Customers' perception of service quality and its impact on reputation in the hospitality industry

Abstract

Customer satisfaction and the management of their expectations are a strategic component to the sustainability of any organisation. It is argued that these two strategic components are the most important features that generate customer allegiance and desired retention. In the hospitality industry, hotels are attempting to obtain augmented customer satisfaction by concentrating on the quality of service they provide to guests. The objective of this paper was to examine the customers' perception of service quality and its impact on a selected hotel's reputation. A qualitative research method was used and data was collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews with both customers and employees as core stakeholders. The findings indicate that service quality has an impact on hotel reputation as poor service provision invariably leads to negative conversations and bad publicity concerning the hotel. It also emerged that the customers and service providers have more or less similar notions of what service quality entails. The hotel departments have mechanisms and strategies for meeting and exceeding customer satisfaction and especially of dealing with customer complaints and these are important when one desires organisational stability.