Providing Quality Service: What Every Hospitality Service Provider Needs to Know [Paperback]

William B. Martin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0130967459 | ISBN-13: 978-0130967459 | Publication Date: June 13, 2002 | Edition: 1

Confronting the challenge of delivering quality service, this complete guide to success for existing or potential hospitality service providers outlines a comprehensive quality customer service action plan for the full spectrum of service provider roles. The manual provides principles, methods, and skills, as well as application interaction exercises to help hospitality operations providers achieve their goal of quality service. The author outlines customer service fundamentals including winning with the customer, defining “quality” in quality service, the system side of service and the human side of service, four basic customer service needs, selling that sells, and gracious problem solving, plus self-assessment exercises. For service providers and trainers.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Providing Quality Service: What Every Hospitality Service Provider Needs to Know is the definitive resource for all hospitality service providers. In a reader-friendly style and format, it serves as a complete customer service guide for existing or potential service providers in food service, lodging, clubs, theme parks, or travel-related businesses.

Whatever the position, whatever the nature of the operation, if it's hospitality and the position requires interaction with guests in any way, this book outlines a comprehensive, quality customer service action plan for that position that generates success.

Its thirty-two application exercises and numerous examples in every chapter make its contents easily adaptable to the specific needs of any hospitality learning and training environment.

This book covers the full spectrum of quality service as seen through the eyes of the customer. It outlines customers' expectations for procedural as well as personal quality service. It clarifies what quality service is and how to provide it, including:

• How to win with the customer
• How to exhibit and maintain a positive attitude
• How to "WOW" the guest
• How to effectively handle customer complaints and difficult guests

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

This textbook serves as a companion to Quality Service—What Every Hospitality Manager Needs to Know. The focus of that book is on how management is the key to delivering quality service in hospitality organizations. It emphasizes that for quality service to occur, it must be well managed. That simple fact remains as true as ever. If that is so, you may ask, why bother with a service book addressed to hospitality service providers? The answer lies in the very nature of customer service. Managers do play a vital and integral role in the delivery of customer service. Over the long haul, what they do makes or breaks the level of service provided throughout the organization. They establish the climate and service standards, do the hiring, conduct training, provide performance feedback, and reward successes. Yet, in spite of this critical managerial role, it is the service provider who ultimately delivers the actual service.

At the point of each and every service encounter with each and every customer, it is the service provider who is in control, not management. The service provider greets the guest, communicates with the guest, renders the necessary service, interacts with the guest in a variety of ways, completes the transaction, and sends the guest on his or her way. In most hospitality operations, this encounter occurs without a manager being close by or, sometimes, even available. Given this scenario, virtually all hospitality service providers are in a situation where they can make choices about what to do, say and act. The fact of the matter is, with or without managerial support, service providers can determine, to a great extent, the success of each and every customer service encounter. They can choose to provide quality customer service or not—assuming they understand what quality customer service is all about. Unfortunately, however, too many hospitality service providers do not fully comprehend what quality customer service is all about. They are thrown into the job with minimal customer service preparation or training. It is no surprise that delivering quality service remains the single biggest challenge in the hospitality industry today.

This book confronts that challenge head-on. It serves as a complete guide to success for an existing or potential hospitality service provider. Whatever the position, whatever the nature of the operation, if it's hospitality and the position requires interaction with guests in any way, this book outlines a comprehensive quality customer service action plan for that position. It covers the full spectrum of quality service—what it is and how to provide it.

When it comes to hospitality, the proof of the pudding is in the doing. That is why this book includes thirty-two application interaction exercises. They have been created so that the reader may take the concepts and suggestions from the book and apply them to specific hospitality settings. They also serve as a useful introduction to more hands-on, on-the-job training. Nonetheless, this book is not intended to replace on-the-job training; it is designed to supplement and strengthen it.

The flexibility of this book facilitates its use in an ongoing hospitality operation and in an academic setting. In either environment the reviews and exercises at the end of each chapter set the stage for lively discussion and enthusiastic learning. Instructors, trainers, and learners alike will have fun with them. The book can be used in any hospitality classroom or training session that covers the principles of customer service.

The purpose of this book is to generate success: success for hospitality service providers, success for teachers and trainers, success for hospitality operations, and success for all their customers. Everybody can end up winning. But such success doesn't just happen. There are principles, methods, and skills that must be mastered. And mastery requires some effort, time, and practice. This book points the way. More important, it helps make winning at customer service happen. My intention in writing this book is that the journey of learning the knowledge and skills required of a quality hospitality service provider is enjoyable as well as rewarding. I trust that it will be.

William B. Martin
Pomona, California

Product Details

• Paperback: 167 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (June 13, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130967459
• ISBN-13: 978-0130967459
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #462,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Service Book That Makes Sense, October 11, 2002

By 

Gregory Francesco Blanch, Ph.D. (Las Cruces, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Providing Quality Service: What Every Hospitality Service Provider Needs to Know (Paperback)

In his most recent book, Providing Quality Service, William Martin has provided service industry professionals and educators with a great tool for training and teaching. The book begins with the fundamentals of customer service and continues with how to achieve systemized service standards. In the last third of the book, Martin covers how to develop the interpersonal qualities that every service provider recognizes as important. Martin, an experienced educator and training consultant to a variety of organizations, knows his subject and how best to present information that people can actually use. Several features of the book are worth noting. First, the writing is clear and unambiguous, which makes the text accessible to everyone. Second, each chapter has several diagrams which serve to reinforce the main points of the chapter through the visual display of the information. Third, every chapter concludes with a series of "application interaction exercises." These exercises are a wonderful learning tool and skillfully bridge theory and practice. Providing Quality Service is a practical and thoughtful approach to a full range of service issues. Martin's book points out ways to overcome any barriers to providing consistently high quality service. Providing Quality Service should be required reading for everyone in the service industry.

Gregory Francesco Blanch, Ph.D.
New Mexico State University
Department of Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Management