Running Head: Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Case Study
Steven Kane
Benedictine University
MBA 630: Operations Management
August 11, 2013

The business problem facing Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is how to continuously improve quality through quantifiable measures. Quality management in any service industry can be very complicated. Customers do not purchase a good, but are looking for an experience that exceeds all expectations. The problem is that each customer has a different view of what an extraordinary experience would be. The exclusion of just one of those elements could mean losing that person to the competition. Without methods for quantifying quality, management does not have the evidence necessary
It is important to ask for an explanation after each question if a scale system is going to be used. For example, if you ask how they would rate the friendliness of the staff, follow that question by asking for a short explanation. It is also helpful to ask specific, open-ended questions. For example, “If you could change one thing about your experience with our employees, what would it be”? is a great way to get specific answers from someone. It would be up to management to read each one of these surveys and to analyze the results. Although, this is a time-consuming task, it could save the hotel from losing valuable customers. The real challenge then becomes how to quantify data from open-ended questions or ratings systems where each person will have a different idea of what each number means to them.

Discussion Questions 1. In what ways could the Ritz-Carlton monitor its success in achieving quality?
A survey could be used to collect data about customer’s experience is the best way to monitor quality as it is perceived by the customer. Also, management can watch trends to see if there is a decrease or an increase in the number of customers served. An increase would show that customers are highly satisfied and that the hotel is doing a better job of meeting expectations. The quality of internal operations can now be monitored based on the 19 processes that were measured and quantified. 2. Many companies say