Mind the gap
Customers form expectations of the services they are about to encounter based on their own prior experience or from narratives received of past experiences of others. And now, thanks to technological advances, the possession of smart phones has resulted in smart customers - with the ability to get all the information they need with a few clicks. Armed with that, today’s customers know precisely what to look for and what to ‘expect’ when purchasing a product or when receiving service.
Customer Expectation is how the customers think your product and service will be. Customer Perception is the actual experience customers’ gain after using your product or service. When the product or service performance fails to match or line up against the customer’s expectations, i.e. if there is a deviation between what the customer expects vs. what they get - it leads to a customer perception gap. And that’s a negative. Obviously, the bigger the gap, the more negative the experience.
The difference between Customer Expectation and Perception is a very thin line and it is necessary for managers to differentiate the two before trying to bridge the gap. Too often, managers rush into discussing possible solutions on fixing the customer perception gap, before fully understanding the problem at hand, and in the process, aggravate the situation.
Before attempting to bridge the gap, management should build that bridge to link with customers on a more personal level, and to see things through their eyes - to spot the disconnect between what hoteliers think is important to guests, and what actually matters to them.
Even when hoteliers are aware of what guests expect in an establishment, they sometimes fail to deliver it for various reasons. This could be due to poor management or where appropriate standards of operations to ensure guest satisfaction, even after been set… are not met. This occurs very often because it is impossible to completely eliminate human error, especially in the hospitality industry, where service delivery depends on multiple front-line and behind-the-scenes staff.
Another cause for the customer perception gap is the mis-match between marketing and operations where the establishment fails to live upto the hype and image created by advertising and other external communications.
Weak or non-existent online reputation (ORM) monitoring can also blur management’s priorities between what hoteliers and guests believe matter. Prioritising spending money in areas that make very little difference to a guest’s experience, while overlooking those areas that guests do notice immediately, is one that occurs often.
Consider for example, what Bianca Grobbelaar, General Manager at The Royal Guest House, says, when she nearly fell victim to just such a gap in perception. “I thought, for example, that the staff uniforms were not as presentable as they should be. When I got my ORM report, however, I noticed that I was being rated consistently highly on staff! Knowing that my staff was currently my strongest asset meant that I could redirect the funds to a lower rated aspect to try improving that area instead”.
Most important of all, is for the manager to keep an open flow of communication with his or her guests. By doing so, he or she can better understand guest expectations, their experiences and from that, learn of their perceptions. For that to happen, managers must get on the floor regularly and engage with their guests.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotel
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