Md Ashik Hossen

Quality Management Student Name: Student ID: Executive summary Quality management in service industry plays the significant role because service industry depends on quality management. After discussion of this quality management, the quality management concept has been introduced. The evolution of the service quality management was discussed. With the problems of airbnb about the quality management, this module has been designed. The benchmarking and core dimensions of the service quality were applied in the airbnb. Contents Executive summary2 Introduction4 Concept of Quality Management5 Quality management problems in Airbnb7 3. Quality Management Dimensions12 4. Benchmarking Method14 Recommendation15 Conclusion15 References16 Introduction In earlier the business used to believe the quantity of the production of products and services ensures the success of a business. But gradually businesses realized that it is quality that makes a brand a priority to the customers and ensures success. Airbnb is quite a new concept in the lodging industry. From two roommates renting an air bed to three tourists to a billion-dollar company and the concept was simple, providing quality lodging facilities at a reasonable price (Airbnb, 2020). Recently Airbnb is facing quality issues. Concept of Quality Management Quality management Quality management is a quality management technique applied to meet the requirements desired quality of products and the services and to influence employee taking actions to ensure the tasks according specified quality (Bedradina, 2019). The consistency in quality of products and services can be ascertained through an extensive quality management. It actually assures the excellence level in quality of products with satisfaction of customers because all tasks and activities are accomplished effectively. Evolution of quality management concept Although, the quality management is a recent phenomenon, from early age this has been practicing in all organisations. The arts and crafts business was the oldest business activity and civilisations upheld to allow the customers and clients to choose different goods and services with high quality rather than normal arts and crafts (Forbes et al., 2018). According to their standards and desired quality, the craftsman always tried to provide the arts and crafts and produce it. For this, the supervisors were recruited to train up the subordinates and employees and the aim was to produce same products in a lot. Eli Whitney proposed first to interchange the parts for manufacturing for muskets as the identical components are used in producing the arts and crafts. After that Frederick Winslow Taylor (F. W. Taylor) the father of scientific management stated and highlighted the industrial efficiency with high quality dimensional products. He actually stated the standardisation and adoption improved practices with quality management (Dayan and Ndubisi, 2018). Henry Ford was successful for starting the quality management in process and into operation of business. Production practice with high quality was introduced in car production by Karl Benz who actually was the inventor of car and he succeeded to produce Volkswagen after World War II. The quality control for production was created by Walter A Shewhart which was the major step for quality management and to ensure it he used statistical method which was introduced first in 1924. After his creation W. Edwards Deming applied first of this statistical method which can control the process quality (Bedradina, 2019). Rebuilding the economy of Japan after War II, they decided they should change the improvement and development quality in their country. Before War II the Japanese goods and products were low and cheap quality but with the reconstruction of the economy the quality of the products in Japan were introduced with high quality to present it was possible with 50s and 60s decades. With this change the quality of Japanese car regularly holds the top position in the worlds. In the past decades, the quality gap has been greatly reduced between competitive products and services (BBC News, 2020). To ensure the quality of the products china and India started to outsource from different countries many freelancers so that they may increase their quality of the products within sometime. And finally the ISO 9000 series started and different tools and techniques were introduced within the organisation e.g. the TQM, quality control and six sigma and many other standards. Today’s quality management is constructed from above evolution of the quality management. Quality management problems in Airbnb Currently Airbnb is introduced within the world because of its lodging service ideas with innovation. The short term renting system was popular within the local community which was started by Airbnb as a platform of them. It works as a hotel industry and as it managed by the local hosts its difficulties to maintain quality and standards. So many problems are faced through Airbnb within service provision. Quality of the house – Airbnb deals with different lodging industry and houses with varieties so the service and quality of rooms are varied from house to house (Airbnb, 2020). Because, in different places with different cultures are introduced and so the same customers and guests will get different houses, it creates the question of quality of house which is provided by Airbnb. Even the health and hygienic issues will be introduced through different lodging. Lack of policy and uncontrolled – As the lodges and houses are rented by Airbnb, the policy and house systems are uncontrolled because the local community wants to operate their houses according to their own styles. The risks and dangerousness are more because of uncontrolled for example 72% of the reservation in NY are illegal which indicate the uncontrolled risks aversion with the lodging industry and airbnb. Rent increment – the rent of the houses are increased day to day because of airbnb. The local community thinks that airbnb will reserve the house and provide a large amount that’s why the rental is increased by them. It creates the social problems with society and the middle class people with homeless cannot afford rent of the houses (Airbnb, 2020). Negatively impacts on the services of Airbnb are introduced through the local community. The local community sometime faces threats from the tourists because they may criminal and other characters who can affect in the society with negative impression. That’s why 500% rent is increased for airbnb although service taker will remain below their standards. Dependence on the hosts – the dependency of the tourists is increased on hosts. In critical situation the hosts may not be free and they may stack with different activities so the tourist cannot afford their tolerance with high level of dependency (Airbnb, 2020). As the hosts are not responsible for providing the services they may cancel the reservation with problems when they will face it more. Lack of privacy – the privacy cannot be maintained because of the tourist cannot identify the problems and threats with the destinations. The privacy can be declined because the local community decorates the houses according to their styles. Besides tourist police and other safety and security cannot be ensured by the local host which increase the lack of privacy and risk for the tourists. Above all the problems are regarding the quality of the services provided by the hosts and airbnb here are some discussion on these problems. Dependency for profitability of an organisation with growth is mostly on the quality of service if it is included to the service industry (Airbnb, 2020). The expected service is failed to be given to the clients the reservation will be cancelled and they will switch to another service provider. So the satisfaction level of the clients depends on the service quality and if the clients satisfy with the service the profits and growth of the organisation will be increased. The core dimension of the service quality whether airbnb follows the core dimension while service their service to the customers. With 50 clients the service quality dimension is researched with percentage. a) Whether Airbnb provides such service which are committed by them Figure: Reliability of the service Above this figure shows that 80% clients agreed with reliability of the services. Airbnb is committed with the service provision with high level. Although 6% clients are not reliable because of poor service quality and 14% clients remain in neutral because of lack of information about airbnb b) Whether the employees of the organisation has the quick response to the problem solving of the clients Figure: Responsiveness towards the clients According to this figure 76% clients agreed that Airbnb provides the responsive service and the quality is ensured. Where 16% clients were disagreed because of they are not committed with the service. 8% clients were neutral here who have lack of information about the service quality. c) Have you trust and confidence on the employees of the organisation considering the quality of the service of the organisation? Figure assurance of regarding the service The assurance of the service of Airbnb increase clients because of quality of service. The service quality is ensured by Airbnb and that’s why the clients take the service from the organisation. Here, 70% clients agreed that the service quality of airbnb is the level of assurance. 20% clients were neutral and 10% clients were disagreed. d) Does Airbnb provide caring individualized attention in case of serving the clients? Figure: Empathy towards the clients The empathy of the clients can be taken by Airbnb that’s why they provide the service according to the expectation. According to the figure 70% clients think that airbnb takes the empathy and provide the services. 20% clients were neutral because they have no idea about the service quality and empathy. Within the statement 10% clients were disagreed because they cannot be given empathy of the service. 3. Quality Management Dimensions Through the service quality management, a company can easily measure the quality of the service that are provided to the customers. For this reason, Airbnb can use service quality management measurement to evaluate their provided service. There are 5 dimensions of the service quality measurement. Reliability – Reliability is something to whom a customer can depend. For the service sector, reliability depends on the promised that the company makes to the customers. It can be both the tangible and intangible things (Fitzsimmons et al., 2014). For instance, the reliability of Airbnb includes best price range for everyone, best accommodation with all types of facilities, best customer support services for any types of query. Responsiveness –Responsiveness is the way by which a company can communicate with the customers. This is not only about how a company communicate with the customers but also how fast and effectively a company can communicate with the customers. In this case, Airbnb is in little tough position. Because, there are some situations in which Airbnb needs to cancel the reservation of the customers (Dale et al., 2014). But in this case, it is not able to inform the customer quickly. For this reason, Airbnb takes sometimes that is core criticism of the responsiveness. So, it can be said that Airbnb needs to improve the infrastructure so that responsiveness can be ensured. Assurance – Assurance is like giving warranty of what is sold or what is provided to the customers. In service sector, the assurance will consist of those factors that can increase the confidence of the customers to buy intangibles. So, assurance is very much important for the Airbnb to increase the confidence of their customers otherwise customers will not buy the services from the Airbnb (Dale et al., 2014). Rather they can shift to the competitors. But there are some ways to increase to assurance of the services. For instance, Airbnb needs to maintain standard of services all the time. If any service fail occurs Airbnb needs to immediately respond to this failure. These might able to increase the confidence of the customers. Tangibility –As services are intangible in nature but there are many other features of the service support activities that are tangible (Fitzsimmons et al., 2014). So, the company like Airbnb needs to increase those service support activities so that customers can see these activities as a proof of tangibility for the services offered by the company. For instance, Airbnb can increase the staffs’ members, office infrastructure, car, and other tangible things to attract the customer point of view. Without these support activities there is no other backed activities that can increase the tangibility of the service. Empathy –Empathy and sympathy, these two words are similar in nature. But in the service sector, there is slightly difference between these two words. Empathy is like feeling something from the own heart whereas sympathy means just showing affection to others. So, the vital task of Airbnb is to feel something from the core of heart rather than just showing affection for the customers. There are many situations in which service gaps are created, services fail, in this condition only sympathy is not enough (Mishra, Patricio and Nishi, 2018). Customers expect more than sympathy. for this reason, Airbnb needs to exercise the empathy and try to convenience the customers that the company also feel the pain from the services fails, services gap, and cancellation of the reservation. 4. Benchmarking Method Benchmark is a standard to which something is compared to see whether the performance is up to the mark or below to the mark (Johnston et al., 2012). In service sector, it is seen that service performance cannot be directly measured for this reason the company like Airbnb needs to use a benchmark to measure the performance of the employees as well as the company. Service quality measurement is a tool that help to measure the overall service quality whereas benchmarking is a tool used to measure the performance of specific tasks related to the overall services. Benchmarking enables company like Airbnb to evaluate one to one task for the total service (Johnston et al., 2012). Benchmarking method offers some unique advantages to the company. These advantages are mentioned below with the light of Airbnb. The first and very significant advantage of benchmarking is that this method offers result that is very much specific and clear that the company can immediately take actions for the below to the mark activities. The second one is that benchmarking enables company to identify most significant and less significant influential tasks for the ultimate results. The third one is that Benchmarking also measure the related time for the service delivered. So, the company like Airbnb also gets some insights about the time needed for a particular task to do (Mishra, Patricio and Nishi, 2018). Lastly, benchmarking not only enable comparison within the company but also outside the company so, in this Airbnb can compare their service quality with the other members of the industry such as direct competitors, indirect competitors, and other channel members such as Flipkey, VRBO, and others. So, it can be said that Benchmarking will offer some insights about the other members of the same industry as well as their service quality structure. Recommendation As Airbnb is influencing the local living standard of the stakeholders so it cannot overlook the associated responsibility in this area. So, in order to ensure the associated responsibility with these local areas Airbnb needs to take some initiatives. The first initiative is to take an active controlling of the host community so that the local stakeholders do not face any sort of damages. Because, it is seen that most of the time there is some problems in terms of the number of properties and number of hosts. Airbnb also needs to take control over the monopoly practice of the properties. Because it is seen that one of the hosts listed around 204 apartments and gain income of more than forty thousand pound. So, this type of monopoly must be controlled. It can be done by strongly monitoring and controlling the listed apartments. There is another issue like reducing the short term conditions over the rent of the apartments. Because, more complicated short term renting laws create conflict with the long term renting laws. Lastly, Airbnb can develop an evaluation process so that none of the activities can remain outside the judgment of the company. Conclusion Quality management ensures the quality of the products and service of the organisation. As a tourism and hospitality management organisation, Airbnb should ensure the quality management practices within the operation so that the services of Airbnb will perfect. According to this report, the dimensions of the service quality should be practiced in airbnb so that the profit maximization and the growth of the organisation will be increased. References Airbnb. (2020). Holiday Lets, Homes, Experiences & Places - Airbnb. [online] Available at: https://www.airbnb.com/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]. BBC News. (2020). Airbnb will verify listings, 11 years after launch. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology- [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]. Bedradina, G. (2019). SERVICE QUALITY METHODOLOGY IN ASSESSING OF HOTEL SERVICES QUALITY. Pryazovskyi Economic Herald, (5(16). Dale, B., Van der Wiele, Ton, & Van Iwaarden, Jos. (2013). Managing Quality(5th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley. [online] Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/anglia/detail.action?docID=- [Accessed 06 Mar 2019]. Dayan, M. and Ndubisi, N. (2019). B2B service innovation and global industrial service management. Industrial Marketing Management. Fitzsimmons, J., Fitzsimmons, M. and Bordoloi, S. (2014). Service management: Operations, Strategy, Information Technology, 8thed. New York, US: McGraw Hill Education. Forbes.com. (2020). Marketplace Checklist: How Airbnb Built A $35 Billion Business On Its Brand Strength. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeghaffary/2019/05/30/marketplace-checklist-how-airbnb-built-a-35-billion-business-on-its-brand-strength/#1c6ed- [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]. Johnston, Robert, Clark, Graham and Shulver, Michael (2012). ServiceOperations Management: Improving Service Delivery, 4thed. Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited. Mishra, Patricio and Nishi (2018) eds. Managing Quality in Hospitality, Tourism and Events (Custom textbook), Pearson: Harlow.