Quality Management Tools and Techniques
3. Strategic benchmarking is a far riskier activity when the partners are competitors,
as the plans of the organization are involved.
To make this a worthwhile exercise, com- mercially sensitive information needs to be divulged.
Managing the benchmarking process Karlof and Ostblom (1993) stated that the
‘pitfalls’ of benchmarking are as follows:
•
Time allowed is too short. Time is needed to negotiate access into an orga- nization before the task even begins. This can be underestimated.•
Preparation has not been carried out prior to undertaking the task. This includes objectives not identified and in-depth understanding of the partner organization not undertaken.•
Too many processes are benchmarked at once.•
Staff have not been allocated specifically to the benchmarking task, therefore do not devote enough time to it.•
There are too many inter-organizational problems, and trust is not forthcoming.Time needed to build a relationship is not allocated.
•
Benchmarking is without depth, due to a small number of key indicators being developed.•
Data analysis is incorrect.•
Customers are not included in the comparative analysis.As tourism and leisure organizations try to meet the constantly changing needs of the customers, continuous improvement becomes the quality ‘target or goal’ for which they are striving. Even with all its problems and limita- tions, the use of benchmarking can help to create a learning organization. Benchmarking is not accredited by an external organization but has been incorporated into the monitoring criteria of a number of management systems
Box 12.4. Case study: benchmarking the arts in Australia. (Source: Radbourne, 1997.) Traditional performance measures for identifying best practice in the arts are:
•
getting a government grant;•
good reviews;•
increased audience or visitor size;•
number of subscription tickets sold;•
number of standing ovations;•
status of the people opening the exhibitions;•
number of pictures sold;•
length of queues.It is traditionally considered that an artist is being measured against best practice every time they or their work is exposed to an audience. Bench- marking criteria for the arts have now moved to embrace managerial aspects and these now include:
•
assets and profit made by state-owned museums and galleries;•
effectiveness of marketing to sponsors;•
level of public awareness;•
plus the traditional monitoring of the role of the arts to the local community.(e.g. the Best Value management ethos of the public sector) and the Business Excellence Model also encompasses this type of self- assessment tool into its framework.
Business Process Re-engineering Hammer and Champy (1993, cited in Leach, 1996) defined business process re- engineering (BPR) as:
The fundamental rethink and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, and contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed.
It is therefore necessary to consider BPR after benchmarking processes against other service providers. Unlike the other quality tools discussed in this chapter so far, BPR is not a stage in working towards a change in organizational culture. Deming (cited by Leach, 1996) expressed concern that the goal of BPR is continuous improvement, which he saw as disruptive, as the changes are never-ending. He was in favour of continual improvement, where change takes place at specific times after a period of planning, training, etc. Although BPR is revolutionary rather than evolutionary, it can easily comply with Deming’s need for continual improve- ment even though it can identify far-reaching solutions (Hammer and Champy, 1993, cited in Leach, 1996).
Radical changes (e.g. going from waitress service to buffet service in a hotel) that BPR could bring about were considered by Burke (1997) as being of moderate to high-risk orga- nizational strategies. Clemons (1995) stated that there are intermediate BPR strategies that do not carry the same risk to the organization.
These are as follows.
Business process redesign
The least radical strategy includes the rede- sign of the procedures for booking of sports facilities in a leisure centre or theatre seats.
The main aim is to save on operation costs and may result in the introduction of a
computerized booking system. Kawalek (1994) was concerned that, whilst staff are spending time concentrating on bench- marking simplistic processes, they have no time for radical innovative thinking.
Process innovation
Trying to redesign processes to add value to the business or organization entails medium risk. This is based on offering an ‘adequate’
rather than ‘ideal’ service (Clemons, 1995).
An example of this is a national tourist office cutting down the level of information given to clients at any one telephone enquiry.
This increases the number of enquiries that the call centre can handle but still allows a personalized service to be delivered. The introduction of premium telephone numbers increases the income to the organization from the telephone company.
Business revision
This is the highest risk and Clemons (1995) saw it as coming from two sources: functional and political.
•
Functional risk is when the wrong changes are made that have major consequence to the business.•
Political risk comes from internal resist- ance and the task is never completed, wasting the organization’s time and money.The more radical the change, the more resis- tance employees will have to it. One way to try to overcome this is to engage consultants to drive through to implementation any diffi- cult changes in working practices (e.g. week- end work to be paid at standard hourly rates and not attract premiums).
An example of a business revision was brought about by the introduction of com- pulsory competitive tendering into local authorities. This required the creation of direct service organizations so that they could compete against commercial contractors for management contracts for local government leisure centres.
Advantages of BPR
The management of (and changes to) business processes is important as it allows service providers to: (i) be responsive to changing customer needs; (ii) be flexible, enabling them to meet other external changes (e.g. legislation); (iii) review the service specification and its delivery; and (iv) be in a position to reduce costs.
Disadvantages of BPR
Burke (1997) stated that the radical improve- ment of a few processes may have benefits to that small area of operations but suggested that those who are involved in this process must not lose sight of the total service. The question needs to be asked as to what are the effects of these changes on the rest of the organization and its customers.
BPR embraces change that many employ- ees find threatening and attempt to resist. Part of this perception is due to the fact that BPR has been linked with cost reduction (i.e.
downsizing of the workforce). Cooper and Markus (1995) stated that staff will not offer the best ideas when redundancy may result.
Champy (1995) dramatically stated that a second managerial revolution is taking place.
He suggested that this is due to the rapidly changing business and political environment in which organizations are operating. To sur- vive, he advocated that radical and innovative thinking is needed and that BPR is the most appropriate tool for managers to implement to achieve this.
Specialist Quality Tools and Techniques for the Tourism and Leisure Industry Unlike hotels, where the level if not the quality of the service is indicated by a range of schemes (e.g. crowns and stars, see Chapter 8), the diverse nature of the leisure and tourism industry means it does not have any industry-wide systems. The next section gives an overview of a range of specialist quality monitoring tools and
techniques for specific subsets or sectors of the industry.
UK Quality Scheme for Sport and Leisure (QUEST)
QUEST is an industry-specific quality award based on the Excellence Model (see Chapter 11). Its development was commissioned by the four UKSports Councils for monitoring of the quality of delivery of leisure centre facilities management, but adaptations for other leisure-related facilities are envisaged in the future (e.g. fitness and health clubs) (Sports Council, 1999).
The programme enables self-assessment and is said to be able to facilitate the change in public sector management philosophy from compulsory competitive tendering to the needs of Best Value monitoring (see Chapter 9). Self-assessment is achieved by answering a range of statements covering four areas: facili- ties operations; customer relations; staffing;
and service development and review (QUEST News, 1998).
For example, the statements could include: ‘a customer care policy exists and is implemented’ and ‘staff are generally helpful and pleasant’. These are answered by giving a score from 1 to 4, in which a score of 1 indicates that performance is poor or has not been con- sidered; 2 indicates reasonable performance, but with room for significant improvement;
3 indicates good performance with a few minor problems; and 4 indicates excellent performance in all aspects (Sport Council, 1999). The scores can be added together, with a maximum of 632 being possible, but the individual scores give a better indication of a facility’s performance.
This is a very inexpensive self-assessment system, which can integrate other certified quality tools into it (e.g. IIP). Due to its rela- tively recent introduction, the transfer rate from self-assessment to gaining the award is low and take-up in the first place was some- what lower than the Sports Council’s targets.
The validity of the model is questioned because of its inability to monitor effective- ness of service delivery. An overemphasis has
been placed on users, who are an easier group to collect data from than trying to monitor non-users and other stakeholders in the com- munity – a requirement of Best Value moni- toring system. However, QUEST is evolving and it will be interesting to observe whether or not effectiveness monitoring is adequately addressed in the future.
Centre for Environmental and Recreational Management
This is a research project of the Centre for Environmental and Recreational Manage- ment (CERM) of the University of South Australia. The centre has developed an industry-specific monitoring system for public sector sport and leisure facility provid- ers. Whilst this system was developed and piloted in the Australian leisure industry, it is being applied in other areas of the world, including New Zealand and the UK.
The system is said to measure efficiency and effectiveness over 18 customer service quality attributes, two key efficiency indica- tors and other working indicators (Crilley et al., 1997). The attributes measured are based on a four-dimensional model of core services, staff quality, general facility and secondary services (Howatet al., 1996) that incorporates the five dimensions of service identified by Zeithamlet al. (1990): tangibles, responsive- ness, reliability, assurance and empathy.
The model has the ability to compare customer expectations with the actual perfor- mance of the centre (customer perceptions).
This is known as the gap analysis model, the most famous and in widest use being SERVQUAL (Zeithaml et al., 1990) (see Chapter 13).
Examples of the PI measures include:
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Attributes, e.g. value for money, attitude of the staff, and cleanliness of the facilities.•
Key efficiency indicators – visits per square metre and expense recovery.•
Working indicators, e.g. marketing financial ratios, training costs.A key element in effectiveness monitor- ing is consultation via focus groups with
managers, staff and users. The industry- specific PIs allow for benchmarking to be facilitated.
Unlike most of the tools and techniques mentioned so far, this is one of the few to have been devised by academics working in con- junction with practitioners. Together they are trying to develop an industry-specific model to enable public sector leisure facilities to monitor effectiveness as well as efficiency of their service, effectiveness being the most dif- ficult element to evaluate (Audit Commission, 1998).
Hospitality Assured mark
This is the quality initiative of the Hotel and Catering International Management Associa- tion (HCIMA) and the British Hospitality Association, to improve the level of service offered by their industry. It comprises self- and external assessment over 12 areas, see Box 12.5.
Organizations have to achieve scores of 50% in all areas to gain the award. The assessment is designed to show organizations what standards are acceptable but without describing how to carry out an activity.
It is said that the Hospitality Assured mark, as well as enabling organizations to gain competitive edge, motivates staff and enhances their training (Howard, 1999).
Organizations that have achieved the award are DeVere Hotels, Center Parcs and Directors Table.
Box 12.5. Hospitality assured mark assess- ment areas.
•
Customer improvement•
Process improvement•
Service performance assessment•
Service delivery•
Training•
Resources•
Process and procedures•
Service planning•
Service standards•
Business goals•
The service concept•
Customer researchTraining courses
Training is a fundamental concept of quality management. The following training courses are concerned with improving customer care and service delivery within the service indus- try and especially with meeting the needs of tourism organizations.
Welcome Family
According to the English Tourist Board (now known as the English Tourism Council), this is a series of ‘result-orientated courses for staff and management that develop skills, service and revenue’. They are specifically developed for the UKtourism industry but are now available to organizations involved with transport, sport and recreation, retail and the arts. The Welcome Family courses are based on a Canadian concept and were originally introduced by the Wales Tourist Board in 1991 (English Tourist Board, undated).
The costs are kept to a minimum, as grant-aid is available from the European Social Fund via the Learning and Skills Councils. These are accredited training courses and delivery is via a regional tourist board accredited trainer, which in large organiza- tions can be a member of staff.
The main benefit of the series of courses is said to be the gaining of competitive edge via a well-trained staff. This is due to a range of fac- tors, which have been identified by the Eng- lish Tourist Board as: (i) potential to achieve a higher level of repeat business; (ii) potential to gain new business by word-of-mouth recom- mendations; (iii) potential to improve staff recruitment and retention; and (iv) help to create a more productive working environ- ment. These are very high ideals for a range of short courses, and only if they are part of a more extensive programme can they be achieved.
The scheme comprises the following courses.
WELCOME HOST. This is a tourism industry customer-care course lasting for 1 day. It gives a basic introduction to the tourism industry and customer care. The handling
of complaints and enquiries features in this course, as does the importance of communications.
The course gives a good overview of the industry and the basic skills required. It is suit- able for employees who have not worked in the industry before, particularly as part of their induction programme. For example, Haven Holidays has instigated this course on an organizational-wide basis, but this is unusual, as the norm is for only front-of-house staff to attend (e.g. receptionists).
WELCOME ALL. This was introduced as a way of informing the leisure and tourism industry of its need to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act 1996. The 1-day course enables staff to be aware of the legal requirements of the Act and to be predisposed to the various requirements of people with a range of special needs. Again it is a good course for inclusion in an induction programme and may also be necessary for existing staff. It allows for a basic introduction to this area but no more.
WELCOME LINE. This 1-day course covers not only basic telephone answering tech- niques but also aspects of relationship market- ing (e.g. every encounter with a customer or potential customer is a marketing opportu- nity). Whilst ideally every employee needs to be trained in these elements, cost can be a lim- iting factor. The tourism and leisure industry tends to employ many part-time and seasonal members of staff to facilitate peaks and troughs in the service delivery. Many are stu- dents on their long vacation from university or college and they have little (or no) loyalty to their employer; they will leave a seasonal job if more money is available elsewhere. A UK amusement park employs over 300 workers every summer, and even though the fee for this course is only £35 at present, that amounts to direct costs of £10,500 plus travel and indi- rect costs of one day’s pay. This is a large investment if staff are not going to stay for the whole season or return in future years.
WELCOME MANAGEMENT. It is stated by
Cumbria Tourist Board that the aim of the programme is ‘to look in detail at some of
the management implications of providing excellent customer service’. Unfortunately the list of who should attend includes only those managers who have responsibility for devel- oping customer service. This is seen as a major limiting factor by the authors, if a more holistic approach to quality is taken, as customer needs and service delivery are the responsibility of all managers (Deming, 1986;
Feigenbaum, 1991; Oakland, 1993). The con- tent of this course is extensive, covering most of the important issues in service delivery and monitoring techniques (e.g. benchmarking, staff empowerment, recruitment) but these concepts and issues can only be sketchily addressed in one day.
WELCOME HOST INTERNATIONAL. The English Tourist Board has forecast that the number of overseas visitors to the UKwill grow by 78%
by the year 2003. This 1-day course is designed to increase awareness of the expectations of overseas tourists. It is suggested that a basic introduction to the language of up to six countries is possible, which is followed up with distance learning materials (e.g. an audio tape). Whilst the awareness element of the programme is excellent, tailor-made to a par- ticular region and its visitor, the attempt to speak other languages is superficial. If an organization needs staff with a second language ability, they should recruit or train them properly.
Other courses in the series
Individual tourist boards have developed a range of specific Welcome Family courses to meet the needs of the local industry (e.g. Wel- come Retail and Welcome Host for the Arts).
The Welcome Family package of courses is a quality tool that can be integrated with a range of quality systems, tools and tech- niques, especially IIP. The underlying philos- ophies are the same in that staff are the most important resource to the service industry and trained staff will know how to communi- cate with customers and deliver a service with a minimum of mistakes. This leads to
a lowering of operational costs but a gain in competitive edge through offering an appropriate service.
Components of the Welcome Family of courses have been successfully used in induction training for major events such as the Welsh Garden Festival and Euro 1996 football championship. For Euro 1996, more than 2000 seasonal staff plus permanent staff (e.g. grounds staff, stewards) were inducted using the Welcome Host programme. It is said that retailers close to the match grounds were offered the opportunity to attend as well.
As pointed out when discussing IIP pre- viously, most of these training packages are only appropriate for new employees or as an introduction to a subject (e.g. Welcome Man- agement), and ongoing continual professional development is left to others.
Summary
The introduction of a quality tool or tech- nique may be done in isolation, particularly at the start of an organization’s quest for quality improvements. Each tool or technique should be implemented after careful plan- ning as to how it fits into the organization’s quality strategy.
However, Dale and Shaw (1999) were critical of an isolationist approach, suggesting that only short-term benefits will be achieved.
To gain longer-term improvements, they stated that the organization’s culture towards quality must be changed. As examined in more detail in Chapter 10, we agree with Dale that one tool or technique must not be singled out as more important than another, as they can all contribute to the quality improvement system. Practitioners must understand the benefits of each one and be aware of their limi- tations. Continuous or continual improve- ment and a customer focus must be the targets to aim for irrespective of how they are achieved and, as the next chapter demon- strates, based on knowing what customers think.