hospitality business. (P11)
Introduction
The standards and guidelines that organisations create for their staff and customers are known as
customer service standard. They are there to make sure that all staff are delivering customer service
to the level that the organisation expects, this will depend upon the organisation for example a 5*
hotel will expect high levels of customer service standards.
Developing Customer Service Standards
Hospitality businesses should ensure that they develop their customer service standards to relate to
the following customer service standards guidelines:
Clear – This relates to how easy the standards are to understand for both staff and customers, they
should be straight to the point rather than complicated.
Written & Accessible – The customer service standards of the organisation should be written clearly
and should be accessible to both employees and customers so that customers in particular know
what level of customer service to expect.
Appropriate To the Product or Service – Customers will automatically expect a certain level of
customer service depending on the type of business for example customers may expect a concierge
in a 5* hotel, but may not expect this in a 2* hotel.
Implementing Customer Service Standards
Through training hospitality organisations are able to implement good customer service standards,
which is important as these businesses need to ensure that employees are aware of the standards
set. This required training is especially important for new staff.
Another way to implement customer service standards is through refresher training, which will
remind existing employees of the customer service standards. Refresher training is especially
important for employees who have worked for the company for a long time as they would have not
been trained recently.