Facilities management's impact on customer satisfaction in hospitality

Facilities Management

Overview and Role in the Hospitality Industry

Facilities management has a multitude of definitions, ranging from the tactical and short-term to the strategic, with the latter having a multitude of frameworks used for organizing the many components of this strategic area. One of the best definitions defines a framework for bringing together strategic and tactical responsibilities for the optimal use of organizational resources (Parry, Collins, 1993). In hospitality industries, the optimization of resources needs to take into account customer satisfaction and the overall customer experience. Many hospitality companies have chosen the Service Quality (SERVQUAL) metric as a means to benchmark their performance against customer expectations often with successful results in revamping their operations based on insights gained (Nick, 1993). For facilities management in hospitality, the focus needs to be continually on bridging the gap between customer expectations and experiences, with the goal of exceeding the former as much as possible in every interaction with service personnel. The use of analytics, satisfaction measures including SERVQUAL and other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including the measuring of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) have all been shown to be tied directly to how effectively facilities have been managed in the hospitality industry (Meng, 2011). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the key components of facilities management and assess its impact on customer satisfaction, lifetime customer value, showing the integral nature of this area of strategies and initiatives to the profitability of a hospitality business. Inherent in many of the facilities management frameworks is the need for training and continual development of staff, as their orientation to customers and adherence to a baseline of processes they can use to exceed customers' expectations is critical (Atkinson, Branch, LaHatte, 1987).

Analysis of Facilities Management Components and Contributions

Conclusion

Facilities Management has progressed from being a hierarchical, siloed strategy for managing buildings, subsystems and ensuring the "dial tone" of a business to a strategic asset critical to the long-term growth of a business. In the hospitality industry, facilities management has emerged as a branding asset (as is the case with customer experiences at a St. Regis Hotel for example), and also represents significant investment considerations for many hospitality companies (Parry, Collins, 1993). Creating a platform for a company to stay agile during increasingly uncertain times while creating opportunities for greater collaboration is critical (Halim, Muthusamy, Chia, Lam, 2011). Developing strategies that capitalize on facilities as a competitive differentiator is critical in the hospitality industry to ensure long-term financial growth (Meng, 2011).