The latest findings by the Institute of Service Excellence, which showed a significant drop in consumer satisfaction for the food and beverage sector ("More tourists unhappy with hotels, restaurants"; last Wednesday), should come as no surprise.
How can the hospitality sector, where the human touch is quintessential, be expected to enhance the customer experience if staff such as waiters, doormen and bellhops are done away with as part of restructuring efforts?
If the sector is expected to sustain or accelerate its pace of productivity improvements through the application of technology and self-service processes, culminating in reduced reliance on man power, then polling organisations should review their survey components to keep them aligned with national productivity objectives. This means relooking at traditional labour productivity measurements such as staff-to-room or staff-to-table ratios.
If not, annual customer satisfaction results would appear to unjustly penalise hotels and restaurants, despite the sector showing substantial increases in labour productivity.
Brenton Ong
Link:
https://www.smu.edu.sg/sites/default/files/smu/news_room/smu_in_the_news/2014/so...