Quality Control – Marriot Hotel Essay Example

customers could offer there opinions is by way of interviews in high profile cases. These are all separate ways in which Marriott International Inc could measure the customer satisfaction of the given. requirements. [pic] Above is a mind map initially used for finding the customer requirements. [pic] The affinity diagrams were then used with the mind map to produce the diagram above.

It was then these affinity diagrams which became my customer requirements. I excluded a lot of my customer requirements such as spacious, on suite rooms because they are too specific and could all be collated under one heading which in this case was luxury rooms. This technique can be used for the processes as well and helped me to narrow down them to. [pic] This is a tree diagram for one of the processes relating to the Marriott International Inc. The diagram breaks down the process into further detail and this type of diagram can be carried out on any process or customer requirement. It works in much the same way as using the affinity diagrams. [pic]

The above table shows how the weighting of the customer requirements was decided. The rank shows the number scored by each requirement and the importance relates to its weighting in relation to the other requirements being measured. [pic] The interrelationship diagram above shows the relationships between all of the processes. A black line indicates that the processes have a positive effect on each other whilst the red line indicates a negative effect between the processes.

Looking at the lowest importance values, deals and consistency are at the bottom of the list. However when these customer requirements are put into

the performance/importance table the deals fall into who cares section whilst the consistency would be border line who cares/over kill. The deals falls into who cares due to the fact that it scored the lowest possible importance level whilst its performance isn’t very good either. The consistency level is a borderline case as it scored a three on the performance and as it only scored a 2 on the importance. As for the higher weighting customer requirements the cleanliness and staff training requirements scored highly so lie in the strength category.

This should mean that the company is going to show a high level of customer satisfaction as the most important requirements are being met to a high specification. From my analysis there are no customer requirements that fall into the vulnerable section. The three lowest processes according to the data accumulated to form the importance weighting are community support, location and the checkout service. These three processes only add up to 9. 69% of the total importance weighting. Once these three processes were put into the performance/importance table the location and community support were both scored highly with two 4’s. This results in both processes being in the over kill section which could mean that too much money and time is being put into the processes.

However community support is dependant upon how much Marriott would like to give, in $’s, towards the local community so despite being ranked lowly in relation to the customer requirements this is an important part of the Marriott’s ethics in that it tries to ‘mirror the communities where we live and work every day.  The checkout process falls into the

who cares category as its importance is low and its performance is defiantly low with a score of 103 which is the second lowest in the HOQ. The three highest weighted processes according to the data accumulated from the importance weightings are staff training, customer satisfaction and cleaning.

These three processes all lie in the strength section of the importance/performance table because they are all highly important to Marriott International Inc yet also all have very high performance values. For example customer satisfaction accounts for 19. 99% of the overall importance weighting whilst all three of the processes combined have a grouped weighting of 42. 64%. All three processes also scored a 4 in the performance values which concludes that these three process fall into the strength category. Looking into the roof of the HOQ Staff training, customer satisfaction and associate gratification interrelate the most with all the other processes in the company. This doesn’t come as a surprise as Marriott itself state that ‘Marriott's belief is that our associates are our greatest assets. [23] This is proven in the roof and in the interrelationship diagram because two out of the three highest relating processes involve staff, the other involving the customer which again Marriott states that ‘Marriott Culture is the experience we create for our customers, which is demonstrated by the behavior of our associates. ’[24] This means that the customer satisfaction is strongly linked with the staff training and gratification scheme anyway. The two least linked processes are the construction and location processes. This is due to the fact that these two processes are very corporate involved process that will not interact much with

other processes as they are almost a separate part of the company that doesn’t deal with the customer.

The design process is also closely linked to the above two processes as it is overlooked by A&C construction and design firm. The competitive evaluation shows where the Marriott could improve itself as a company. As described above the customer requirements fall into either the strength, who cares or over kill category. The customer requirements that fell into the who cares category aren’t a necessity to improve on straight away as the customer doesn’t really care much about them. However, the deals and function room customer requirements that fell into this category are below that of the standard of one of Marriott’s rival hotels, the Hilton.

As the Marriott hotels are on par or higher than the Hilton on every other customer requirement I would suggest that these two requirements are two that Marriott should concentrate a bit of their time on. These areas could be greater improved for a fraction of the price. Improving the deals would draw in more custom, thus improving the RevPar rate as more people are staying in the rooms for a longer period of time. The requirements with the highest importance weightings that fell into the strength category should also be considered from improvement as they are highly important to the customer which will have constantly increasing demands as the competitors improve their aspects of the requirements.

For example the staff training is high on the importance weightings for the customer requirements and also scores highly on the performance chart on the competitive evaluation with a 4 out of 5 so it falls into

the strength category. This means that the company has recognised the importance of the requirement and is acting upon it to a high level but when it comes to improving the requirement care must be taken not to neglect it. This is because the Hilton also scores highly in the competitive evaluation for the staff training so if they were to try and improve on their training and yet the Marriott perceived it as an adequate strength that needs no further adaptation then the Hilton will move ahead leaving Marriott behind.

This is not what Marriott wants so it would be important to consistently try and improve on all customer requirements even if just to stay ahead of its competitors. The trouble with improving on these requirements is that because they are such a high standard already then they will cost a lot of time and money to further improve. The requirements that are in the middle of the range on the importance yet also only score an average performance rating are the requirements that require careful consideration. They will lie on the boundaries of whether they are vulnerable or strength if the have a high importance weighting or the boundary of who cares and over kill if the importance weighting is low.

The latter isn’t as important so a requirement such as the pleasing aesthetics which scored a 4 on the importance weighting and a 3 on the competitive evaluation may just fall into the who cares category but just as the category states customer will not mind if this requirement isn’t of a high standard. The trouble for a company comes when there is a

border line case of whether the requirement is vulnerable or not. An example of this is with the customer requirement of a relaxed atmosphere because it has a relatively high importance rating of 7 but only has a performance rating of 3. This rating means that it would be a border line case for the vulnerable section.

Any requirements caught in the vulnerable section need urgent attention because they have been recognized by the customer as an important part of the company but the company hasn’t fully fulfilled it to the required potential. This is also why it is important that a company tries to improve on its requirements in the strength section because if the competitors creep ahead in terms of performance then the expectations for the requirements will rise rendering the strengths as now vulnerable. The same performance/importance chart alongside the technical evaluation can be used for the processes. The staff training, customer satisfaction, room service and cleaning processes would all fall into the strength category.

The community support, associate gratification, preservation, location and construction processes would fall into the overkill category so don’t need much further consideration into improving the processes. The checkouts and complaints would fall into the who cares category whilst the room service and reservation services could potentially fall into the vulnerable category. With the importance weightings being calculated it is most important to first consider the highest weighted processes but depending then on what category they fall into would determine the urgency of whether the process needs to be looked into at all. The performance of the processes relates to its target values and if they are meeting them or

not.

In all the processes that Marriott should concentrate on if proving further are its strengths to stay ahead of the game and its vulnerables to most greatly increase the overall performance of the company. The pareto charts should show that 80% of the data produced from the processes is produced from 20% of the inputs however for two out of three of my processes that were evaluated this was not the case. For the pareto charts on staff training and customer satisfaction the 80% of data was collected from approximately 40% of the inputs. The only chart where this data was correct was for the cleaning process where the amount of hours cleaning was deduced.

This chart shows that 80% of the cleaning time was taken up in the rooms and the restaurant which means that it is this small part of the process which is the most valid. The rest of the rooms are considered insignificant within the pareto chart. The pareto charts do however show where the majority of the work is being done. They may not fall exactly into the 80-20 split that it is famous for but looking at the charts you can clearly see that with the customer satisfaction charts most complaints came from the food, staff or rooms. In this case an investigation would need to be launched into why the complaints were made and how best to rectify them.

In all if Marriott International Inc wanted to improve itself as a company then it should concentrate on spending its money on bring up any of its vulnerable aspects first, followed by its strength aspects, moving onto the who cares category

and finally improving the over kill section if all other sections are well above that of their competitors. The way Marriott International Inc could improve on its two vulnerable processes would be by way of improving its marketing structure to promote the company further. This could even be done by improving the deals process alone which would, in turn, improve the reservation service which and following that the number of room service would go up providing that it is again marketed clearly.

The strengths in the company would take more time and money to improve as they are already at such a high standard but by way of questionnaires at the end of customers stays, customers would be able to give their input into how Marriott could potentially improve on its services. The processes falling into the over kill section are fine however Marriott may see them a certain delighters to try and entice in further custom. If this is the case then further marketing and promotion of these services should be considered to set the standard for all of the competing companies. Finally the processes in the who cares category shouldn’t be looked to improve upon urgently however they would be the easiest processes to bring up to higher standards.