Prepare a report for the Quality Managers of Airbnb

Describe the concept of quality management

Quality management is the process of reviewing all the activities which performed in the business operations in order to achieve their organization goals & objectives. There is a specific standard of quality which management need to achieve in order to maintain excellence. Quality management include the process of formulating policies and implement the planning as well as monitor that quality in order to improve overall operational services. Need Assignment Examples?Talk to our Experts!

In the current business environment there are various quality management tools available that is used by the managers of hospitality sector. But, it is also very important to know about the evolution of quality and its gurus. Before the introduction of total management quality tool, researchers has to work hard to reach this stage. Because organizations face various problem such as technique issues, lack of training, defective goods, unskilled workers in the manufacturing unit etc. After that, evolution of quality happen and effectively implement in order to improve products & services quality in the organizations to satisfy their consumers and maximise the demand.

In order to resolve these problems, management build separate department and allot chief inspector that is a person who is responsible for all activities and taking charge of manufacturing to manage other works (Chung, 2019). Through formulating new department, it will generate various requirement as well as issues such as standards, provide training to the workers, record data, measure the accuracy of equipment. Basically these are some roles & responsibilities which chief inspector have to perform in order to address the defect prevention issues.

“Quality control managers” are the charge of quality control department and they ensure that each functions will be performed according to the industry standard. Statistical theory began in 1920 and implement for the control of quality and in 1924, Shewhart is the first person who made modern control chart and later its work developed by Deming. Statistical Process Control (SPC) is the techniques which was used by the manufacture companies in the late 1940s.

Reputation of Japan industrial system was destroyed because of cheap imitation of products or unskilled workers (Dann, Teubner and Weinhardt, 2019). With the help of some quality gurus Japanese found the issues and able to resolve it. After 1960, quality management and quality control become the national business of the Japan country. Total Quality Management (TQM) is the management approach which is used by the organizations in order to improve quality of their products & services. It is founded by Joseph Juran who was quality guru such as William E. Deming.

Total quality of management originally or initially introduced by the Japanese industries in 1954 and it was used by every types of organizations such as schools, hotel management, motorways and other industries. TQM also used in e-business as well as hospitality sector where quality management will be consider in terms of customers satisfaction. Main purpose of TQM is to improve operational efficiency, save time, improve work at the time of implementation etc. This tool separately used by the organizations and perform as per the standards which formulated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) of the series of ISO 9000.

TQM used to build strategies, gather data, communication channels and some quality management principles. In context of hospitality sector such as Airbnb, they need to implement TQM principle in order to improve their service quality. These principles are focus on customers, employees involvement, process centred, integrated system, strategic & systematic approach, communication, decisions based on the actual facts and continues improvement (Joseph and Varghese, 2019). In order to improve overall quality of operations, organizations follow quality management which helps in improving quality of products & services which further automagically enhance the productivity as well as profit margin. 

Identify the problems which currently experienced by the Airbnb company

Overview of the company

Airbnb is an lodging based company which providing renting or short term dwelling services. It is situated in San Francisco, California and it is founded in 2008 by three people that are Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. This company served in worldwide area and the services are lodging and hospitality.

Problems that Airbnb faces

There are various problems faced by the Airbnb company due to controversial activity where they accused of cancelling 1.1 million bookings of holidaymakers at the last minute. Because of this, many people walk on street in the unknown or unfamiliar place. In 2017, million of holidaymakers reported Airbnb as a fraud company. It is also analyse that, company unable to help those people, they rude with their customers and unable to refund booking amount.

According to travel blog, it is observed that more than 1000 stories come out and it shows bad customer experience and what happen with the holidaymakers when things go wrong. Airbnb take step and identify the issues related to the security and try to end fraudsters which occur by using its websites (Maxim, 2019). In order to resolve this issue, Airbnb appoint the deputy chief of staff as a global head and risk management to identify the problems. In addition, company build new guilds for the guest which help them as well as protect host. Also complied with the group of internet safety that “Get Safe Online”.

Airbnb is an service sector organization so they specially need to focus on customer services and its quality. In order to measure the service of Airbnb, they implement 5 dimensions strategy which included reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. In the first dimension, company should be reliable where they should have ability to complete their promise and deliver the services time and accurately. Such as Airbnb, they offer lodging services to the holidaymakers. But in 2017, around 1.1 million bookings were cancelled which affect company's reputation. Company should be reliable for their work or services what every they offer to their guest. It is very essential aspect for the customer satisfaction and they need to perform their promised services

Another one is responsiveness where organizations should have willingness to help their guest and offer relevant services in order to improve their customer experience. As per the report of Airbnb, it is also found that customer experience was not good even very bad because every four customers in five members claim that, they had bad experience because company unable to do something as well as they rude to their customers. Along with this, they unable to refund booking amount properly (Moon and et. al., 2019). After analysing this situation, it is recommended that business should be responsiveness regarding their actions or customers. Because of them, clients faces many problems and they does not get any solution for this by company's side.

Assurance is the another dimension which is used to build trust between clients and company which helps in providing quality services. Along with this, it is the employees responsibility to assure their customers and provide confidence to use their services. There are various factors which required to consider such as safety, basic standards etc. Such as, Airbnb company unable to provide safety to the holidaymakers. These people walk on streets because of cancelling their booking at last minute. Due to this situation, people not trusting Airbnb and they also unable to assure customers to give them another chance due to lack of safety & security.

Empathy means showing care and attention to the people who are their customers because it is the most important factor which required to analyse. If customer feel that they are valuable for the organizations than they satisfy more, or if they find that customers are not so important or they does not give any special attention on them. It negatively affect the business, similarly this happen with the Airbnb where company was unhelpful or rude. In this situation, company need to take all the possible actions which help their customers to recover from this situation but their employees rudely behave with clients.

Tangibles is not so important factors but also helps in improving quality of service such as employees present, work area, equipment etc. Basically how this dimension factor help the consumers to satisfy with the company's services (Nenakhova, 2019). In the case of Airbnb, company need to be with their customers and provide assurance through showing such activities which calm the guest. Employees need to present and help them through providing valuable solutions.

In the services sector organizations, in order to improve quality of their services they need to follow above mention five dimensions to improve service quality. It will further helps in improving productivity as well as profitability or make them able to achieve business goals & objectives. Airbnb should focus on service quality and further formulate strategies accordingly. Order assignment help from our experts! 

Evaluate one of the following techniques which help the Airbnb to deliver the consistency or effective quality management

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is the most essential or frequently used tool in order to monitor or measure the performance of company in comparison to the industry standards. At the time of measuring quality, it very important to access accurate or reliable data which helps in generating fare results about the performance (Nguyen, Rintamäki and Saarijärvi, 2018). In this tool, organizations measure their performance on the basis of financial or non financial KPI. Financial KPI based on the information which is generated with the help of income statement or balance sheet and with the help of this, business able to calculate the overall sales and profit margin. On the other side, non -financial KPI focus on employees operations, customer relationship, quality of services, supply chain etc. In context of Airbnb which is related to the hospitality industry and there are some key performance indicators such as average room rate, bedroom occupancy rate, revenue per available rate, labour cost ratio, average spend per customers etc. Company should focus on these aspect and measure their performance accordingly.

With the help of key performance indicators, Airbnb able to deliver consistent services and promote effective quality management. In order to improve their overall performance they need to treat every guest as VIP for them. Because when individual feel valuable then it make their experience good or satisfy them. Organization need to provide timely training to their employees not just for the single event. Staff should be well mannered, friendly and they have ability to make their guest conformable or resolve their every issues in the minimum time period. They should provide customize services to increase their loyalty as well as customer base. These actions will help the Airbnb for the quality management as well as maintain consistency at the time of delivering quality services to the customers.

This technique also has some advantages or disadvantages which is required to discussed and it mentioned below:

Advantage:

• Results are measurable: main purpose of KPI technique is to track the progress and take necessary actions to improve performance. It shows the accurate results in various terms such as matrix, numbers, statistics etc. With the help of it, team members or managers able to track the progress on daily, weakly or periodic basis. It help the managers to build strategies accordingly and ensure that it will maximise the productivity as well as profitability.
• Alignment: In an large organization where huge number of employees work, so it become very difficult for the management to track single employee's performance or progress. KPI help the business to aligned their goal and make the result of individual who involved in the particular project.
• Future strategies: With the help of accurate results, managers able to formulate future strategies and they need to more focus on week area of the operations (Pettit and et. al., 2018)).
• Rewards: KPI technique also help the organization to identify the person who perform well and provide rewards as per their performance.

Disadvantage:

• Decrease in quality: Due to focus on achieving short term goals on the business employees loose their concern regarding quality. In order to meet with financial results staff has huge pressure and they compromise with the quality.
• Short term oriented: This technique is beneficial to achieve short term goals but also disadvantage for the long terms goals. There are various sources required to measure success but it will not work in long term in order to achieve long terms goals.
• Loyalty: KPI represent the progress of overall performance but it is very difficult for the organizations to track the work quality which further affect the customer loyalty.

RECOMMENDATIONS

There are various recommendations which help the Airbnb to identify problems and further take actions to resolve the issues. Some of them mentioned below:

• Airbnb also follow total quality of management (TQM) tool in order to manage service quality which they offer to the customers (Zhang, 2019.
• Organization should be customer focused because they are the ultimate people who decided that quality of services satisfactory or not.
• At the time of making decision, they should involve their employees because their participation helps in generating more creative ideas.
• Before making strategic decisions Airbnb should research properly because decision should be fact based which is more authentic or accurate in providing results.

CONCLUSION

From the overall discussion it has been observed that quality management is very essential for the organizations. In the services sector, customer satisfaction is the major factor which help the business to getting growth and success. In order to improve overall quality, most of the organizations follow the various quality management techniques such as key performance indicators. With the help of this technique, business able track the performance as well as progress and it will further helps in making strategies to improve their productivity as well as profitability.

Read also - Strategy for Business

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