ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION (SUMMARY NOTES) OF MOMENTS OF TRUTH IN

HOTEL SERVICE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

SUBJECT AND CODE: - FRONT OFFICE ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT (153305)

ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED BY – NIRAV PANKESHKUMAR MODI

ROLL NUMBER: - 31

ENROLLMENT NUMBER –181320130033

ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED TO: - MR. ANIKET TRIVEDI

SUBMITTED
TO

GUJARAT TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF

BACHELORS OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT AND CATERING TECHNOLOGY (BHMCT)

SEMESTER: - 5th

YEAR – 2020/2021

BATCH – 3rd (2018-2022)

SUBMISSION DATE: -

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DECLARATION

I, Nirav Pankeshkumar Modi a student of BHMCT of STATE INSTITUTE OF HOTEL

MANAGEMENT (SIHM) hereby declare that the Project entitled “ ASSIGNMENT
SUBMISSION (SUMMARY NOTES) OF MOMENTS OF TRUTH IN HOTEL SERVICE
MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME” was carried out by me in the partial fulfilment of
Semester-V of BHMCT program.

Place: - Siddhpur Nirav Modi

BHMCT (2018-2022)
Date: - Enrollment Roll No-181320130033

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

TOPICS PAGE NO
Introduction About 4
Moments of Truth
Definition About Moments 5
of Truth
Types of Moments of 6
Truth
Moment of Truth in Hotel 6
How to Managing
Moments of Truth 7

How to Handle Moments

of Truth 8-9

Conclusion 10

Bibliography 11

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Moments of Truth in
Hotel Service
Management Programme
 Introduction: - In the Hospitality industry, there are
a minimum of twenty or thirty moments of truth in its
provision of service. A moment of truth is when an
interaction occurs between a customer and the service
provider that can leave a lasting positive or negative impression on a customer.
Central to the development of a guest service program is the management of what
Albrecht and Zemke call moments of truth:- “episode in which a customer comes into
contact with any aspect of the company, however remote, and thereby has an opportunity
to form an impression.” 13 Every time the hotel guest encounters some aspect of the
hotel, he or she judges its hospitality.

 Guests who are told by a reservationist that they must “take this room at this rate or stay
elsewhere” will not feel that hospitality is a primary consideration at this hotel.

 When a potential guest calls and asks to speak with Ms. General Manager and the
switchboard operator answers, “Who is that?” the guest will expect the same kind of careless,
impersonal treatment when (or if) he or she decides to stay at the hotel.

 A Moment of truth is a contract between the company and consumer during which the
consumer decides if the company really is consumer oriented.

 Why is the Important? Well, consumers rarely read a company’s customer service policy
statement and, even if they did, it would make no difference to their feelings about the
company. (Except perhaps inducing some cynicism if policy was clearly being ignored.
 So, the only way a consumer can judge a company is on the basis of contact with it.
A Moment of Truth is any point in the interaction during
which the customer has an opportunity to gain an impression
of the service provided by the company.

 Moment of Truth:- Definition

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 That contact tends to be at sporadic moments in time, rather than one long continuous
interaction and it is during each “moment” that the consumer decides if the company means
it!

 Notice the terminology: - consumers do not hold a balance sheet of your company.

 They do not say, “Well, I have had five contacts with the company. Two were bad but three
have been good, so they must be all right”.

 Most consumers are influenced by the most recent contact. If it was bas, they feel negatively
about your company, if it was good, they feel positively.

 The guest who is crammed into an elevator with half the housekeeping crew, their vacuum
cleaners, and bins of soiled laundry will not feel welcomed.

 All these impressions make the guest feel that service at this hotel is mismanaged.

 Every contact we have with a consumer is an opportunity to undo all the good that previous
contacts have built up and maybe lose the customer.

 Alternatively, if the consumer is still around, it is an opportunity to make up for some bad
consumer service in the past.

Each Customer contact is called a moment of truth.

 You have the ability to either satisfy or dissatisfy them when you contact them.

 A service recovery is satisfying a previously dissatisfied customer and making them a loyal
customer.

 In customer experience management, moments of truth represent the points in a customer’s

journey with a brand when a key event occurs and an opinion about that brand is formed.

 The term was popularised by leading customer experience author, Brian Solis.

 A Moment of Truth (MOT) is a touch point between the customer and the company. These
moments are very crucial for customer experience. In an ideal case, positive MOTs can leave
a lasting impression.

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 Brian Solis, who developed the theory those four types of ‘moment of
truth’, exist.

1) Zero Moments Of Truth: The term coined by Google to explain the event in

which people now search for information online
and make decisions about brands in that
instance.
2) First Moment of Truth: The point when a
consumer sees a product/ service for the first
time and formulates an opinion about it.
3) Second Moment of Truth: The subsequent “collection of moments” that
incorporate your customers’ senses.
4) Ultimate Moment of Truth:  When an experience with your brand leads
customers to publish some form of content expressing their use and enjoyment of
your product or service, which becomes a form of advocacy for other people to find
and share.

 Moment of Truth in Hotel:-

 Moments of truth in a hotel, for example, will undoubtedly include (but not be limited to)
booking the room, check-in, check-out, dinner reservations, dinner ordering, dinner
presentation, eating (quality and quantity of food) and laundry receipt.

 Understanding the moments of truth that are important to an organisation’s customers – by

segment – is the key to understanding what is good customer service.
 Completing customer satisfaction surveys is not a reliable way of determining moments of
truth for two reasons.

 Firstly, the design of most satisfaction surveys is usually poor. They ask a series of
questions which request an opinion on how well the service provider performed. The
opinion is prompted by a question similar to, “The booking was handled with efficiency and
attention to my needs” and the answers range from totally disagree to totally agree on a five
point scale.

 These examples are only some of the moments of truth that can be identified from an
analysis of the guest service cycle. Whether a guest considers an event a moment of truth or
barely notices, it is a cumulative review of the delivery of hospitality.

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 Managing Moments of Truth:-

 To manage a Moment of Truth favourably, you need to exhibit three qualities:

1) Care and Concern: - You have to prove to consumers/customers that you do personally
value their business and that you are prepared to put yourself
out for them, by sorting out complicated arrangements on their
behalf.
2) Spontaneity: - Consumers like the people with whom they are
dealing to have the authority and use their discretion to make
decisions.
 Words like, “I’m not authorized to deal with that and
my supervisor is out at the moment. Can you come
back after lunch?” are the kiss of death to
consumer/customer Satisfaction.
3) Recovery: - Most consumers know that suppliers are people
too and understand when things go wrong.
 If the supplier then tries to ignore the problem, minimize it, pass the buck or
blame the consumer, the Moment of Truth has been badly handled.
 Consumers want the problem resolved quickly and efficiently. If they can see
that someone in the company has made a special effort to correct it, they are
likely to become more loyal than customers who have never experienced a
problem.
 Moments of Truth:- Action Plan

 You’re Actions
 Crisis Management
 Authority Levels
 Initiative
 Recommendations to your manager

 In Action Plan, Surveys designed this way give a misleading view, as they do not ask a
question which seeks to understand the importance of the particular services prior to the
request for an opinion.

 For example, you are giving an online demo to a customer and it’s going well but suddenly
due to some technical glitch the demo stops abruptly. This is a bad touch point. Rectify this
by immediately providing a delightful experience. Raise the competitive bar by aiming to
drive new and improved standards of customer experience.

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 How to Handle Moments of Truth:-

 Companies that handle Moments of truth well will tend to have the following
Five Characteristics:-
1) Performance at every contact point is assessed against the consumers’ criteria. This
includes, for example, first impressions of the company building / shop / lounge etc.,
mailings, and standard letters and so on.

2) Staff who “own the problem” and regard it as their personal responsibility to see that
consumers or customers are satisfied.

3) They have clearly defined and well understood crisis management procedures so that
staff knows how to handle problems in such a way that the problem is taken from the
consumer and replaced with a solution.
As one insurance company puts it, if you give them your business they will never make a
drama out of a crisis.

4) Authority levels facilitate spontaneity and recovery.

5) The management style and methods of control encourage staff to use their initiative to
serve the company well.

 Mapping Moments of Truth:-

 Understanding what good customer service is begins with mapping a generic customer’s
experience and determining the moments of truth.

 It is insufficient, however, to only have a generic organisational view of the map. To make
use of the map to improve customer service, the view of each significant target segment must
be understood to ensure that appropriate service is given at appropriate moments.

 Surveys of customers’ actual experiences, asking them what has frustrated them in the past,
are an acceptable way to gather information. Using customer satisfaction surveys which only
ask, “How well did we do?” are not.

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 Customer complaints are a source of extra material, but given that only a small percentage of
customers who are dissatisfied actually fill them out, they cannot be the sole source of
information.

 The employees of an organisation are also a good source of information to determine the
moments of truth. Employees see firsthand the body language, the tone and pace of voice and
the circumstances that surveys will never see and that customers will sometimes not realise is
happening.

 What segmentation is used is naturally dependent on the nature of the organisation, its goal
and the level of data it can collect. However, its ability to detect a particular segment and
offer a differentiated service during the day-to-day course of business is the most important
determinant of the nature and level of segmentation to use.

 Determining, at each moment of truth, for each segment, what impacts on the customer’s
perception and memory of the service is the key to providing good service.

 What impacts on the Moment of Truth?

 Research by Liljander and Mattson revealed three personal factors (and the general
environment) impact on perception of service. The personal factors are:

 The level of concern shown for the individual customer

 The level of friendliness shown towards the customer
 The level of civility shown towards the customer.

 Albrecht and Zemke tell us that each guest has a “report card” in his or her head that is the
basis of a grading system that leads the customer to decide whether to partake of the
service again or to go elsewhere.14 If a guest is to award an A+ to the hotel’s hospitality
report card, it is essential that all moments of truth be well managed.

 This challenge is not to be viewed as an impossible mission but rather as an organized and
concerted effort by owners, management, and employees. Keep this customer report card
concept in mind as you develop your ideas about service management.

 Customers are then more likely to be genuinely satisfied and return.

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Conclusion

Thus, hereby I am concluding the project by giving the key learning’s of these summary
notes. I am learnt about the Moments of Truth. I am also learnt about Moments of truth in
a hotel. Hence I am grate full to MR. ANIKET TRIVEDI who provided us with the great
opportunity of learning about these topics.

_________________
MR.ANIKET TRIVEDI
FACULTY OF FRONT OFFICE MANAGEMENT
(STATE INSTITUTE OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT, SIDDHPUR, GUJARAT)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/widerkiran-1636372-moments-truth-
customer-service/

https://www.changefactory.com.au/industry/hospitality/moments-truth/

HOTEL FRONT OFFICE OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT

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THANK YOU

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