Reference no: EM133134934

Procedural customer service may be tangible or intangible and involve service concepts such as timeliness, incremental flow, anticipation, communication, feedback, accommodation, and organization/supervision. Typically in the hospitality industry, companies have specific policies or guidelines that address each of those service concepts in terms of how you as an employee should work within.

For example, a company guideline regarding timeliness might read: "As a restaurant server, customers must be greeted within 3 minutes of being seated at their table." Or, in terms of accommodation, a hotel policy might say: "Under no circumstances are guests allowed to smoke in rooms located on the 1st three floors of this hotel."

In the hospitality industry, however, situations do occur every day when "personal" service makes or breaks a customer's expectation or experience. As a champion of quality service, you may have to choose whether or not you need to "bend" or break company policy in order to win that customer's business. Consider the following situation. How would you respond to this customer if you were the service agent for this hotel?

You are working as a guest service associate at the front desk of a large, downtown hotel. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman approaches you and asks for the manager. The manager is currently addressing another issue away from the front desk, so you ask if you can be of assistance. She explains that she is a regular guest of this hotel, she is very fussy, and is used to the very best in hotel service wherever she goes. She doesn't understand why she cannot bring her small dog into her room and is forced to board her pet at a local pet motel. The dog is housebroken, has all of her shots, and doesn't bark or bite. She just hates the thought of her "little angel" being all alone in this cold and cruel doggy motel all night...plus they charge outrageous rates.

Other guests begin to line up behind her for your assistance. How do you respond to her knowing that this hotel has a posted "No Pets Allowed" policy?