Employee-guest interface in service failure recovery episodes in upscale hotels in the Accra metropolis

Abstract

Frontline employee (FLE)-guest interface has been identified as a vital strategic issue in the literature given the fact that the encounter during service delivery could result in service failure which needs to be recovered. Based on the evidence that there is dearth of research examining the interface during service failure and recovery from a managerial point of view, this study assessed frontline employee-guest interface in service failure recovery episodes in upscale hotels in the Accra Metropolis. The study followed the pragmatism philosophy, and the mixed methods approach was used for data collection involving 400 respondents (hotel guests) for the quantitative study, a representative each of the FLEs and FLMs of 15 upscale hotels and two top officials from GTA and GHA totalling 32. The study revealed that the guests were satisfied with the tangible aspects of the hotels, but dissatisfied with the hotels’ services because they did not receive the services promised them; this impacted negatively on their service recovery satisfaction. About 60% of them were dissatisfied with the compensation, yet indicated positive loyalty intentions because of the location of the hotels and some helpful and friendly FLEs. In resolving complaints, guest expected FLEs to be empathetic and responsive by dealing with their problems promptly, yet most of them were not fully empowered to promptly resolve them to minimise guests’ dissatisfaction. It was further revealed that most of the strategies to enable FLEs handle guests’ complaints emanated from the FLMs. It is recommended that a healthy FLE-guest relationship should be sustained to ensure quality guest service delivery, minimise service failures and recover guest service failures effectively by empowered FLEs to satisfy guests and to enhance their loyalty intentions.