After developing the second phase that resulted in
measurable service process characteristics, the next
step is to develop action plans for hotel managers
to improve and maintain hotel services. This third
phase in which these action plans are developed is
called the action plan matrix. The team of experts
from the case hotel, who were involved for the first
and second phases, were also completely involved
in designing and developing the action plans. An
attempt was made to make all action plans measurable
to maintain control over them. In addition,
in accordance with its competitors’ current performance
level, target values were assigned for each
action plan that is shown in Table 3. In essence,
these target values are used as the basis for monitoring
the hotel performance when they implement
the improvement actions. For example, the service
characteristic “satellite TV” relates to the service elements
“TV set characteristics” (which is measured
by “image resolution,” “TV screen size,” and “ease
of operation”) and “programs availability” (which
is measured by “type of available programs” and
“number of available programs”). With respect to
the last element, the hotel guests had limited access
to the international channels, because the hotel