal of a business. If a company will reduce the price of the products and service that they offer so as to ensure satisfaction then it means that as much as customers are going to be happy and get satisfaction from lowered price then that means the business may suffer as a result, and when a business suffers all the stake holders will suffer as well. Its reasonable therefore for all the company that seeks to create total customer satisfaction to do so subject to offering acceptable levels of satisfaction to the stake holders given the total results, (Kotler, 2009). Customers form their expectations from various channels. Kotler (2009) explains that the following aspects build up customers expectation; Past Buying experience. Friends and associate advice. Marketers and competitors information and promises. A customer previous or past buying experience can be a great determining factor that can persuade him or her to purchase and repurchase the product. If a product met the customer expectations in the first instance, it is possible that the customer will go back and repurchase that product or service. On the other hand friends and associate advises really count on building up customer expectations, consumers often tend to seek advises on where best to get a certain product or which company offers the best services, from this aspect there is a greater likelihood of the customer to believe his or friends or associates if they have had a first experience with the companys product or services. Lastly Kotler (2009) emphasis on Marketers and competition information and promises cannot be ignored many times the markers raise hopes on a certain product by doing a massive advertisement on that product. Competitors who seek to enlarge their market share are usually ion the spree on luring customers, the sum total of this builds up customer expectations before buying the product. From the companies perspective the dilemma that comes with customer expectations is that if their marketers raise high expectations, the consumers will be disappointed, the need to raise expectations by the company acts as a great marketing tool but can be disastrous if that expectation is not met at all. However if a company decides to set expectations too low, then that means that the company will not attract buyers but the likelihood of customers whose product value includes low prices will be satisfied. Companies should therefore raise expectation and deliver so as to match hence creating satisfaction Kotler (2009). 2.4 Cost of Poor Customer Care (Michael and Steven, 2005) emphasizes that if a customer expectation at any point of the customer relationship is not met, the result will customer dissatisfaction. These consequences can be mild or worse depending on the circumstances given. Most of the dissatisfied customers tend to complain to the company, others decide to stop purchasing from the same company, however the worst of dissatisfied customers are the ones who bad mouth the company especially if they were treated in a way that did not favourable to them, this kind of customers spread the news and unfortunately bad news travel faster than good new hence these might have negative impact to the company. (Michael and Steven, 2005) further confirms that dissatisfied customers with bad experiences are twice as likely to tell others as the good experiences customers, this pointer indicates the extent to which lack of satisfying customers expectation can lead to. Its important for business to realise that maximizing customer sa tisfaction gives them a competitive edge to exist in the market, customers are faced by many similar products as well as complimentary product, which makes it easier for them to switch to another product if they are dissatisfied in any way. 2.5 Benefits of Good Customer Care Contrary to a dissatisfied customer, a customer who is satisfied is a major asset to the business. The business can be rest assured that they will come back and in the long run become loyal customers (Lancaster and massingham, 2010). This explains why most customer focused companies are setting up loyalty programmes that seek to reward customer in order to woo them to be loyal and keep them in the business. The value of maintaining loyal customers is immeasurable to a business; it affirms the business that there will be repurchase from the loyal customers and at least a good word will pass around from them, which is a consequence of good customer care. The cost of acquiring new customers as opposed to maintaining the existing ones is very high, and every business primary goal is to minimise cost as well as maximizing profits. Good customer care ensures that business maintains its regular customers and still maximize on the loyal customers (Lancaster, 2010) 2.6 Loyalty from Regular Customers This is the act of particular customers returning to make purchases on the same product and services and choosing the same business for their purchases. A repeat purchase is another benefit of good customer care. Customers who are impressed and whose expectations are met will end up buying from the same business from time to time, this gives the business leverage when it comes to competitive advantage Below is a ladder of customer loyalty. From the above diagram, the suspect is the lowest level of the relationship ladder whereby the suspect includes everyone who might buy the product or service, a prospect is one who has the potential of buying your product or service while customers have purchased either a product or service from you and have the potential of buying it again, clients are those who do come back and then lastly but not least the advocates are those who market a product or service on behalf of your behalf. (Smith, 2006) 2.7 Referrals from Customers When businesses make sure that all their customer expectations have been met, they are indirectly marketing themselves to the potential buyers. Regular customers of any organizations always advise potential buyers about the products and services offered by that business. It is a common practice for satisfied customers to tell others especially their friends and colleagues about the exemplary service they received from particular business. This boosts the business in a ways that it even reduces on its costs of advertising since the outcome of good customer services is that word is spreading about what customers perceive on the products and services that are being offered. Referrals are more credible than advertising, while advertising convinces the potential buyer to buy a product that not been tried by the potential buyer, referrals offer a firsthand advise from an individual who has had a good experience with the companys product. Therefore its evidently clear that good customer care gives birth to loyalty that generates referrals which is a benefit to the business in terms of maximizing profit. 2.8 Customer Retention A business that meets customers expectations and surpasses those expectations and remains consistent in its customer care tends to retain those customers. These are the type of customers who will be loyal to the brand or the business in terms of purchases. Customer retention is as simple as making sure that the loyal customers are given all the reasons to buy the product again and again either by giving them incentives or by introducing a loyalty programme that will be rewarding them and earning them points every time them make a purchase. Most of the companies have implemented strategies that allow the marketing department to take care of their customers so as to make sure they are faithful to the brand in order to create retention. It should be noted that customer retention is a process that takes time since customers tend to judge the ability of a company to be consistent in being good to them. Its highly advised that the companies should rethink about their ways in which they ret ain their customers since in this competitive age a competitive strategy goes hand in hand with ensuring a market share is maintained and increased. 2.9 Steps in Customer Satisfaction Encourage face to face dealings. Dealing with customers face to face can be outright scary for any sales or company representative if they are doing it for the first time. However the results can reward handsomely and moreover the nervousness ceases with time. Depending on the kind of business that a company is operating its vital for the marketers as well as the sales team to go out and meet their customers face to face so as to get a firsthand experience and to create the business bond. It is advised that when meeting the customers calmness and confident are the two characters that need to be utilized. Listen to them and ask them what they need. It is believed that if a potential client in a business spends over half the meeting doing the talking, the company is on the way to making the sale. Face to face dealings is therefore paramount in dealing with your customers. Respond to messages promptly. Customers always want their queries and questions about a product or service to be answered promptly or as soon as possible. It is very unprofessional to keep customers waiting for a response that takes ages before its replied. Its also advised that even if the query cannot be answered at the exact time the courtesy of letting the customer know that their query has been received and will be attended to as soon as possible will be indispensable. Customers feel appreciated when their queries have been attended to and someone has taken their time to. Be Friendly and approachable. Customers always want to deal with someone who they can talk to and even relate in a friendly manner, this breaks down all the business formality and creates a conducive atmosphere to do business. Its very important to be friendly and courteous and to make them feel that they are part of the business and can be helped out when in need, this gives them some emotional security to know that they can always count and rely on the business. It should be noted that as much as some customers are annoying and would like to take advantage of every situation, its critical that you keep a positive outlook as well as give them feedback as best as you can while maintaining politeness and courtesy. Have a clear defined customer service policy. Every company that is customer focused understands the value of implementing customer service policy for efficiency in handling customers. It not only saves time but serves as a competitive advantage for the company as far as customers are concerned. Customer service policies are rules and guidelines that a company sets up for the purposes of ensuring customer services are handled in the most appropriate manner that it deserves. Its the procedural process in which customers queries are handled and this procedures outline the steps in which certain steps should be taken if the usual way doesnt work out. Customers should know what kind of steps they should take when making an inquiry since they find it annoying to be transferred to from the staff to the supervisor, to the manager who will then fail to solve it. A clear defined customer service policy therefore ensures that the company takes into consideration the needs of the customers as w ell as saving time for the company. Anticipate clients needs. Anticipating clients needs is a very high level of customer and company relationship that not many companies achieve. But it is evident that they companies that can boast about knowing and anticipating customer need can boast as well about the great rewards that yielded from it. This refers to a pro active nature of the company to look beyond what the customers wants and spoil them for what they wish to have without charging them any extra penny. It refers to a level where the company takes an insight into the customers needs and supersedes it. This act of anticipation to the customers needs will be used to spread good word about the company and the results will be referrals since many would love to be treated the same way. Honour Promises. Companies sell their products and services by promising amazing rewards from purchase of their product and services. It is empirical that this promises should be honoured otherwise the consequences can be daunting. Customers always want to make sure that they relate to the company that promises and delivers the promise. Lack of delivering promises can cause dissatisfaction and customers can bad mouth the company. Most importantly the company might suffer from lack of purchases that will eventually result to low profitability as well as losses. Benefits on products purchase, services on goods bought, meeting deadlines on projects and even charging for the amounts quoted are examples of keeping promises to the customers. 2.10 Monitoring Customer Satisfaction It is important for companies to monitor satisfaction since its the only way they can be able to know factors that shape customer satisfaction and from this they can be able to know what areas to improve on so as to ensure customer satisfaction is achieved by the company. Kotler (2009) argues that the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty is not proportional, the level of customer satisfaction varies from customer to customer hence its evidently clear that the lowest level of satisfaction can be characterised by customers who can find it easy to switch since as much as their expectation have been met, they still feel there is a better product out there and this means they can easily switch. The other level which is a bit higher than the lowest level of satisfaction refers to customers who are fairly satisfied and are likely to buy again as well as talk good about the company and the products. The level that is ultimate in customer satisfaction is where the customer is delighted, at this level there is an emotional attachment to the company and not just a rational one. Companies are therefore advised to always aim to achieve maximum satisfaction since its the only sure way of ensuring repeat business in the company. Measuring customer satisfaction will allow a company to be able to recognise what makes customers attain different degrees of satisfaction. Kotler (2009) lists several measurement techniques which include; Periodic Surveys. Customer loss rate. Mystery shoppers. Periodic surveys refers to ways in which companies track customer satisfaction by sending customers survey questionnaires to measure level of satisfaction as well as to know whether the customers can repurchase from the business again. Customer Loss rate is another way of monitoring satisfaction where the business tracks the lost customers and seek to find out why they dont purchase any more of the companys product or why they switched to a different brand. A mystery shopper has been a new trend that is first hand and that gives evidence on buyers experience. This method involves hiring potential customers to pose as customers so as to get the experience of how customers are helped and treated by buying the companys product in comparison with the competitors product. Additionally it should be a caution to companies that are complacent with their achievement on performance of customer satisfaction. They are highly always advised to monitor competitors performance in this areas since what might seems satisfactory to a company, might mean a low mark to another company. This is evident since some companies set a certain target of ensuring customer satisfaction is achieved and when achieved and possibly surpassed, they tend to relax and be comfortable not knowing that their competitors bench mark is even higher than what they are aiming to achieve. Companies should therefore do everything as possible to monitor customer satisfaction for purposes of efficiency. 2.11 Customer Complaints. Customers always look forward to companies to fulfil their expectations once they go there to make a purchase. Customer complaints refer to grievances placed by the customers if they are disappointed by lack of companies in fulfilling their expectations. Some companies have always been mistaken to measure customer satisfaction by analysing customer complaints; this is wrong and ineffective since a customers perception about a product or service starts even before a purchase is done. Jobber and Lancaster (2009) said that perception is a complex process by which people select, organise and interpret sensory stimulations into meaningful picture of the world. The process might be used to sort out the masses of stimuli that could be perceived into manageable amount. So even before the customer makes a purchase there has been a perception about the brand. 2.12 Benefits of Customer Satisfaction A company that ensures customer satisfaction is achieved is at the verge of enjoying benefits that is linked to it. (Vadim, 2010) highlights the benefits of customer satisfaction as; Highly satisfied customer generally stays in the business longer. When customers needs are totally met the tendency is that the customer will stick to that business more and more since he or she will always want the expectation to be met. This in turn will be an advantage to the business since there will be repeat business that will favour profitability. Less sensitive to price. Customers who normally stick to a particular business have a perceived value as well as firsthand experience on the companys products and services, its an advantage therefore to the business since anytime there will be a change it the price structure or a price quote, the business will enjoy the fruits of loyalty. Pays less attention to competing brands, a company can boast of having a market niche that does not pay keen attention to the competitors because of the relationship they have with a company that delivers and gives them satisfaction. Most customers are always happy why they realise they have a shoulder to lean on and thus shunning away any competitor trying to convince them otherwise. 2.13 Influence of Customer Satisfaction. Customer satisfaction influences the whole company as well in terms of the daily running of the marketing activities which are costly. Marketers are therefore left with a challenge of maximising profits, ensuring customer satisfaction is achieved and guaranteed as well as costs are minimised as soon as possible. 2.14 Summary. Customer service is a practiced art that takes time and effort to master. All one needs to do to achieve this is to sit back and reverse roles with the customer. What would you want from your business if you were the customer? How would you want to be treated? Treat your customers like your friends and theyll always come back. In conclusion the customer is the most important person in any business and if it was not for the customers the business wouldnt be established in the first place furthermore customer satisfaction basically ranges from industry to industry and in this research the researcher will be able to know customer satisfaction in the Hospitality Industry. Chapter Three Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction In the prior chapter, customer satisfaction was clarified conceptually and clearly outlined by use of the available literature the researcher was able to compare notes to. From the literature reviewed it is evident that customer satisfaction is a product of good customer care in every business, further more from the literature the researcher was able to categorise customers in three categories ; Dissatisfied, Satisfied and Delighted customers. In this chapter, the researcher outlines how this research was conducted in order to evaluate customer satisfaction at Hilton-London Hyde Park Hotel. The chapter opens up by outlining the research aims and objectives so as to keep abreast with the main reason as to why this research was conducted, more so by outlining the aims and objectives, the researcher is able to have a clear guideline on the use of relevant research philosophy to be used as well as the research approach to be put in place. In addition, an effective research strategy had to be inculcated by the researcher so and to ensure that data collected was credible and would be able to give the researcher the desired results; this chapter explains in depth the use of the research strategy used in this case. Towards the end of this chapter the research explains the data collection method this research employed as well as putting ethical consideration into perspective. Last but not the least the chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of this research methodology. It should be noted that lack of a clearly defined methodology may lead to the wrong collection of data that can be tendered irrelevant to the research report, its therefore highly important for researchers to have a critical analysis of the broad research methods and select the appropriate to be used in their research. 3.2 Research Aims and