Facilitating customer retention through the application of
Total Quality Management Authors: Prof Paul Poisat Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and Mr Gabriel Slabbert of Fair Acres Hotel
O
ver the past few decades, customer satisfaction, customer retention and policies and
procedures have earned great amount of lip service. The importance of satisfied customer percentage has been emphasized by theories even longer before the best advised companies have done so. The Soccer World cup 2010 has renewed the focus on customer satisfaction and retention of particularly South African hospitality institutions.
Retaining customers have become an intangible asset in the sense that their value demonstrates the return that is won by successful efforts to satisfy the customers so greatly that they and their custom literally and figuratively stays with you. The hospitality industry should therefore embrace the business management principles with specific emphasis on Total Quality Management (TQM); providing managers with the capacity to think strategically about the organisation, its business position, how it can gain sustainable competitive advantage and how its business management strategy can be implemented and executed successfully.
There is a strong belief that lodging facilities in the Garden Route area has experienced low customer retention due to a lack of comprehensive implementation of Total Quality Management principles which impedes on the establishments to reach their optimum profit levels. This is an exploratory study to determine whether the application of TQM principles and critical success factors will assist hotels with customer retention. Research shows that hospitality businesses find the implementation of quality processes to be a vital competitive component. However, many hotels are still struggling to reach a real understanding of what is meant by TQM.
The World Wide Web (internet)
has revolutionised the amount of information customers have at their disposal and presents them with multiple options. Through technology and choice customers have become more powerful and are more willing to switch suppliers, experiment and take their custom elsewhere. Faced with intense competition in the marketplace, hoteliers cannot assume that there is an unlimited customer base prepared
January 2012 | Management Today 37
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