2. You are the training director of a hotel chain, Noe Suites. Each Noe Suites hotel has 100 to 150 rooms, a small indoor pool, and a restaurant. Hotels are strategically located near exit ramps of major highways in college towns such as East Lansing, Michigan, and Columbus, Ohio. You receive the following e-mail message from the vice president of operations. Prepare an answer.

To: You, Training Director From: Vice President of Operations, Noe Suites As you are probably aware, one of the most important aspects of quality service is known as “recovery”—that is, the employee’s ability to respond effectively to customer complaints. There are three possible outcomes to a customer complaint: The customer complains and is satisfied by the response, the customer complains and is dissatisfied with the response, and the customer does not complain but remains dissatisfied. Many dissatisfied customers do not complain because they want to avoid confrontation, there is no convenient way to complain, or they do not believe that complaining will do much good.

I have decided that to improve our level of customer service we need to train our hotel staff in the “recovery” aspect of customer service. My decision is based on the results of recent focus groups we held with customers. One theme that emerged from these focus groups was that we had some weaknesses in the recovery area. For example, last month in one of the restaurants, a waiter dropped the last available piece of blueberry pie on a customer as he was serving her. The waiter did not know how to correct the problem other than offer an apology.

I have decided to hire two well-known consultants in the service industry to discuss recovery as well as to provide an overview of different aspects of quality customer service. These consultants have worked in service industries as well as manufacturing industries.

I have scheduled the consultants to deliver a presentation in three training sessions.

Each session will last three hours. There will be one session for each shift of employees

(day, afternoon, and midnight shifts).

The sessions will consist of a presentation and question-and-answer session. The presentation will last one and a half hours and the question-and-answer session approximately 45 minutes. There will be a half-hour break.

My expectations are that following this training, the service staff will be able to successfully recover from service problems.

Because you are an expert on training, I want your feedback on the training session.

Specifically, I am interested in your opinion regarding whether our employees will learn about service recovery from attending this program. Will they be able to recover from service problems in their interactions with customers? What recommendations do you have for improving the program?