SELF-SERVICE TECHNOLOGY IN HOTEL RECEPTION
Abstract:
Services have been the interest of research since the 1960’s. After the 1990’s the development of technology became an interesting research area along with other service research. There are two customer service concepts that this study is discussing. These are traditional human based customer service and self-service technology based customer service. According to earlier studies, high service quality is a result of human interaction where people are seen as the key to company’s success. However, since technology has had its impact on services the overall image has changed companies as well as customers. In the 21st century self-service technology has become a new interest of research.
The purpose of this study is to find out whether Finnish young adults choose to use self-service technology instead of interaction with a receptionist in a hotel reception. Furthermore, purpose of the study is to discover what Finnish young adults want from the customer service nowadays. The research method of this study is a quantitative research with survey method of the primary research. Questionnaire is designed to find out customers’ expectations, experiences and future concept views. The sample was young Finnish adults and the data was collected through online and as a paper version and finally analysed with statistics. Results were positively surprising. Majority of the respondents would use self-service technology (SST) instead of traditional human interaction. However human interaction was also revealed to be the most important aspect of customer service. Therefore, this study suggests that instead of replacing traditional customer service entirely with self-service technology, it would be offered as additional service concept in future receptions.
1. INTRODUCTION
We are living in a service society. It is the most popular employment sector in the whole of Europe including Finland. For a long period of time services have been the only sector in the economy that has continuously brought employment and productivity to society. (See, for example Pesonen, 2002, p.17 & Tuorila, 2002, p.1) Services comprise the major part of the world’s economy. (Kandampully, 2002, p.5) Yet, the idea of a service society seems distant to Finnish people and rather than a service society, Finland could be called as self-service society. Finnish people have always been very independent, hardworking and initiative. And the reason for this has probably been the history of labour shortage and lack of services. (See, for example, Tuorila, 2002, p.1) Even though self-service is common in everyday life in Finland, only a small number of hotels in Finland have adopted the system. It is no surprise in this global world that technological advances have their own effect on service industry. Service organisations have gone through enormous change in relation to service transactions. The traditional service transaction is called human-based interaction and it happens between a service employee and a customer. Yet some tourism organisations such as airports, tourist information centres and even hotels have adopted new service transaction alternatives to serve tourists. These alternatives to traditional service systems are self-service technologies (STTs). (See, for example, Oh, Jeong & Baloglu, 2011, p.692)
The importance of technology will continue to grow every day and in future it is likely that all employees with simple work tasks will be replaced with automated machines that can easily take care of the same tasks humans used to do. This can eventually be the case with hotel receptions in Finland too. Nevertheless even if technology will take over many areas of work, skills that only people have will be even more appreciated. These skills are sense making, critical thinking, decision making and social intelligence. Human skills are indispensable and the question is: Will technology ever be able to interact with customers the way people can? (Institute for the Future, 2001, p.3-8)
Every business needs innovations and changes in their functions to keep up with the competitive and busy world of business. Companies need to differentiate from other competitors and they need to have something special to offer in order to remain successful. Hotel businesses are already unique as and differ greatly from other service businesses. In hotels, customers are guests who use services that are provided by the employees who are hosts rather than salesmen. The host’s task is to take care of their guests, make sure they are satisfied, happy and want to come back. (Tisch & Weber, 2007, p.44) Hotels’ main purpose is to provide quality services to customers and be as profitable as possible. Customers are at the epicentre of the whole business and without them there is no business to run. (Alakoski, Hörkkö & Lappalainen, 2006, p.11) All Hotels today have a common problem, how to satisfy customers enough. One reason for this struggle is the contemporary hectic world which has changed customers’ needs. They are not comfortable with getting services that only satisfy their basic needs anymore, such as hearing the information about hotel services at the reception before getting the keys to the room. In other words getting only information that is needed in order to utilise the services available. Instead, customers have become greedier with everything. Instead of just getting a service they want an experience with the service. (Tisch & Weber, 2007, 2-3)
There are many different ways for companies to differentiate. Many service strategies are based on price and the idea that saving money is the best option for success. But there are other ways to differentiate especially for hotels that are heavily dependent on satisfying customers. All hotels have the same purpose; to accommodate customers and make them satisfied in a way that builds a strong and loyal relationship with them. (Martinez & Hobbi, 2008 p.66-68) Because of all the hotels having the same purpose, the competition is huge. Differentiation is hard but with a right strategy it can give lots of opportunities with creating experiences that fulfil customers’ needs. (Tisch & Weber, 2007, p.2-3)
Another problem though, almost everything can be copied. For example a hotel having strategy based on price will give a competitive advantage for a while but sooner or later other hotels are imitating this. Hotel service is all about customer service and focusing on that can be a key to success because every service is unique and therefore cannot be copied. (Tuulaninemi, 2011, p.18) Therefore, building a successful customer service is a good way to differentiate (Martinez & Hobbi, 2008).
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.