หน้า32 Table 4: Actions towards Service Quality Improvement
ตาราง
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Furthermore, as mentioned earlier in this paper, major groups of service problems in ranking were: staff(36.07%); customer behaviour (27.87%); communication and cooperation (24.590/o); work process (6.56%); and other problems (4.92%). However,
major groups of projects implemented to solve these problems were: staff (57.97%); management (17 .390/o); communication and cooperation (14.490/o);customer (5.80%); and other projects (4.35%). Interestingly, the projects implemented to solve the
problem of the customers were hardly mentioned, also the work process was not mentioned even though these problems were very important to the success of service quality improvement. This could suggest that hotels might not pay attention to solving these problems. This indicates that hotels in Thailand might not exactly understand theirproblems orrnightmisalJocate their resources to solve problems.
5.2 Service Quality Measurement Techniques
Comments that suggested techniques for service quality measurement are cited below:
11: "We are utilizing guest satisfaction surveys to measure customer satisfaction in order to receive up-to-date information concerning
the hotel facilities and services offered. I think that the guest satisfaction survey is a much more practical technique".
E3: "Although all guests within a hotel have different perceptions on the quality of their stay, our hotel is continually striving to monitor guest feedback in order to find out the potential directions of improving our service quality".
H2: "Our hotel prefers using the mystery shopper service to measure service quality of the hotel, as they come from a professional market research company. Mystery guest service consists of unannounced visits to the hotel property and, using the exhaustive checklist, tests every aspect of guest services from check-in, meal service, room service, room cleanliness, concierge,
bellman, business services and equipment. The mystery shoppers ask for odd items, place high demands on the hotel staff and test the security before checking out".
D 1 :"The mystery shoppers rate every aspect of the hotel and every staff member they contact. The mystery shoppers will also provide an extensive commentary report, and our hotel will use this information to take corrective actions in our needed areas and as a training tool to educate our staff'.
II :"Obviously, the information from the mystery shoppers is much more meaningful because it comes from a professional market
research company''.
B 1 :"I prefer using management observation technique to assess the interactions that take place daily between our hotel operation and our guests. To me, I think it is the most practical technique and I'm sure that I receive reliable results from it". Obviously, the data has shown that Guest satisfaction survey (76.67%) was the main approach used for measuring service quality of the Thai hotel
industry. Interestingly, the mystery shoppers technique was the second technique used for measuring service quality of the Thai hotel industry (16.67%).
5.3 Approaches for Service Quality Improvement Comments that suggested approaches for service quality improvement are cited below:
B 1 :"Our hotel mainly uses staff intensive training courses to improve the staff's skills, manners, and attitude. We think that this
approach is the most practical to improve our service quality''.
A2:"We use benchmarking to track the competitors' movements and use this information as an indication to evaluate the hotels' performance. We believe that it is the best approach''.
Cl :"Our hotel focuses on encouraging teamwork.
We think that teambuilding should
be the first approach to think about improving
our service quality''.
11 :"We are using Six-Sigma to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of our operations,
and it works very well".
G1 :"Since our hotel is certified by ISO 9000,
it is very beneficial because trends show
that guests prefer to choose hotels that have
been certified by ISO 9000. Moreover, I
think that if you want to ensure the standardization
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and consistency in service delivery, to improve the quality of services, to develop staff's knowledge, ski11s and attitudes, to encourage teamwork and cooperation, and to enhance cost savings, ISO 9000 should be adopted".
E2:"My hotel is using Total Quality Management technique. I think that it is very effective as it is the management of work system
in order to protect and reduce errors and mistakes and create value in each work process to meet the success of the hotel operational
functions".
Obviously; the data has shown that "Training, (32.35%) was the main approach used for improving service quality in the Thai hotel industry. In addition, the international chain hotels applied Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and Total Quality Management approaches
for service quality improvement, but this was not found in the Thai chain hotel. This may imply that Thai hotels use very limitedapproaches for service quality improvement
ANALYSIS
The most critical service problems in the Thai hotel industry are staff-related. Some examples are stafPs lack of skills, lack of knowledge, insufficientnumber of staff and staff's attitudes of resistance to change in a new environment. Practically speaking, hotel staff has played an important role in representing the hotel as a whole, to ensure the accuracy of the service, and are the key
for customers to evaluate hotel service quality. If staff problems still persist, the improvement in service quality may not be able to reach an optimal level.
Second, hotels in Thailand may be not generally on the right track in focusing on responsiveness as the first priority. Since the reliability dimension is considered the first priority in judging service quality in the customers' views, the hotels have to reconsider their service quality dimensions by focusing on more reliability in order to improve customer perceptions of their credibility. To put
the emphasis on reliability and achievement of service improvement goals, the corporate mission should include messages on service improvement that have to be recognized and easily seen by all staff doing their day-to-day duties.
Third, hotels showed a str:ong interest in service quality improvement. This implies that hotels have to continue to improve service quality as there will be an increased competition in the future. Presently, the guest satisfaction survey is emerging as the main effective method in the Thai hotel industry to reduce the dissatisfaction of the customers and to allow more accuracy for hotel staff to deliver better service to customers. However, being best in service quality improvement is difficult and there needs to be a team to plan and monitor the whole process. Hence, hotels should
establish service improvement teams or related units to be responsible for service problem investigation and quality initiative development. As a result, service problems will be solved effectively
and service quality will be improved and accomplished as a corporate competitive advantage.
Interestingly, the five-star hotels in Thailand
hardly mentioned IT systems and equipment as important
problems. They believe that all the IT systems
in their hotels are already welJ set up. However,
they are faced with other important issues
such as staff, customer behaviour, communications
and cooperation and work process-all of which
greatly affect service delivery. Hotel projects have
mainly focused on staff However, hotel projects
to solve the service problems with the communication
and customer behaviour study have, to this
point, received less attention than they should get
Moreover, service problems with work process is
still an area where hotels have taken few initiatives
to solve. AB a result, hotels urgently need to
solve these service problems before they reposition
themselves in the market. If the solutions
cannot be found, service quality improvement and
implementation will not be accomplished.
In brief, service quality improvement initiatives
in the Thai hotel industry are successful to
some extent, at least according to the respondents'
views. However, hotels have to increasingly solve
customer service problems~ improve quality initiatives,
and create more quality programs based
on present experiences and expertis
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IMPLICATIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
IN THE THAJHOTEL INDUSTRY
Based on the literature review regarding service
quality improvement and the empirical findings
obtained from research study, an effective system
for service quality improvement in the Thai hotel
industry was then developed. This system was used
as a framework for this research study and, it is hoped,
will be applied in hotels to improve the service quality
for hotel practitioners to add value to the hotel industry.
Thus, the system below is proposed for hotel
practitioners to continuously improve service quality
in the Thai hotel industry.
Figure 1 provides the framework connecting and
integrating the categories as follows:
First, the arrow lines show the relationship between
each category: perceived service quality
(Category 1 ), service quality measurement (Category
2), service quality improvement (Category
3), and service quality target and feedback (Category
4). According to service quality target, the
hotels have to achieve excellent service quality,
which is the ultimate goal of organizational survival
in terms of profits and market share through
developing customer satisfaction.
The arrow in the center of the framework links
the Internal Factors (Category 1.1 ), the External Factors
(Category 1.2), and the Customer Factors (Category
1.3) to the perceived service quality (Category
1 ). The factors directly influencing perceived service
quality are composed ofExtemal Factors and Internal
Factors. The External Factors that are out of the
hotels' control are such things as g