4 Empress Hotel Group

Assignment
Total Marks: 20
Q. No. 1- What are different types of service operations? Give examples. 4

Q. No. 2- What is the importance of customer retention? 4
Note: Read the following case study and answer the questions given at the end
The Empress Hotel Group
Davina McColl had just taken over as personnel director at the Empress Hotel Group, a major
international five-star hotel chain with its headquarters in Hong Kong. Her task in the previous
hotels in which she had worked involved setting up systems and procedures, updating the
standard operating procedures, and running customer service training departments that provided
and coached scripts, encouraged teamwork and allocated roles and duties. She
had personally trained senior hotel managers in leadership and motivation. This hotel chain, she
realised, was going to be rather different.
The Empress Hotel Group’s chairman and chief executive was Bob Beaver, an evangelical
American whose dream was to create ‘the most perfect hotel chain in the world’. He felt that the
standardised approach to five-star hotels was
not appropriate for the discerning international traveller, who wanted a taste of local culture and
traditions, not a ‘McDonald’s experience’. He wanted his hotels to be run by the local
management teams, not by head office. He felt the hotels should use local furniture and
furnishing and decorations, create local menus and use local produce. He thought the uniforms
should be different from hotel to hotel and reflect the local culture and climate, and that the
service should be warm and spontaneous.
Davina, like most of the hotel’s management, had come from other mainstream chains, which
were extremely different. The HR department’s role was to create manuals spelling out exactly
what should be done, by whom and how. The role of the operations managers was to implement
these procedures, and if they were not sure of anything they always knew they could find the
answer in one of the manuals that covered one wall in their office.
It surprised Bob, but did not surprise Davina, that the amount of discretion applied by managers
in the hotels was, in practice, small. Indeed her predecessor had worked with them to provide
systems and procedures, for which he was
sacked. Bob was determined to bring about his vision and Davina was instrumental in this.
All the staff were paid slightly above the industry average and Empress Hotels were seen as the
place to work. As Bob ruefully pointed out, ‘It is not necessarily seen as the place to stay. We
need to put my vision into practice.’ Davina’s job was to persuade both hotel managers and the
staff, from front-of-house to pot washers, to use the discretion they really had to make Empress
Hotels the best place in the world to stay.
Davina had to deal with the hotel’s facilities, food and service, and she decided to start with the
service. On her way out to see her mother in Germany she stopped for a night at the group’s
highly rated hotel in Dubai, and stayed in the
Seychelles on the way back.
She realised she had her work cut out. At check in both hotels ‘processed’ her very efficiently
but there was no warmth or colour. She asked both receptionists, who were not busy, about local
attractions and was told ‘See the concierge’(Dubai) and ‘There are some leaflets in your room’
(Seychelles). Davina also asked the difference between the guestroom she had booked and an
executive room and was told ‘350 dirham’ (Dubai) and ‘They are on the fifth floor with breakfast
included’ (Seychelles). At dinner in the hotels’ restaurants she was not offered a dessert,
although in Dubai she was asked if she would like a coffee.
Back in Hong Kong Davina set herself objectives in three areas:
● Reception – to try to make the service more spontaneous.
● Staff training – to encourage the staff to focus on the needs of the guests and not on the
procedures.
● Hotel managers – to help them assess their staff in terms of good service rather than
compliance and encourage their staff to do a good job rather than what they have always done.
Davina explained her approach:
It’s about mixing discretion with professionalism. We need to get away from standarisation and
focus on the customer and let the local colour and culture come out. Training staff is going to be
the key, but its going to be hard when we can’t define or specify what they have to do. They will
need to have the right skills, be highly motivated and willing to go the extra mile. We just have to
bring it about!’
Question
Q. No. 3- Why do the staff and managers appreciate the existence of procedures and routines?
What are the disadvantages? 6
Q. No. 4- What suggestions can you make that would help Davina encourage staff to become
warmer and more spontaneous when dealing with customers? 6

4 Empress Hotel Group

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Assignment

Q. No. 1- What are different types of service operations? Give examples. 4

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