RESEARCH PROJECT

International Marriott Hotel

ISLAMABAD

SUBMITTED BY:

Shahzeb Hayat

BSBA-VII

SECTION – B

Reg # 04151213068

SUBMITTED TO:

Dr. ARFEEN

Quaid-i-Azam School of Management Sciences

Quaid-i-Azam University

Islamabad
 Measuring Future Satisfaction Of Guests Through Feedback In Hotel Industry

Introduction:

A huge percentage of information is needed and used in the hotel industry. This research

paper will be assisting us in gaining knowledge about how feedback information is helping the

hotel industry market leader “Marriott International” in satisfying the guests and how this

knowledge is extracted, used and managed in to a useful tool for gaining the desired objective i.e

Guest satisfaction.

Keywords:

 Guest Satisfaction

 Guest feedback

 Hotel Sector

 Guest voice Medalia

Introduction:

Islamabad Marriott hotel is a property of Marriott hotel and Resorts and is on franchising

basis with HHL (Hashwani Hotels Limited). There are two properties of Marriott Hotel &

Resorts in Pakistan, One is Islamabad Marriott hotel and second one is Karachi Marriott Hotel.

Both Report to Hashwani Hotel Limited (HHL). It is one of the best leading hotels of Pakistan.

Guest Voice by Medalia is an evaluation managment software. It is the leading provider of the

new type of Voice of the Customer program i.e. one in which the voice of every customer is

brought into the organization. At a high level, feed back is generated by the guests either by a
feedback card, voice note or a video message, transforming that feedback into insight, and then

making it accessible and actionable for everyone within the organization. Medallia translates that

feedback into insight, thus helping in understandin what your customers are experiencing, i.e.

what is working well, what isn’t. And finally, it is made actionable and relevant for everyone

inside the organization for use. The focus of this research will be to know how the feedback

information is used through Mendala by Marriott hotel and its employees while applying the

grounded theory methodology to effect the future satisfaction of the guests.

Literature Review:

Customer satisfaction is a process of consumer’s response to the evaluation of the perceived

discrepancy between prior expectations and the actual performance of the product as perceived

after its consumption. (Tse and Wilton, 1988)

Customer satisfaction as a process of evaluation rendered that the experience was at least as good

as it was supposed to be. (Hunt, 1977)

This definition approaches two sides where the first approach defines satisfaction as a final

situation or as end-state resulting from the consumption experience and the second approach

emphasizes the perceptual, evaluative and psychological process that contributes to satisfaction’.

(Evangelos and Yannis 2010, 2)

When a consumer/customer is contented with either the product or services it is termed

satisfaction. Satisfaction can also be a person’s feelings of pleasure or disappointment that results

from comparing a product’s perceived performance or outcome with their expectations (Kotler &

Keller, 2009, p. 789)

The closeness between customers and service employees suggests that customers may hold

unique information about the performance of service employees that supervisors and peers do

not have (Cascio, 1995; Lambert, Sharma, & Levy, 1997)

In an organization where customer service is important, service providers must gain a “glimpse”

into customer perceptions of service effectiveness. (e.g., customer satisfaction surveys; e.g.,

Johnson, 1996; Schneider et al., 1998).

Methodology:

Customer satisfaction and customer feedback are the codes selected for the research. The data

was collected during my internship session at IMH and an interview which was conducted on

19th November, 2015. The name of the interviewee was Mr. Sadaat Junjua – Quality and Guest

Relation Manager.

During my interview following questions were asked:

? What is the extent to which information is shared amongst the departments?

? Is there any specialized team assigned for handling the MIS?

? Is Medallia helpful in gaining information?

? Who is authorized to get the information from Medallia

? Is there any security regarding accessing medallia?

? How does it prove to be helpful?

The overall summary of the conducted interview was that different top level managers have the

authorities to different information systems relevant to the feilds to which they are connected.
For example, handling the Guest satisfaction sclae (GSS) and Event satisfaction scale (ESS) is

done my using Guest voice Medallia and is under the control of Guest relation manager, Quality

assurance manager, Training Manager and the General Manager of Marriott. Each selected

individual is provided a Employee Idnetification account which he logs in to in order to observe

the guest voice. (Image (i)). All the basic information was circulated to all the individuals of all

the departments through a mail called as the daily packet. However important information was

only to be shared among the top and middle level managment. Medallia is very much helpful in

increasing the guest satisfaction as any complaint or negative point mentioned by any guest,

regardless of its intensity, is observerd and iff necessary, a proper training program is conducted

by the T&D department for the training of that particular problem. Medallia is also benificial in

pointing out following points:

 Uncover the reasons behind feedback scores

 Understand customer needs, wants and pain points

 Prioritize them

 Understand how your customers view and value your products and services

 Understand where you are delivering on your promise to your customers, and where you

are not

 Utilize all this information to inform the way in which your offering is developed and

refined

The process of using medallia is in different steps

1. Information in the form of feed back is obtained from the customers in all possible

(Image ii)
 2. Medallia translates all that information in to understandable coding like points and

ranking.

3. It is uploaded on the Informational chart of our account representing

a. The Guest Satisfaction status

b. Operation satisfaction status

c. Rank on the basis of guest feedback

d. Future reccomendations by guests.

4. Finally an overview is provided to all the departments. However the departments with the

complains are handled and trained by the Training and development department.

Conclusion:

On the basis of all the data collected and observed it can be concluded that Marriott is using

Medallia as one of the most important software in the feild of MIS in their organization.

Medallia is prominently affecting the future steps and decisions which are to be taken in the

organization. So overall it is quiet evident that by using medallia, customers feedback is being

obtained which is helping in increasing the future customer satisfaction as any weakness pointed

out by the customer is being focused and improved.

Annexure:

(Image i)

(Image ii)

References:
 1. Customer satisfaction in business: A case study of Moon Travel LTD, Finland by Wadud

Sharmin November, 2012

2. Glaser BG. Basic social processes. Grounded Theory Review. 2005; 4: 1-27.

3. The Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Service Quality: a study of three

Service sectors in Umeå, JENET MANYI AGBOR, 2011

4. FEEDBACK SEEKING IN CUSTOMER SERVICE RELATIONSHIPS, Louisiana State

University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Aletta Machell Barnard, B. A.,

Denison University, 1995, M. A., Louisiana State University, 1997 ,May 2002

Website Links:

1. http://www.medallia.com/voice-of-the-customer/

2. https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/54685/Wadud%20Sharmin.pdf?

sequence=1

3. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.199.7834&rep=rep1&type=pdf

4. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36566/1/WRAP_Johnston_and_Kong_MSQ_submission_v2.p

df

5. https://extranet.marriott.com/marrsso/idp/SSO.saml2