Quality Customer Service Delivery in the Hospitality Industry of Ghana: The Case of Modern City Hotel in Tamale

ABSTRACT

Poor service quality has the potential of harming the service provider in the long term, if not instantly. This is because, the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction is direct. This position is most crucial especially when the goal of a business is to attract and maintain a large customer base for its services. But most often than not, issues of service failure hinder the fulfilment of this organizational goal especially in the hospitality industry. For this reason, this study assessed the quality of customer service delivery in the hospitality industry of Ghana with specific focus on the Modern City in the Tamale Metropolis. It focused on the dimensions of service quality as proposed by Parasuraman et al. A 20 item questionnaire was designed to collect data from guests of the hotel. Convenience sampling was used to select 108 guests for the study and questions relating to their expectations and perceptions of quality of service received at the hotel were asked. The data were analyzed using SPSS Version 20. The findings of this research pointed to the fact that there was poor performance in the services provided by the hotel despite doing relatively well in one of the dimensions of service quality i.e. assurance. This is because, customers are very concerned about such things as facilities and technology. Their high expectations in the reliability and empathy of the hotel were met with lower perceptions of service quality. The success influencing factors of the hotel are however, the dimensions of assurance and empathy. It was however found that, for a successful quality service delivery, all the five dimensions of service quality must be properly addressed. To this end, management of the hotel is advised to focus on such dimensions as assurance and empathy as it captured the highest expectations from customers. Typically, the hotel’s management was advised to adjust the operating hours of their facility and to make significant investments in modern infrastructure and service delivery systems. Also, they are advised to share service encounter information among staff and with industry players to ensure harmonious hotel services so as to satisfy and retain their guests for a long time.