Marketing assignment on: Report writing on service marketing strategy for Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort
1. Executive Summary:
This report discusses the service marketing strategy for Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort. This report also highlights the patterns & determinants of demand for the existing services offered. It provides a clear understanding of the service delivery strategy along with identification of potential sources of service failure.
This report provides recommendations about improvements that can be made in the service & suitable service quality monitoring systems which can be used.
2. Overview of the Radisson Blu hotel & resort
Radisson Blu, previously known as Radisson SAS, was famous outside the United States including those in Africa, Asia and Europe. But after some time, the withdrawal of SAS took place from the partnership, and the new brand Radisson Blu is being introduced across the world.
Radisson Blu Resorts & hotels have marked its presence in more than 200 countries in the Middle East Africa and Europe, and planning to incorporate 51 more hotels in the years to come. Radisson Blu can be differentiated from its competitors in various ways & is known for its first class service such as ‘100% guest satisfaction’ & ‘Yes I Can spirit of service’(Hill, Arthur et al, 2002).
Radisson Blu is a division of Rezidor hotel group, which is one of the quickest growing resorts all over the globe. It comprises of several hotels ranging from 350-400 (approx.) operating in more than 62 countries, & comprising of 87000 rooms. Radisson Blu hotels are situated in city centers, leisure resorts, airports and world capitals.
Radisson Blu wants to be a market leader by mixing its different and stylish method to hotel hardware with its Yes I Can strength of hospitality on the software side.
2.1 Services offered by Radisson Blu Hotel & Resorts:
The current services provided by Radisson Blu Hotels & Resorts are almost the same as compared to its competitors, but, the way they serve their customers is entirely different. ‘Yes I Can’ policy is a feature that helped Radisson Hotel to be on the top most lists & be a market leader in their field.
‘Yes I Can’ portrays a positive attitude when they deal with every guest. The main theme of Radisson is to provide 100% satisfaction to their guests. The employees at Radisson Blu Hotel & Resorts give their guests commitment that if they are not satisfied with the services offered, the customers are not required to pay a single penny.
Radisson Blu hotel and resorts, room styles are famous for more than 20 years; they give a choice to the guests to select a room of their choice. There are about 20 different room designs. The guests at this hotel have the liberty to choose the design according to their taste, preference, living style as well as their budget.
The Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort is well known for it 3 hours Express laundry. The guests could get a delivery of their washed & ironed clothes within 3 hours. This feature added to its credentials & the guests used to prefer coming to this place for a stay.
The variety of food the hotel offers is another reason for which the hotel was famous for. The Radisson Blu hotels are famous for its super breakfast. It has wide range of food items ranging from the best continental, north European & American. Breakfast on the go is another feature which Radisson provides. This is the first ever hotel which has a provision for take away breakfast for those guests who don’t have time to sit & dine (Hill, Arthur et al, 2002). They serve their guests with tea & coffee in disposable cups with fresh fruits in a disposable plate.
Radisson is also famous for its Late Check-Out. Radisson hotels don’t charge any extra dollar, in excess of the normal check out time. Radisson is famous for its one touch service; the guests can get anything at their room by just pressing of one button of telephone. The easy connect service offered by Radisson hotels which enables the guests to log on to the internet with high speed in all the guest rooms and public areas. The satellite reception desks are designed specially for guests who provide them more personalized, informal and efficient relaxed service while checking in /out.
Since Radisson Blu hotel & resorts have been ranked amongst the top five star category hotels, its target market is majorly the high class as well as the rich people. The target market of Radisson also comprises of big business houses that visit & book their banquet halls for seminars, meetings & conferences.
3. Determinants of demand:
There are various determinants of demand that helps any industry or sector to attract consumers towards themselves.
One of the major determinants of demand for hospitality sector would be the Price of the services offered by a Hotel or a Resort. The demand for Radisson Blu Hotel & resort would change if the prices of the services offered by the hotel increases. Though, it has been discussed above that the target market for Radisson are the high end consumers but, we cannot forget if the prices increases the demand for a particular product/service decreases (Haeckel et al, 2003).
The other factor that would lead to a shift in the number of consumers arriving at the hotel is the Substitution effect. This means the other five star hotels & resorts would offer the same services at a lower rate in order to attract more number of guests at their door step.
The Income of the consumer (guest) also has an effect on the demand. Since, the services offered by a five star hotel & resort is a luxury therefore, as the income of the consumer increases he/she tends to visit places which marks his status. The target population of the Radisson Hotel & Resorts is the big business houses, high end consumers, etc who are ready to spend huge amounts.
The taste & preference would also lead to a change in the demand for a particular industry/ sector. The services provided by Radisson Blu hotel should be such that the guests arriving at their hotel should develop a favorable taste towards itself & guests are forced to come to that place time & again.
4. Blueprint of the existing service delivery system:
Blueprint refers to a tool for simultaneously depicting the service process, the points of customer contact, and the evidence of service from the customer’s point of view.
Radisson Hotels is a well known brand known for its hospitality and services. The Rezidor group of hotel ensures that all reservations would be made on Radisson Blu websites which provides the guests with best available price for the rooms according to the choice of customers and the dates which are suitable for them (Haeckel et al, 2003).
The online booking helps the general public to find out the lowest rate online and do reservations confirmed in the local currency of the hotel (Mudie & Pirrie, 2006).
The quality of the service provided by Radisson makes them different as compared to its competitors. ‘Yes I can’ is a philosophy which enables them to make strong alliances with the guests, the quality of the service provided by Radisson influence the customers to come in the hotel and avail the services and this in result effect the demand of the service.
The main purpose of Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort is to provide customer full value for money by carrying out reservations through websites.
Radisson hotels use certain service quality performance metrics which is based upon room comment cards given by hotel guests. First on the basis of willingness to return how many customers show their concern to come back again. Second on the basis of percent advocates how many percent of the customers will refer Radisson hotel to others. Third, on the basis of percent defectors that how many percent of the customers showed negative response to hotel? Fourth on the basis of how many percent customers have lodged complaint of room night?
Radisson Blu hotel & resort provides services on the basis of three concepts. They are as under:
Marketing Communication Impact: Radisson hotels will provide a strong service in the form of offensive and defensive marketing impact. With the help of high quality service they are able to attract new customers. At the same time they offer service not only to recover unsatisfied customers but also encourage dissatisfied customers to complain and to recover those customers in the future.
Employee motivation and mission: This service motivates the employees to fulfill the guarantee and to satisfy the customers. This service not only just take the reservations , check out the customers or clean the rooms but also inspire a new vision for service quality when employees are required to satisfy consumer needs (Mudie & Pirrie, 2006).
Organizational service learning: This service helps the organizations to find out unsatisfied customers and learn from them and improve the service quality.
This service will have a positive influence on the vision and the motivation of the employees and thereby increases service quality and customer satisfaction. It helps the organization to focus on their weakest part and improve it from customer responses. This service helps the organization to measure the service quality performance on the basis of marketing communication impact, employee motivation and mission and organizational service teaching (Haeckel et al, 2003).
Radisson managers and employees were required to participate in the training program before the hotel could implement the service guarantee program.
4.1 Potential sources of service failure
Apart from all the positives, there are certain potential sources which would lead to failure in near future.
Since major bookings are done through internet, the potential service would be caused due to the ineffective functioning of the website or due to the server break downs. Another potential service failure was, customers found it very difficult to receive a full refund for a minor complaint that they lodged. This actually discouraged the customers from voicing their complaints.
If unacceptable room rates are charged, when the customer leaves the hotel before time would also lead to service failure thereby leading to dissatisfaction of the consumers.
Service failure could take place because of miscommunication takes place between hotel staff and customers (Haeckel et al, 2003).
During the process of service delivery failures, errors and mistakes can frequently happen.
Service failure could take place when the booking site charges extra price from customers and combines guest fees, taxes, tariffs with discounts or offers.
An example which would illustrate the service failures at one of the Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort is as under – Doha Qatar on Feb 14 2011, stayed with his wife at The Radisson Blu Tala Bay Resort during a 7-day trip to Jordan they think this might be a good hotel for diving, sunbathing and water sports but in general it was a big disappointment for them. The very charming town of Aqaba was located outside and to reach there they had to spend at least 20 minutes and the hotel service was not suitable at all. They faced disappointment in the case of average quality of towel and bed linens. During their stay there was a power failure at the hotel and causes a major inconvenience to them, they would have expected some compensation to be made or some gesture by management, but there was nothing from management of hotel (Qatar, 2011).
5. Recommendation about improvements:
In order to overcome the potential service failures, the hotel staff should try & understand their weak points & start working on it.
They should understand that the guests are the main source of marketing. If they would be dissatisfied with current services offered by the hotel then they would never recommend about the hotel to their friends, colleagues, etc.
As a part of the service industries, the hotel industry involves a high amount of personal contact between hotel staff and customers so; any miscommunication between the hotel staff and customers can lead to the service failure. Hotels cannot afford to lose their guests because they have the potential to become part of the public relation makers for hotels through positive word of mouth by recommending others to use hotel services (Zeithaml et al, 2008).6. Recommendations on suitable service quality monitoring systems:
Service quality monitoring systems are the procedures planned to resolve problems & change the negative perception of unsatisfied customers & to retain those customers (Zeithaml et al, 2008).
Some recommendations on the service quality monitoring systems are mentioned below. These indicators would help the Radisson Blu Hotel & Resorts to know-
- How many guests are satisfied with the service offered by the hotel,
- How many customers would refer Radisson Blu hotels and resorts to their friends,
- How many customers would never visit the hotel again & would not refer it to anyone.
All the indicators mentioned above would help the Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort to know how the guests felt. Proper tracking of the comments from their guests would help them to reconsider & rephrase their marketing services again in order to deal with their guest in the most appropriate manner.
Proper feedback forms should be provided to the hotel staff. They should encourage their guests to fill in the feedback forms which would help the hotel in long run & to know their drawbacks in order to improve upon on their weak portions (Zeithaml et al, 2008).
There should also be a proper channel of communication between the hotel staff and the guests in order to avoid any type of miscommunication.
Use of pilot study survey method would also help the hotel staff to know their weak points & work on them in order to retain their customers in a long run. This method helps the hotel to study the experience the customers were provided by hotels in which they had recently stayed. This would help Radisson Blu to compare its service offerings with the other hotels in the town. With the help of the pilot study Radisson Blu would be able to identify its weakest points on the side of the customers on which they have to work to retain customers for the long time.
As mentioned above Radisson Blu Hotel has 20 different room designs available with them & the guests have the liberty to choose the room on his own, the staff should have a data base ready with them comprising of their likes & dislikes. When the guest visits the hotel for the next time, the staff should directly give them the keys of the room depending upon their taste & preferences.
The Radisson Blu Hotel & Resorts should take some learning from the service failure discussed above. The service failure depicts that the guests had a different picture of the hotel in their mind whereas when they arrived at the hotel, the services offered to them were not up to the mark. The guests had to leave in disappointment.
The hotel staff should understand that their major source of publicity would be the guests who will visit the hotel & dine. They should always try to overcome their weaknesses & emerge out to be a leader. They should feel that there is always a scope for improvement.
Service Quality Monitoring System is a key approach that should be used to increase customer satisfaction, regardless of industry settings, and the hotel industry is no exception.
The efficient service recovery strategies would help the hotel to retain its customers & build customer loyalty amongst them (Mudie & Pirrie, 2006).
7. Resource requirements to meet the recommendations:
In order to meet the recommendations illustrated above the hotel staff should be well equipped with various tools such as Technology, Personnel, etc.
In order to regularly monitor the feedback’s given by the guests visiting the hotel or resort; the staff should be well versed with the technology. Use of proper computerised system should be used. This would help the staff to overcome their weak points. The staff members should try to reframe/upgrade its existing system which would help in offering the guests 100% satisfaction.
In order to take care of their guests, large number of personnel is required which would also look into the smallest requirement of their guest.
The technology used by the Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort should be very quick which would provide the customers with quick delivery system; billing would be fast which would help to avoid the long queue.
Each employee should have the philosophy Yes I Can in their mind while serving their guests. If the employees would be happy & motivated, only then they will be able to treat the guests with a positive attitude & would result in positive demand of the product or service.
The overall focus of the hotel staff should be on customer service, which would make the guests stay pleasant in the hotel. The hotel staff should always be ready to serve their customers with the best of the services which would help the Radisson Blu hotel & Resort to increase its publicity all over the globe.
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