A Case Study of DUKES Hotel, London, during COVID-19

INTRODUCTION

Hospitality management provides a scope to the tourism industry to manage their customers through handling the global operational management (Filimonau, Derqui and Matute, 2020). Client handling is the major operation of the hospitality industry, where the management team of the hotel is trying to satisfy the customers by delivering high quality hospitality services. It is essential for the hostility manager to manage the customers and provide them the best hospitality services for meeting their expectation. The study aims at discussing the DUKES hotel, London, and analysing their services to satisfy the customers. Through this study, it is possible to discuss the customer segment as well as the service blue print for analysing the services available in the DUKES London. In the recent era of globalisation, there was lock down, declared by the government of the UK from 23rd March, 2020 and it is first time in the history that DUKES hotel closed theory hotel for the lock down in the recent pandemic era of COVID 19. The hotel tries to open their operations recent and it is mandatory to maintain social distancing as per the government rules and regulations, so that the spread of Corona virus can be reduced. Hence, the service efficacy must be maintained so that DUKES would be able to maintain social distancing and improve the customer’s services in long run. The study explores the service blue print through which the services related to the hospitality, customer handing and maintaining social distancing will be evaluated further.

DUKES is a famous hotel, established in the heart of St. James, Mayfair, the hotel is famous for its history and heritage. In 2018, it has celebrated its 110 years of success and during the lock down it is the first time, when DUKES closed their operation as per the government rules (DUKES, 2020a). The hotel is reputed due to its efficient services where it is successful to serve the customers with high quality hospitality services including the hotel rooms, other facilities, food and lodging etc. the major values of the company are such as,

• Immaculately presented
• Committed to exceptional service
• Warm and welcoming
• Quintessentially British

Through these services, the hotel is able to manage their stakeholders and satisfy them in long run. The demographic profile of the customers includes the factors such as age, gender, marital status and education, where it is important for the hotel to choose the right customers segment where the purchase intension of the consumers for choosing their hospitality services is high. As per the gender, the target population of the hotel is both male and female, where the individuals choose their services to enjoy the leisure time (DUKES, 2020b). On the other hand, age is another mandatory factor and the DUKES hotel targets the age group between 22 years to 60 years, where there is high intension to choose their services. As per the education background, the hotel will target the higher degree and the consumers with high occupational profile, so that they can afford the services of the hotel. In this regard, the customer’s trend refers to the choice and preferences of the consumers in the market for selecting the hospitality services which may satisfy them. The customers in the recent years prefer good quality food, healthy breakfast as well as neat and clean place to stay safely, and good environment where the clients can enjoy their leisure time (DUKES, 2020a). The likely expectation of the customers of DUKES hotel is high quality hospitality services, maintaining hygiene factors at the hotel and handling the customer’s services through treating the client with social care and management.

Service blueprint for the hospitality service at DUKES hotel

Figure 1: Blueprint service for DUKES hotel

Physical evidence

The physical evidence is important for the hotel to manage the interior services for the customers. The major physical evidences at the DUKES hotel are the car parking plot, help desk and reception, room amenities, good and necessities. These are the equipment, where the hotel managers are able to maintain their operational efficiency (Cabral and Jabbour, 2020). The front desk manager is able to handle the client query as well as manage them successfully. In this regard, there is representative and receptionist in the hotel, where they greet the customers and welcome them with warmth and healthy atmosphere. The customers can feel valued and safe in entering the hotel and also feel comfortable to spend time in the hotel. On the other hand, the welcome drinks are available for the customers as well as the hotel manager is able to handle the hygienic factor in such a pandemic era, where there is sanitation facilities, providing gloves and masks to the customers so that they can feel valued and understand the safety measures at the hotel. For social distancing management as per the government rules, the hotel focuses on maintaining social distancing, where the sitting arrangements are designed efficiently with maintaining the distancing between the customers (Kandampully, Zhang and Jaakkola, 2018). There is free space for the clients where they can rest and manage the check in process successfully. The individual care and management in the hotel is efficient, here the hotel managers provide individual care and management and one to one care to the customers further creates values for the clients and manage them successfully.

Customer journey

Customer journey is important to be handled efficiently. The customers are the major stakeholders of the hotel, where the hotel management team manage them and provide high quality customer’s services to them. In this regard, the major customer’s journey is related to website searching check in time, food and beverage services, room arrangement for them and the check out timing. These are the major activities through which the customer’s journey can be developed. The customers firstly review the website of the hotel, search for the best services and other additional facilities at the hotel, as well as review the price of their services available in the market. These are the important information, where the clients try to search through reviewing the company website. After that, the customers choose their services and come to the hotel for enjoying their leisure time. The customers are treated very well at the reception of the hotel, where the check in process o\is smoothly handled by the management team of DUKES hotel (DUKES, 2020b). The manager and front desk employee at the hotel are able to handle the operational process and the customers get warm welcome at the hotel. The reception is a large place where the managers are able to handle social distancing and handle the clients efficiently. Personal care and management and one to one interactions with the clients are crucial for the hotel where the clients are managed well. In addition to this, they also get welcome drink and friendly atmosphere to relax and enjoy their leisure time. The customer journey will end to the check out time, where they are able to make payment through the smooth online or offline process as well as encouraged to share their feedback in staying in the hotel and enjoying their hospitality services.

Onstage interactions

Onstage interaction is necessary and there is the line of interaction between the on stage operation and customer journey and it is the responsibility of the front desk officer and customer management team to manage their onstage operations to handle the clients and manage them at the hotel successfully (Akpan, Soopramanien and Kwak, 2020). Taking the bags and providing them the safety measures due to the recent pandemic era are mandatory onstage operation, where the customers can feel special. In this regard, the customers get the place to relax and social distancing is also managed well by providing individual sitting arrangement across the lawn of the hotel. In addition to this, greeting and taking the bags as well as the process registration are handled well at the reception of the hotel (Chadee, Ren and Tang, 2020). In this regard, the bags of the customers are managed as well as the process registration is also handled smoothly. The online registration process is there where the customer engagement is mandatory where the representative of DUKES hotel interact with the clients and acknowledges the personal information for check in process. Additionally, the information of the customers is ensured to be kept securely by implementing the Data Protect Act 1998 (DUKES, 2020a). Providing the food services, next day breakfast and other necessities are arranged efficiently for the customers. The quality of food is maintained properly as well as the hygienic factors are also managed so that the government rules of maintaining hygiene in such a pandemic ear can be fulfilled by DUKES hotel.

Back stage interactions

The back stage interactions are also necessary to be handled efficiently and in this regard the major factors are such as client handling, online registration and data management, food and amenities management as well as the computerised database management system. The client information is mandatory to be handled with safety and security and in this regard the computerised digital database management is there to support the clients and maintain security in long run. The back stage operation of food ordering and processing are also necessary to deliver high quality food to the clients, all the requirements of the clients are handled efficiently by fulfilling their needs at the hotel (Gursoy and Chi, 2020). The food items are delivered at the hotel room, and there is no such arrangement in the lawn for the lunch and dinner as well as the breakfast. This is due to maintaining the social distancing at the hotel, so that the clients can get their food at their room, and there would be no social gathering among the customers at the hotel. The room service is also arranged efficiently, where there are capable service delivery boys, who take care of the clients and fulfil their needs at their room. The room amenities and additional facilities such as interior decoration, availability of good quality mini refrigerator, television, and free Wi-Fi services at the room are also managed well. These are the major back stage operations which are effective for client handling at the hotel.

Support process

For support processing, the major factors are necessary to be considered such as online database management system, efficient employee handling and customer’s service management (Baum and Hai, 2020). The hotel staff members and managers try to create good corporate culture and the managers are also able to hire the technicians who are efficient to handle the online database safely, so that the clients can feel valued and safe to share their personal information. The online data base management also provides a scope to the hotel staff to manage the clients within effective time and help them to check out by smooth operational process and making payments timely.

Evaluating the social distancing measures

The DUKES hotel is famous for their quality service and customers management, where the hotel is also successful to handle the clients and retain them for long run. The organisation is able to manage the process of social distancing as per the government rules and regulation after the continuous lock down since 23rd March 2020. It is the first time in the history of DUKES hotel that the management team are bound to close their hotel for the recent pandemic era due to COVID 19 and recently, it has been opened and their operations are managed under proper maintenance of government rules and legislations. As per the government rules, social distancing is mandatory to be maintained to protect the spread of the corona virus among the population and in this regard the DUKES hotel incorporates different strategic tactics to tackle the situation by handling social distancing. They avoid social gathering and arrange the clients individually. The management team arranged a lawn and decorates for client management individually where there are distances in sitting arrangements, where the client can wait for room services. On the other hand, there is effective sanitization process during check in the hotel and the process is efficient to maintain the hygiene factors. The gloves, cotton shoe covers and masks are mandatory to be provided to the customers in the lawn, so that each client can feel safety in checking in the hotel. On the other hand, the sanitisation spray are also provided to each customers during the check in time as well as in order to avoid the social gathering, there are front desk officer and staff who handle the client individually and the online process of registration while checking in are also beneficial for maintaining social distancing and handling the clients in the hotel successfully (Hao, Xiao and Chon, 2020). Moreover, the hotel is able to invest in maintaining their hygiene factors and in this regard, the manager’s team must focus on paper plates and glasses so that it would be possible to use and throw the plates and glasses. This is also effective for maintaining hygiene and run their operations by implementing the government rules and legislations.

Benefits of customer service management at DUKES hotel

The customers expect extraordinary hospitality services at the hotel where social distancing is mandatory as well as they also expect that the organisation would be able to manage hygienic factors in such a pandemic era. The above mentioned service blue print at DUKES hotel as well as customers relationship management practice during the recent pandemic era are fruitful for the organisation to manage their efficacy in operating in the global hospitality industry, it is one of the famous hotel in the London and it is successful to expand their business across the international places, where the promotional activities in the market are effective for branding (Shin and Kang, 2020). The hotel is also successful to strengthen their client base as well as the recent safety measures are also beneficial for the firm to improve their performance and ensure business excellence. The online database management system and online registration process are also beneficial to handle fast operational delivery and client relationship management, where the staffs are also successful to interact with the customers individually and heel them with room amenities, food and lodging to fulfil the expectations of the customers at the hotel. Moreover, as per the recent trend of the consumers, they prefer to get neat and clean environment as well as social distancing where DUKES Hotel is also successful to manage social distancing and keep the place clean for maintaining the hygienic factors so that it can contribute in reducing the spread of corona virus among the individuals. In addition to this, the hygienic factors including the paper plates and glasses for food, sanitation at room, social distancing maintenance, and clean space are the major attractions of the hotel, where the managers are able to handle the clients and satisfy them in long run.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, the organisation is efficient to invest adequate amount of financial resources in planning and executing the operational efficacy in the recent pandemic era. In the recent years the hotels are guided by the government rules and regulations, where hygienic measurement is mandatory as well as social distancing is also another factor which is necessary for the hotel to be maintained in the premises. As per the above analysis, DUKES hotel is one of the reputed organisations in the global hospitality industry and the management team focuses on managing their customers and developing strong bonding with them by enhancing trust and loyalty. In this regard, there are some issues of managing the social distancing, and these are lack of staffing, lack of understanding and management, poor financial investment in maintaining hygiene and lack of client handling for which Dukes hotel may suffer in long run to create good corporate image in the market. It is hereby necessary for the hotel to manage the social distancing through innovative technique so that the client can be handled well and they can get extraordinary services in the hotel remises.

It is hereby necessary for DUKES hotel to improve their service efficacy to treat the customers with value and integrity. The staff members and the managers are also playing crucial role in client handling and customers relationship management and in this regard, it is mandatory to develop strong database management tool to handle the customers. In order to avoid social gathering at the hotel remises, the online registration form and the bookings are one of the effective solution where the customers can fulfil the form before coming to the hotel. The technicians and front desk management team must handle the company website and fulfil the client requirements so that the customers can choose their services and make effective decision to stay at the hotel. The online registration must be completed few days before checking in. it further helps the staff to make ready the room and other amenities as well as make all the arrangement for the clients, this reduces the waiting time of the clients at the receipt and also it helps the staff members to manage the customers and take their baggage to the room. On the other hand, the hygiene measurement must be there before checking in the hotel, and these are sanitization, temperature measurement and providing free mask and gloves as well as cotton show covers which are helpful and creative to provide safe environment where the clients can feel secure to stay in the hotel. Additionally, DUKES hotel must focus on providing the food items and beverages during breakfast, lunch and dinner to the individual room, so that there will be no social gathering at the premise and the customers can enjoy their food individually at their room.

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