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An approach to developing the marketing expertise of hospitality managers
Discussion Paper Contributions to this section are welcomed: they should conform to International Journal of ~ospita~i~ management style (see Notes for Contributors inside back cover) and be of not more than 1500 words in length. Discussion papers are not refereed and may be speculative, provocative or informative. The editors will welcome responses.
An approach tcrdeveloping the marketing expertise of hospitality managers
ing as an activity engaged in by the organisation and delivered by an employee to an unsuspecting consumer .
Jon Bareham and Peter Jones De~artmnt of Service Sector Management, ~~~~~~P~hn~c, ~ustb~,
Organisational
J
-
*
Introduction Ten years ago Bateson (1977) made the crucial point that ‘the service marketing literature has been concerned with listing the differences between services and products. There has been little attempt to point out the implications for marketers in service companies and even less of an attempt to propose new concepts or approaches’. There is agreement that although services and products are at two ends of an overlapping continuum, services are distinguished as intangibIe, incapable of being stored, needing to be immediately consumed and involving a close personal interface between producer and consumer (Sasser et al., 1978). Perhaps this last point is the most salient; the increased recognition of the importance of the person-to-person encounter between buyer and seller in the overall success of the marketing effort. In recognition of this important interaction several authors have argued that consumers should be perceived as partial employees (Mills, 1983) because they are an integral part of the process required to perform certain tasks, ~ompson (1962) calls this a transaction. Langeard et al, (1981) call this a service encounter or servuction system in which the processes of production, delivery and consumption take place simultaneously.
climate
Schneider (1980) has shown that the way in which customers perceive a service is positively related to the way in which service staff see their organisation. Negative consequences follow if employees think customer services should be handled in a different way from the way they believe management wants. If the ‘organisation’ and ‘servers’ do not have the same perception this can lead to role ambiguity, conflict and hence stress and consequently bad customer relations. If service organisations are structured so as to enable the staff to deliver good service, customers will be better provided for. Customers often relate good service to the occasions when servers have broken organisational rules in order to give more attention to the consumer. However, Schneider (1980) does recognise that some organisations set out to provide an appropriate organisational climate. These are referred to as service ‘enthusiast’ organisations in which there are flexible rules, a concern for the customer and good interpersonal relations. This is different from the ‘bureaucratic’ organisation concerned with maintaining rules, regulations and system maintenance. The important consequence is that the way in which customers perceive a service, and hence their satisfaction and rate of purchase is positively correlated with the way in which staff perceive their organisation. The script
This is to suggest the identification of three interrelated entities; the customer, the server and the service as embodied in the operating procedures of the providing organisation. The links between these three components are crucial. It is no longer sufficient to think of marketht. J. Hospitality Management Printed in Great Britain
Vol. 5 No. 4 pp. 209-211,1986
The inter-relationship between customer and server in a service encounter contains learned and consistent behaviour. Each participant has to do and say certain things for the encounter to proceed smoothly. This ‘script’ is an important determinant of satisfaction with the encounter. Usually the 027&4319/86 $3.00 + 0.00 Q 1986 Pergemon Journals Ltd
210
script follows a predetermined sequence (Smith and Houston, 1983) with each party playing a preordained role (Soloman et al., 1985). In some cultures this transaction is in danger of falling apart because server or customer does not know the script. In the same way much of marketing communications is concerned with communicating to the consumer what has to be done in a certain situation, and therefore training the customer as partial employee. This is to also suggest that selection and training of employees should be based on the development of effective scripts. Facilities may be spotless, the meal wonderful, but if the customer leaves with a negative impression from the attitude of an employee, other efforts may be overlooked. The quality of this subjective experience is the ultimate outcome of the service encounter (Soloman et al., .1985). It is probably only when there is some deviation from expected role behaviour that a positive or negative evaluation of the service is made. For instance, in a fast-food establishment the ‘script’ is fast service and consistency but in an up-market restaurant, personal attention, care and a slower pace are important. Going up the scale, flexibility and personal service become more important aspects of the script in high involvement services. It is often the case that providers do not have the same script as consumers. Whyte (1948), as in many other cases, was amongst the first to identify a similar point in mentioning that in formal restaurants waitresses do not talk back to the customers while in lower standard ones they actually get a better tip for doing so.
Discussion Paper
recognise a gradient of different types of hospitality service. Some have a high degree of ‘back room’ activity, e.g. production of a meal in a kitchen, which is divorced from ‘front room’ activity. The back room activity is more akin to that in a manufacturing organisation. Standardised products produced by McDonalds, a central production unit in a hospital, or vacuum-packed catering supplies are all equivalent to the ‘back office’ activity of a manufacturer of cars or washing machines and can be taught as such. The interaction with the customer in the ‘front office’ is increasingly the concern of hospitality organisations because the technical side can be increasingly more effectively controlled and decoupled from the service delivery side. The customer contact staff are crucial to the customer’s perception of the product, ensuring that there is as little difference as possible between it and the customer’s prior expectation of what the product or service would be like. In a high class restaurant, front desk of a hotel or booking area of a travel agent it is the interaction with the customer which is the service, and which crucially affects satisfaction with the product. The ability to interact needs more effective training of the kind usually reserved only for technical skill training. Given the recognition of service as being concerned primarily with customer contact as opposed to manufacturing, which has little direct customer contact, the training of managers for these two activities should be different. The consequence for course design The training of a service manager should include:
The consequences for training managers Customer participation in the service contact process is one of the most important features of services which distinguish them from manufacturing operations. It follows from this that the customer must be regarded as part of the service process (Voss et al., 1985). The customer can react in an inconsistent and unknown way but the service manager must be trained to allow for this rather than to perceive that his or her sole function is to develop and operate a smooth-running process, as in manufacturing. The service package is in two parts; that part concerned with production of a physical product (e.g. food in a kitchen) and that part concerned with delivery and hence contact with the customer. The two are highly linked and hence operational procedures cannot be separated from marketing activities. However, beyond this it is possible to
(a) the recognition that certain activities are ‘back office’ and therefore the most efficient and effective operating procedures should be developed, e.g. production of paper for committee meetings production of hamburgers to standard specifications for a fast-food operation production of vacuum-packed meals computerisation of ticketing in a travel agent (b) the recognition that ‘front office’ activities involve the customer as participant and hence require flexibility of response, adaptability, breaking rules, adjust& the system because the customer is an unpredictable part of the system, e.g. letting customers sit where they want serving children first explaining the bill
Discussion
211
Paper
(cl the learning of ‘scripts’ which are appropriate
to different situations during interpersonal interaction and which make allowance for different cultural and social norms. This can be done but not through conventional teaching methods but rather through role play, drama exercises, negotiation exercises, debates and interaction video programmes. (4 the recognition of the operational and marketing functions of the organisation as intertwined and hence the teaching of these areas in tandem, e.g. emphasis on meal production plus image creation (‘the experience’), intangibles the development of personal qualities to handle (e) stress, conflict and uncertainty because part of the operational procedure involves the unknown quantity of the customer, e.g. through stress workshops personality profiling
It is maintained that conventional course structures or training programmes emphasise a manufacturing perspective and do not pay enough attention to recognition of the particular qualities required in a service manager. This requires far greater development of interpersonal and management skill and recognition of the student or client as an important participant in the process.
References Bateson, J. (1977) Do we need service marketing? Marketing Consumer Services: New &sigh&. Eiglier, P. et al. (eds), Report No. 77-115,1-30. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, Mass. Langeard, E.. Bateson, J., Lovelock, C. and Eiglier, P. (1981) M~rke?ing of Services: New insights from Consumers and Managers. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, Mass. Mills, P. K. (1983) The socialisation of clients as partial employees of service organisations. Working paper, University of Santa Clara. Sasser, E., Olsen, R. and Wycoff, D. (1978) ~un~gemenr of Service Operations: Cases and Readings. Allyn & Bacon, Boston. Schneider, B. (1980) The service organisation, climate is crucial. Organisational Dynamics 9,52-64. Smith, R. and Houston. M. (1983) Script based evaluation of satisfaction with services. Marketing of Services, Berry, L., Shostack, G. and Upah, G. (eds). American Marketing Association, Chicago, Ill. Soloman, M., Suprenant, C., Czepiel, J. and Gutman, E. (1985) A role theory perspective on dyadic interaction; the service encounter. Journal of Marketing 49,99-l 11. Thompson, J. (1962) Organisations and output transactions. American Journal of Sociology 68,30!%324. Voss, C., Armistead, C., Johnston, B. and Morris, B. (1985) Operations Management in Service Industries and the Public Sector. John Wiley, Chichester. Whyte, W. (1948) Human Relations in the Restaurant Industry.
McGraw-Hill,
New York.
An approach tcrdeveloping the marketing expertise of hospitality managers
ing as an activity engaged in by the organisation and delivered by an employee to an unsuspecting consumer .
Jon Bareham and Peter Jones De~artmnt of Service Sector Management, ~~~~~~P~hn~c, ~ustb~,
Organisational
J
-
*
Introduction Ten years ago Bateson (1977) made the crucial point that ‘the service marketing literature has been concerned with listing the differences between services and products. There has been little attempt to point out the implications for marketers in service companies and even less of an attempt to propose new concepts or approaches’. There is agreement that although services and products are at two ends of an overlapping continuum, services are distinguished as intangibIe, incapable of being stored, needing to be immediately consumed and involving a close personal interface between producer and consumer (Sasser et al., 1978). Perhaps this last point is the most salient; the increased recognition of the importance of the person-to-person encounter between buyer and seller in the overall success of the marketing effort. In recognition of this important interaction several authors have argued that consumers should be perceived as partial employees (Mills, 1983) because they are an integral part of the process required to perform certain tasks, ~ompson (1962) calls this a transaction. Langeard et al, (1981) call this a service encounter or servuction system in which the processes of production, delivery and consumption take place simultaneously.
climate
Schneider (1980) has shown that the way in which customers perceive a service is positively related to the way in which service staff see their organisation. Negative consequences follow if employees think customer services should be handled in a different way from the way they believe management wants. If the ‘organisation’ and ‘servers’ do not have the same perception this can lead to role ambiguity, conflict and hence stress and consequently bad customer relations. If service organisations are structured so as to enable the staff to deliver good service, customers will be better provided for. Customers often relate good service to the occasions when servers have broken organisational rules in order to give more attention to the consumer. However, Schneider (1980) does recognise that some organisations set out to provide an appropriate organisational climate. These are referred to as service ‘enthusiast’ organisations in which there are flexible rules, a concern for the customer and good interpersonal relations. This is different from the ‘bureaucratic’ organisation concerned with maintaining rules, regulations and system maintenance. The important consequence is that the way in which customers perceive a service, and hence their satisfaction and rate of purchase is positively correlated with the way in which staff perceive their organisation. The script
This is to suggest the identification of three interrelated entities; the customer, the server and the service as embodied in the operating procedures of the providing organisation. The links between these three components are crucial. It is no longer sufficient to think of marketht. J. Hospitality Management Printed in Great Britain
Vol. 5 No. 4 pp. 209-211,1986
The inter-relationship between customer and server in a service encounter contains learned and consistent behaviour. Each participant has to do and say certain things for the encounter to proceed smoothly. This ‘script’ is an important determinant of satisfaction with the encounter. Usually the 027&4319/86 $3.00 + 0.00 Q 1986 Pergemon Journals Ltd
210
script follows a predetermined sequence (Smith and Houston, 1983) with each party playing a preordained role (Soloman et al., 1985). In some cultures this transaction is in danger of falling apart because server or customer does not know the script. In the same way much of marketing communications is concerned with communicating to the consumer what has to be done in a certain situation, and therefore training the customer as partial employee. This is to also suggest that selection and training of employees should be based on the development of effective scripts. Facilities may be spotless, the meal wonderful, but if the customer leaves with a negative impression from the attitude of an employee, other efforts may be overlooked. The quality of this subjective experience is the ultimate outcome of the service encounter (Soloman et al., .1985). It is probably only when there is some deviation from expected role behaviour that a positive or negative evaluation of the service is made. For instance, in a fast-food establishment the ‘script’ is fast service and consistency but in an up-market restaurant, personal attention, care and a slower pace are important. Going up the scale, flexibility and personal service become more important aspects of the script in high involvement services. It is often the case that providers do not have the same script as consumers. Whyte (1948), as in many other cases, was amongst the first to identify a similar point in mentioning that in formal restaurants waitresses do not talk back to the customers while in lower standard ones they actually get a better tip for doing so.
Discussion Paper
recognise a gradient of different types of hospitality service. Some have a high degree of ‘back room’ activity, e.g. production of a meal in a kitchen, which is divorced from ‘front room’ activity. The back room activity is more akin to that in a manufacturing organisation. Standardised products produced by McDonalds, a central production unit in a hospital, or vacuum-packed catering supplies are all equivalent to the ‘back office’ activity of a manufacturer of cars or washing machines and can be taught as such. The interaction with the customer in the ‘front office’ is increasingly the concern of hospitality organisations because the technical side can be increasingly more effectively controlled and decoupled from the service delivery side. The customer contact staff are crucial to the customer’s perception of the product, ensuring that there is as little difference as possible between it and the customer’s prior expectation of what the product or service would be like. In a high class restaurant, front desk of a hotel or booking area of a travel agent it is the interaction with the customer which is the service, and which crucially affects satisfaction with the product. The ability to interact needs more effective training of the kind usually reserved only for technical skill training. Given the recognition of service as being concerned primarily with customer contact as opposed to manufacturing, which has little direct customer contact, the training of managers for these two activities should be different. The consequence for course design The training of a service manager should include:
The consequences for training managers Customer participation in the service contact process is one of the most important features of services which distinguish them from manufacturing operations. It follows from this that the customer must be regarded as part of the service process (Voss et al., 1985). The customer can react in an inconsistent and unknown way but the service manager must be trained to allow for this rather than to perceive that his or her sole function is to develop and operate a smooth-running process, as in manufacturing. The service package is in two parts; that part concerned with production of a physical product (e.g. food in a kitchen) and that part concerned with delivery and hence contact with the customer. The two are highly linked and hence operational procedures cannot be separated from marketing activities. However, beyond this it is possible to
(a) the recognition that certain activities are ‘back office’ and therefore the most efficient and effective operating procedures should be developed, e.g. production of paper for committee meetings production of hamburgers to standard specifications for a fast-food operation production of vacuum-packed meals computerisation of ticketing in a travel agent (b) the recognition that ‘front office’ activities involve the customer as participant and hence require flexibility of response, adaptability, breaking rules, adjust& the system because the customer is an unpredictable part of the system, e.g. letting customers sit where they want serving children first explaining the bill
Discussion
211
Paper
(cl the learning of ‘scripts’ which are appropriate
to different situations during interpersonal interaction and which make allowance for different cultural and social norms. This can be done but not through conventional teaching methods but rather through role play, drama exercises, negotiation exercises, debates and interaction video programmes. (4 the recognition of the operational and marketing functions of the organisation as intertwined and hence the teaching of these areas in tandem, e.g. emphasis on meal production plus image creation (‘the experience’), intangibles the development of personal qualities to handle (e) stress, conflict and uncertainty because part of the operational procedure involves the unknown quantity of the customer, e.g. through stress workshops personality profiling
It is maintained that conventional course structures or training programmes emphasise a manufacturing perspective and do not pay enough attention to recognition of the particular qualities required in a service manager. This requires far greater development of interpersonal and management skill and recognition of the student or client as an important participant in the process.
References Bateson, J. (1977) Do we need service marketing? Marketing Consumer Services: New &sigh&. Eiglier, P. et al. (eds), Report No. 77-115,1-30. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, Mass. Langeard, E.. Bateson, J., Lovelock, C. and Eiglier, P. (1981) M~rke?ing of Services: New insights from Consumers and Managers. Marketing Science Institute, Cambridge, Mass. Mills, P. K. (1983) The socialisation of clients as partial employees of service organisations. Working paper, University of Santa Clara. Sasser, E., Olsen, R. and Wycoff, D. (1978) ~un~gemenr of Service Operations: Cases and Readings. Allyn & Bacon, Boston. Schneider, B. (1980) The service organisation, climate is crucial. Organisational Dynamics 9,52-64. Smith, R. and Houston. M. (1983) Script based evaluation of satisfaction with services. Marketing of Services, Berry, L., Shostack, G. and Upah, G. (eds). American Marketing Association, Chicago, Ill. Soloman, M., Suprenant, C., Czepiel, J. and Gutman, E. (1985) A role theory perspective on dyadic interaction; the service encounter. Journal of Marketing 49,99-l 11. Thompson, J. (1962) Organisations and output transactions. American Journal of Sociology 68,30!%324. Voss, C., Armistead, C., Johnston, B. and Morris, B. (1985) Operations Management in Service Industries and the Public Sector. John Wiley, Chichester. Whyte, W. (1948) Human Relations in the Restaurant Industry.
McGraw-Hill,
New York.