This article presents a procedure for the design of a client research card to measure the performance of the Hotel jagua de Cienfuegos Accommodation process. To do this, we started with the design of a survey using the moments of truth found in the process and determined by expert criteria, the critical moments of truth relating them to the quality characteristics found in the literature.
The validity of the same was done through the reliability analysis (Cronbach's Alpha) and the construct validity (Factorial analysis of main component). In the factor analysis, two main components were obtained in the Reception service and two in the Room service. A first grouping of the components found was made, with all the variables of the same, which was difficult to name, so from the following statistical analyzes: Descriptive statistics (mode, range, maximum and minimum value and distribution of frequency), Discriminant analysis, non-parametric statistics (Kruskall Wallis and Man Whitney tests), the critical quality factors were determined, then a second regrouping was carried out with the critical factors,which facilitated the interpretation of the components mentioned above. Based on the results of the second grouping, the client research card was determined that allows evaluating the performance of the process under study, which must be updated every 6 months.
Key words: Quality Characteristics, Customer Value Management, Moments of truth.
customer-service-cardINTRODUCTION:
In a hotel the Reception is the main center, it is the link between the guest and the facility. The famous hotelier Charles O. Toole describes hotels as; "The wheel of which the reception is the axis", this department is the first to come into contact with the guests who arrive, if a guest starts his stay in a pleasant way due to the good services and courtesy of the receptionist there will be many chances of feeling favorably disposed towards the other services of the hotel. The rooms within a hotel represent the basic product for which the client pays for their accommodation, that is, it is the most important and significant part of the accommodation.
Cuba has discovered that it has a certain sociopolitical, geographical and cultural uniqueness compared to other tourist destinations, although it presents an incipient offer, full of will, but scarce resources, with a discontinuous quality that can satisfy or dislike according to perceptions. Cienfuegos is a city of high economic development in the region and it is home to the "Jagua" hotel belonging to the Gran Caribe hotel group, which, like any national company, is not exempt from all these requirements. Within this facility, great efforts have been made to improve the quality of service provision, which is why it is the focus of this research, which is entitled:Procedure for the design of a client research card in the Accommodation Process of the Gran Caribe «Jagua» Hotel in Cienfuegos.
The Scientific Problem to solve in this research is: Need to design a research card to measure the performance of the process.
Where the following hypothesis is posed: The design of the client research card will allow the evaluation of the performance of the process.
- Design the measurement instrument based on the moments of truth of the process. Validate the instrument using statistical techniques. Determine the critical factors of the process
To achieve the aforementioned results, an important number of techniques such as individual interview, direct observation, survey, document review, group session, DELPHI method, flow diagram, affinity diagram, SIPOC diagram, Matrix are used as tools. cause-effect, discriminant analysis, non-parametric statistics, and others; which allowed to collect, analyze and use all the information derived from the application of the procedure.
DEVELOPING
Procedure for the design of the client research card.
The procedure applied in the investigation was an adaptation of a procedure proposed by Caravez Santana, Yamil (2004). This Caravez procedure (which in turn is an adaptation of the procedure proposed by H. James Harrington) has been used on several occasions in hotels in the province of Cienfuegos, giving satisfactory results. Figure 1 shows the activities that were developed to design the research card.
Fig. 1 Stages and activities of the adapted procedure of Caravez.
Stage 1: Determine the limits of the process.
Stage 2: Determine the moments of truth of the process.
Stage 3: Determine the process cycle.
Stage 4: Determine the quality characteristics of the process.
Stage 5: Translate critical moments of truth into measurement variables.
Step 6: Design the measuring instrument.
Step 7: Validate the measuring instrument.
Stage 8: Determine the critical quality factors.
Step 9: Form the research card.
Stage 10: Give feedback using the research card questionnaire.
RESULTS OF THE APPLICATION OF THE PROCEDURE
Stage 1: Determine the limits of the process.
For the application of the procedure exposed in the previous table, the Hotel Jagua Accommodation process located in the province of Cienfuegos was taken into account, to facilitate the study, this process was subdivided into three sub-processes, which are: Location of the client, cleaning and conditioning of the rooms and exit of the client, applying the procedure in each one of them, obtaining a documentation of the processes, where the limits of each thread are specified. These results were obtained from the application of techniques related to process management, these are: Process Mapping (SIPOC, flow diagram), Process Profile, Customer - Supplier Relationship, accompanied by information gathering techniques and work sessions with experts who are familiar with each thread.
Stage 2: Determine the moments of truth of the process.
To detect the Moments of Truth, a series of observations were made on the Accommodation Process of the Gran Caribe "Jagua" hotel, taking into account that not all Moments of Truth involve interaction with the employee. First, the number of observations to be made is calculated. The population is made up of the number of Foreign Physical Tourists who travel in groups through Agencies and Tour Operators, in the months of April and May of the year 2008. The number of physical tourists reaches 6577. The sampling units are clients visiting the facility.
A 95% confidence level is set for the calculation. The values used were p = 88.9% and q = 11.1%, per hundreds that represent the number of tourists arriving at the hotel by groups and by other means, respectively. In addition, a permissible error of E = 0.07 is set, the value of z for a significance level of 0.05 is Z = 1.96. The number of observations turns out to be 76. The calculations can be seen in Annex 2.
With these observations, it is not possible to identify all the Moments of Truth that are revealed, since with observations, only the actions or impressions that the client lets see are perceived. For this reason, a group work session is carried out to obtain more information, for which the sample size is not calculated since the population is made up of all the employees in the Reception and Housekeeper areas.
From the application of the method and the observations made to the Accommodation Process, a total of 77 Moments of Truth are collected in its three stages, since it is a process that has very few variations from one client to another, it was decided not to carry out all calculated observations, to avoid repetitions that could hinder the study. The relationship of the Moments of Truth obtained with the samplings carried out for each of the services can be seen in Annex 3.
The detected Moments of Truth are grouped into classes, according to Albretch (Albretch 1994) this classification helps to avoid errors when trying to analyze moments that due to their characteristics require to be seen in different ways, to proceed if necessary to their subsequent improvement; For this, the affinity diagram is used, keeping the same working group, where 5 classes were obtained. The moments of truth grouped by class can be seen in Annex 4.
Stage 3: Determine the service cycle.
The service cycle is made up of critical moments of truth.
Once all the Moments of Truth of the Accommodation Process were inventoried and grouped into classes, it was necessary to select from each class the Critical Moments of Truth, that is, to select the most important moments and those that have the most influence when conceiving and perform quality service. For this, the Delphi Method is used and a confidence level of 95% is set, with i = 10% and p = 3%. The calculations are shown in Annex 5
The study includes the participation of 11 experts, who are given a form where all the Moments of Truth are listed, grouped by class for each service, which they had to evaluate depending on the degree of importance. They are asked to rank each Moment of Truth from 1 to 5; giving more importance to those evaluated with 5 and less to those evaluated with 1. In the introduction to the work, an explanation is made of the objectives that are proposed to be achieved with it, as well as the definition of Moment of Truth. Data processing is done using the statistical package SPSS version 15.0 for Windows (in Spanish) using the Kendall non-parametric W coefficient test. The results of the processing can be seen in Annex 6. In this annex we can observe the values of the descriptive and contrast statistics for all classes.
The order of importance resulting from the application of this method is found in Annex 7, where the critical moments of truth can be seen ordered by each class.
Stage 4: Determine the quality characteristics.
To determine the quality characteristics, an intensive search was made in the bibliography, mainly consulting the dimensions of the SERVQUAL, HOTEQUAL, SERPERF model. The quality characteristics found are shown in Annex 8.
Stage 5: Translate critical moments of truth into measurement variables.
Once the critical moments of truth have been identified by each class, and each one of them has been stated in a way that represents a performance by the client, that is, as an impact, in this activity each statement of the critical moments of the truth with the quality characteristics that were found for the Accommodation Process in the different bibliographies. Subsequently, the Brainstorm takes place, where the previously defined list of quality characteristics for this process is presented, with the presence of all the Reception and Housekeeper staff on each shift. The quality characteristics defined by this group of experts are shown in Annex 9. Therefore, the relationship Critical Moment of Truth-Quality Characteristic can be seen in Annex 10.
Stage 6: Design the measuring instrument and carry out the field work.
Based on the advantages and disadvantages of the different measurement instruments, in this research the statistical survey for external and internal clients of the hotel is chosen, since this is the most widely used tool for measuring customer satisfaction using critical variables of quality, as it is also the least expensive and cumbersome for the respondent. For the creation of the questionnaire, questions related to each quality characteristic chosen by the group of experts were created, in order to measure from the customer's perception, the current state of these characteristics and thus find the problems that are originating in the installation.
Open and closed questions are included in the survey, of the latter non-numerical and classifying variables are used, that is, on a nominal scale, numerical variables are also used and an ordinal scale of Likert type is established for their evaluation. Most of the questions in the questionnaire are closed since this is a tourism facility and the people who visit it come looking for rest and these types of questions are less cumbersome to answer, since they do not have to express ideas but limit themselves to respond with the alternatives that are closest to the answer they want to express. An optional open-ended question was also included, giving customers the option to make a suggestion for this process, should they wish.
In order to carry out the field work, 20 clients who were at the hotel at the time were piloted, this pre-test allowed to identify:
Most suitable types of questions.
If the statement is correct and understandable, and if the questions have the appropriate length.
If the categorization of the answers is correct.
If there are psychological resistances or rejection of some questions.
If the internal ordering is logical; if the duration is within what is acceptable by the respondents.
During the piloting some deficiencies were found, so the survey was redesigned taking into account all the difficulties encountered. The redesigned survey is shown in Annex 11.
For the calculation of the sample size, the population is defined as the number of physical tourists who arrived in the hotel by packages in June, reaching 1898. The formula used was the same as that taken into account for the calculation of the number of observations to the service, in the detection of the Moments of Truth.
A 95% confidence level is set. The values used were p = 81.31% and q = 18.69%, for hundreds that represent the number of tourists arriving at the hotel per package and direct, respectively. In this case, the sample proportion of tourists received per package is chosen again for the study, because it represents the highest percentage of arrivals at the hotel, that is, the highest number of clients is received through organized tourism. The summary table of the arrival of tourists to the hotel per package and direct can be seen in Annex 3.25. In addition, a permissible error of E = 0.07 is set, the value of z for a significance level of 0.05 is z = 1.96. The sample size turns out to be 113.
Step 7: Validate the measuring instrument.
The validation of the survey is carried out through the reliability and validity analysis. Univariate analysis
In this case, no strange data was detected. If we analyze the values of the kurtosis and skewness (or pointing) coefficients to see if the variables follow a normal distribution, it is observed that, in general, they fall within the range that is considered acceptable to speak of normally distributed variables. These results can be seen in Annex 12.
Reliability analysis
Reliability was studied using internal consistency, based on the degree of homogeneity of the one-factor questions, expressed in the Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient, which indicates the proportion of variance in the scale scores that is attributed to the true score. The correlation of items with the factors was studied. A high variance of the item was sought that demonstrated the variability between the individuals to answer, and ideally that the average should approach the center of the range to achieve greater variance and have a greater relationship with others. The results are shown in Annex 13 of Table 3.27.1 to 3.27.8.
The temporal stability and the inter-observer agreement could not be verified because the population is made up of tourists who come per package whose average length of stay does not reach two days, therefore the test-retest could not be performed. Therefore in this case the reliability analysis was limited only to internal consistency.
Validity analysis
To analyze the validity of the survey, the following criteria were checked:
Content validity
The survey has content validity, since it was designed from the moments of truth found in the process and translated into quality characteristics for its preparation. It has also been reviewed by experts on the subject, accepted by them with the dimensions that make it up and remaining as shown in Annex 14.
Construct validity
An exploratory factor analysis was used for construct validity. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) index, the Bartlett sphericity test, and other parameters were used to decide the use of factor analysis.
Bartlett's sphericity test allows us to test the hypothesis that the correlation matrix is an identity matrix. If this hypothesis were accepted (the value of the test low and associated with a high level of significance), the use of any type of factor analysis should be questioned, since the values would not be normally distributed.
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test measures the suitability of the data to perform a factor analysis by comparing the values of the observed correlation coefficients with the partial correlation coefficients. If the sum of the squares of the partial correlation coefficients between all the pairs of variables is small compared to the sum of the squared correlation coefficients, this measure tends to one. Small KMO values indicate that a principal component factor analysis cannot be performed, since correlations between pairs of variables cannot be explained by other variables.
The variables were treated with factor analysis, since they were ordinal with numerical values that did not distort the time property of occurrence of the behavior.
For the extraction of factors, the principal components method used in factor analysis was used, because it uses similar algorithms and because a statistic generated with component analysis serves as the most practical means of solving factorization problems, such as using the eigenvalue criterion greater than 1 to generate factors. To obtain factors that integrate closely correlated variables, the varimax factor rotation procedure with an eigenvalue (explained variance) of 1 or more was used. To achieve the location of the items in a single factor, for the purpose of a parsimonious description, the factorial weight value that produced it with the fewest factors was sought as a cut-off point, and in the values repeated in other factors they were lower value.The results obtained for the instrument scales were expressed in number of factors extracted (by eigenvalues greater than 1 or by forced factor weights) and average factor weights that reflected the weight of the variables in the factor measurement. The eigenvalues of the resulting factors explained the total accumulated percentage of the variance.
The results of the analyzes for the two services (Reception and Room) are shown below:
Pearson correlation coefficients that are highly significant in most cases: Indicates the simple correlation that exists between pairs of variables.
The determinant of each of the correlation matrices (1.66E-005 and 3.85E-0.005) relatively low: This indicates that the variables used are linearly related, which means that factor analysis is a pertinent technique to analyze those variables.
The KMO index = 0.836 and 0.810 for the Reception and Room services respectively, which are quite acceptable. (KMO values close to one indicate that correlations between pairs of variables can be explained by other variables).
The result of the Bartlett test with an X 2 = 1091,176 and Sig. = 0.000 for the Reception service and X 2 = 987,576 and Sig. = 0.000 for the Room service. The hypothesis that the correlation matrices are matrices is rejected. identity in both cases, or what is the same as the sample comes from a multivariate Normal population.
Very low values in the anti-image matrices and rather high MSA in the diagonal of the anti-image correlation matrix: These allow determining if the chosen factorial model is adequate to explain the data.
All this leads us to conclude that the following factor analysis is a priori relevant and can provide us with satisfactory conclusions. In the factor analysis, 2 components were obtained that explained 71.99% of the total variability for the Reception service and 2 other components that explained 81.86% of the total variability for the Room service, which means that both satisfaction and Customer expectations are a function of 2 dimensions of quality, with an explanation of 71.99% and 81.86% of the total variance for the two services. These percentages of explanation were considered satisfactory for the purposes of the study, bearing in mind the intangibility of the services,the subjectivity that characterizes both the satisfaction and the expectations of the clients and the uncontrollable factors that intervene in them, such as the state of mind of the employees. AtAnnex 15 shows the results of the validity analysis. Therefore, it can be concluded that the survey has construct validity. The structure of the dimensions is shown below in the following table.
Table 3.3: Structure of quality dimensions.
| Reception service | |||
| Dimension | Definition | Elements | Load |
|
Tangible Aesthetics |
Degree to which the client appreciates the state of the elements tangible and give you an experience sensory in sight, smell, hear, touch in Serbian reception. |
Courtesy reception (*) Cleaning and organization (*)
Decoration and setting (*) Service effectiveness (*) Forms and ease of payment Quality of information Hygiene and employee appearance (*) Professionalism and effectiveness of the personnel of Contact(*) |
0.926 0.615 0.886 0.633 0.595 0.728 0.657
0.580 |
| % explanation of total variance: 45,423 | |||
| Speed and reliability of
receptionists. |
Extent to which receptionists show
your skills at customer requests. |
Language proficiency(*)
Kindness and courtesy (*) Speed of service (*) |
0.861
0.747 .578 |
| % explanation of total variance: 26,576 | |||
| % explanation of the total variance of the two dimensions: 71,999 | |||
| Room Service | |||
|
Aesthetic tangibles |
Degree to which the client appreciates the state of the elements
tangible and give you an experience sensory in sight, smell, hearing, touch in the service of Bedrooms. |
Comfort and comfort (*)
Decoration and setting (*) Room security Room lighting Equipment modernization and technologies(*) |
0.881 0.886 0.878 0.864
0.792 |
| % explanation of total variance: 45,827 | |||
| Degree Professionalism up to which the Cleaning and equipping of the bathrooms (*) 0.635 the waitresses. Waitresses show their Hygiene and appearance of the waitresses (*) 0.934 skills before the Professionalism and efficiency of waitresses 0.926 request of the clients. Friendliness and courtesy of the 0.941
waitresses (*) |
|||
| % explanation of total variance: 36,042 | |||
| % explanation of the total variance of the two dimensions: 81,869 |
(*) Critical quality factors detected in the analyzes that will be seen later.
Stage 8: Identification of critical factors.
To identify critical quality factors, all the information collected during the measurement is processed. Processing is done using the SPSS Professional Statistical Package version 15.0 for Windows. The following statistical techniques are used during the analysis:
- Univariate Analysis (Descriptive Statistics): the mode, maximum and minimum value, range and frequency distributions. Bivariate Analysis: discriminant analysis. Non-parametric statistics: Mann Whitney and Kruskal Wallis tests.
With the obtaining of the critical factors (according to the opinions of the clients) and for a better interpretation of the components found previously, a new regrouping of the structure of the dimensions of Table 3.3 mentioned above was made. This result is shown in the following Table 3.4.
Table 3.4: Structure of quality dimensions.
| Reception service | ||
| Dimension | Definition | Elements |
|
Tangible Aesthetics |
Degree to which the client appreciates the state of the tangible elements and provides a sensory experience in sight, smell, hear, touch in Serbian reception. |
Courtesy reception Cleaning and organization
Decoration and setting Service effectiveness Hygiene and employee appearance Professionalism and effectiveness of staff contact |
| Quick and reliable receptionists. | Extent to which receptionists show their skills on customer requests. | Language proficiency.
Friendliness and courtesy. Speed of service. |
| Room Service | ||
|
Aesthetic tangibles |
Degree to which the client appreciates the state of the tangible elements and provides a
sensory experience in sight, smell, hear, touch in room service. |
Comfort and comfort. Decoration and setting. Modernization of equipment and technologies. |
| Waitresses' professionalism. | Degree to which the waitresses show their skills at the request of customers. | Cleaning and equipment of the bathrooms.
Hygiene and appearance of waitresses. Kindness and courtesy of the waitresses. |
Determination of the quality of service and the most important dimensions for customers.
From the dimensions found in the factorial analysis of each service, the scores of the critical factors in each dimension were determined, which are shown in Figures 1 to 4 of Annex 3.31, for example in the dimension “ Speed and reliability of receptionists ”, the worst critical factor evaluated by customers is the command of the language, for having the lowest score. In addition, the most important dimensions for customers were determined, which are shown in Figures 5 and 6 of Annex 3.31. In both services, the “ aesthetic tangible ” dimensionswere the most important according to the opinions of the clients for their satisfactions, obtaining both a value greater than 60%. While for the dimensions "Tangible aesthetics" and "Professionalism of the waitresses" were the most important in terms of customer expectations. Therefore, being consistent with the literature (Hayes, b. 1999), the actions to improve the service should be oriented towards the attributes of the “aesthetic tangibles” dimensions in both services, and the attributes of “Professionalism of the waitresses” that are negatively evaluated, since they are the most important for customers both to achieve their satisfaction and expectations.
Step 9: Form the Research Card
With the previously identified critical factors, and the structure of the aforementioned dimensions (considering only the critical quality factors), the Client Research Card is created where each factor becomes an element subject to evaluation and to obtain performance feedback from service. This card can be converted into a questionnaire to quickly measure each of the key attributes of the Customer Value Experience, which can be updated every six months.
The client's Research Card is made up of fundamental elements such as:
- The critical factors of the quality of the service, which are grouped to facilitate the work, in the case of the external client, in:
- Reception Service: Aesthetic tangibles and Speed and reliability of receptionists. Room Service: Aesthetic tangibles and Professionalism of waitresses.
The practical utility of the Research Card is that it can be used at any time to perform service quality audits, as a measurement scheme in an evaluation process on customer perceptions. Another element of special importance is that it is an indispensable part of the process performance measurement system within the group of measurements related to customers. The defined Research Card can be seen in Annex 3.32. The questionnaire to be implemented according to the External Client Research Card for feedback is found in Annex 3.33.
CONCLUSIONS
After applying the procedure for the design of a research card, it can be concluded that:
- An extensive bibliographic search on Customer Value Management is carried out for your better understanding. The moments of truth for the Hosting process were recorded and the most important ones when conceiving and performing a quality service were identified. a survey and is validated by obtaining two dimensions for each service, which were accepted for the purpose of the investigation. Critical quality factors are determined by applying discriminant analysis and non-parametric statistics. The External Client Research Card is formed, which will serve as a questionnaire to quickly measure each of the key attributes of the Customer Value Experience.
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