Oberoi Hotels: Train

Whistle in the Tiger

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SMS ASSIGNMENT-1
Group 14
K Mounika - 1811144
Arushi Verma - 1811065
Manisha Panda - 1811038
Amoghavarsha. L - 1811181
Bhagyashree Pani - 1811120
1. What are drivers of service quality in Oberoi? Identify the key features of Oberoi Hotels that
enable it to top the list in terms of service excellence?
The Oberoi hotel has built its brand on service excellence with a mission of “meeting and exceeding the
expectation of our guests through unremitting dedication to every aspect of service.” They foundation of
the Oberoi philosophy was to provide customers unforgettable experience by assuring unsurpassed
excellence.

The Oberoi service experience was basically categorized into four buckets: a warm welcome, a zero-defect
product, anticipatory service, and a fond farewell. They did everything possible to make their guests feel
special and cared for. They believed in this business effectiveness matters and not efficiency. Oberoi had
some specific service drivers that enabled it to provide exceptional service, which at the core was the skill
and dedication of its employees. Oberoi took an integrated approach to employee selection, job design,
training, balancing work life, and performance management. These were very strong drivers that enabled
Oberoi achieve its mission. Let’s take a close look into how these enablers affect the Oberoi operations:

1: Employee selection: Oberoi was very selective about its hiring process and hence hired employees after
an elaborate process from a large pool of candidates mostly university graduates. They look at the
candidate’s potential to grow two levels while hiring itself. These recruits possess excellent
communication and interpersonal skills, are well versed in English language and are highly motivated and
they have a positive attitude towards learning and overall growth in their professional career.

2: Job Design: Oberoi had taken several steps and implement standard procedures like “Making a
Difference the Oberoi way” to make sure its guests have a good experience. Along with standards they
also allowed their employees a lot of flexibility on how to handle special guest demands to provide
services over and above what is expected. “eMpower” was such an initiative and various impactful
instance where periodically incorporated into the standards.

3: Training: Oberoi provided formalized training to its employees through The Oberoi Centre of Learning
and Development (OCLD). It invested around $1.5 million annually on training purposes, this shows its
commitment towards investing the career growth of its employees. The curriculum included topics like
team building capabilities, human resource management etc which made them better at their tasks.

4: Balancing work and life: Oberoi took several steps to make the life of its employees easier so that they
can concentrate on work without worrying for anything else. Accommodation, transportation, laundry,
medical services etc was provided. The company also provided unwinding outlets and community-building
events which resulted in less attrition ratio.

5: Performance management: Oberoi discouraged individual gratuities instead used a mix of alternate
monetary and non-monetary incentives in lieu of tips. The level of compensation was decided on the basis
of annual performance evaluations which in turn was very transparent and was visible to all other
employees. Productive behaviour was encouraged and monthly top scorers were called “champions”
which became a source of status within the community.

6: Attention to details: People at Oberoi were obsessed with details and hence insisted on standards.
They went to great length to provide service that amazed its customers even if it meant incurring extra
cost.

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 7: Customized service: Even though a lot of the process was standardized they realised it cannot
accommodate every contingency that arose in the hotel and hence employees were encouraged to use
discretion in following steps and provided customized service where ever they deemed fit. This created
an environment where employee’s natural service ethics will blossom allowing them to serve naturally
applying their values in decision making.

8: Continuous process improvement: Oberoi had weekly small improvement team meetings (SIT) where
groups of people across levels met to discuss what went wrong and brainstorm ideas for enhancing guest
experience. This keeps them posted about recent events and they keep implementing incremental
improvements to make the guests happier.

2. What is your assessment of eMpower, the HR initiative @Oberoi? How does it contribute to
delivering service quality @ Oberoi?
Oberoi hotels stand for service excellence by offering an unforgettable experience to their guests
at every touchpoint of their service. They have been moulding their processes to commit to their
mission of delivering exceptional world class services at all the 4 stages- a warm welcome, a zero-
defect product, anticipatory service, a fond farewell. Program eMpower empowers their staff to
take immediate decisions where they can spend upto Rs 1500 without any managerial protocols
to satisfy customer needs. They believe that satisfying small customer delights makes their stay
at Oberoi memorable thus, enhancing guest satisfaction. Since there were no restrictions/limit
on usage of eMpower the team could responsibly exercise their power to make each customer’s
stay as comfortable as possible. eMpower definitely has improved the service quality at Oberoi
in following ways:

 eMpower is an excellent service tool to enrich customer experience through continuous

improvement by tapping new ideas and satisfying the delight factors during and in some
cases even after the stay of their guests. These moments of customer delight builds strong
customer loyalty towards the brand.
 The team maintains record of details and instances of eMpower usage. This log register
creates a repository of customer needs/expectations which helps them develop and
execute new ideas to improve customer services. They also helped to compare the log
with guest comments to identify those services that led to greatest impact. The ideas of
service which were general but had a greatest impact on customer satisfaction were
incorporated into their standardised processes.
 Rewarding and recognizing employees who took impactful initiatives through eMpower
encourages employees to pay attention to details to match and satisfy the guest
expectations creating a winning culture at Oberoi.
 eMpower, by giving its employees the freedom to make decisions create a sense of
ownership, pride, accountability and motivates them to go out of their way to satisfy the
guests and helps in blossoming of the employees’ natural service ethic. This freedom,

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 motivation, ownership, sense of making a difference contributes to job satisfaction in
employees which reflects directly in customer experience.

3. How should Vikram respond to the recent guest complaint at the Oberoi Vanyavilas property?
The Oberoi hotels have been known for its high service quality and attention to small details that
has been able to bring delight factor amongst its guests. The hotel chain envisions to ensure that
not even one guest leaves unsatisfied. Given the values and vision of the Oberoi, Vikram had to
make a choice regarding the recent guest complaint. He had two options, either to follow a
standardised set of service protocol and let the guest go unsatisfied but at the same time set
necessary boundaries or to compensate the guest for the problems he faced even though root
cause was out of the purview of the hotel premises and reach for the delight factor.
Option 1: Continue with the current standardized service model
The first option that Vikram was to continue with the standardized service model,
emphasizing more on process management and improvements to reach high levels of service
quality. He can stick to the standardized rules to be followed by the employees which would
set an example for other executives in future and they may or may not escalate such issues
further despite the dissatisfaction of the guest. On the other hand, the company will remain
with a set of boundaries and service requirements of the company and not promote
unreasonable expectations of the customers.
Option 2: Compensate the guest
The second option that Vikram has, is to compensate the guest for the discomfort caused
during his stay at the Vanyavilas. By doing so, Vikram would be setting an example for his
junior executives to always go out of their way to serve the customers so that they leave
satisfied from the premises or to raise such concerns to the senior management. The main
belief that The Oberoi swear by was to always do the right thing for each guest and they
believed in applying these values in the decision-making process however complex it may be.
Given these factors, compensating the guest for the third day for which he did not even
occupy the room seems to be in line of the values and vision of the company. On the other
hand, it might also set unrealistic expectations in the minds of the customers once they read
such instances/exceptions on sites like TripAdvisor.
Given the two options and keeping in mind the previous instances (Magnet sent at home,
pouch for adaptors etc) where the management went out of their way to make the guests’
visit memorable, option 2 seems to be the way ahead. Vikram should compensate the guest
for the third day along with an apology note to give it a more personal touch and to make the
customer feel more valuable. The management should also look into the root cause and take
action if the same issue is being faced by other guests as well.

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