Hotel Guest Loyalty: Quality and Satisfaction

Experience, Feeling and Action. The customer and the Quality–Satisfaction–Loyalty chain in a hotel.

We have discussed the importance of customer loyalty as one of the main sources of long-term profit for our company or hotel, as well as the advantages offered by loyal customers, not only through their spending, value creation and cost reduction, but also as a means of attracting new loyal customers. Loyal customers play a leading role in the improvement and ongoing refinement of the Quality–Satisfaction–Loyalty chain, due to their willingness to use and enjoy the offering, provide guidance for improving processes, products and services, promote them and make repeat purchases. The behaviour shown by a tourist classified as loyal, such as a willingness and decision to return, is preceded by an attitude. We could therefore speak of a sequence or succession of events and incidents that take place during the tourist's awareness process: 1) The customer forms a positive judgement based on the opinion held of the brand, as a result of acquiring relevant information and… 2) An emotional or affective feeling towards that brand is developed. Perceived service quality (a comparison between the service received and the service that should have been delivered) and satisfaction (a comparison between the service received and the service the customer expected to receive) form a cognitive and emotional cycle or process that results, or may result, from the service received, in a sequence of customer behaviours. Thus, a high level of perceived brand quality, combined with an equally high level of satisfaction, may lead, or does lead, to greater loyalty. We could assess quality by asking the tourist: Is what you received what you expected? We could assess satisfaction with another question: How much did you like what you received? The experience with the brand—that is, perceived quality—generates a feeling in the tourist: satisfaction. Both qualities—perceived brand quality and satisfaction—are determined by the differences found when comparing the service received with the customer's expectations and the service delivered with their perceptions. If those perceptions match or exceed expectations, this represents customer/tourist acceptance of the brand, which they would rate, according to its intensity and value (based on their experiences), as satisfactory or excellent. Thus, by delivering a service that confirms, reinforces or exceeds the tourist's expectations, we would be at a considerable advantage in achieving that customer's loyalty. Conversely, if those perceptions fall below the expectations built up by the tourist, the service would be rated as deficient, poor or unsatisfactory. The subjective nature of quality and the objective nature of satisfaction define the difference between these two factors, despite sharing the same theoretical basis—an aspect that has caused considerable confusion when attempting to distinguish between them. The tourist/customer builds an image by processing and analysing the information received about the various characteristics and attributes of a particular brand, thereby creating a standard of quality that, in their mind, identifies the brand. This standard is compared and assessed, and if the result is positive, the attitude takes on an affective feeling that manifests itself in satisfaction. In this case, satisfaction acts as a mediator between perceived quality and behavioural intention. Unlike satisfaction, perceived service quality entails a more stable assessment over time. Satisfaction is rooted in a specific experience. The perception of the quality of a hotel, destination or services may be formed through information and knowledge acquired from different external sources or resources, such as recommendations or the media; therefore, physical presence is not essential. Satisfaction, on the other hand, requires a verified experience and actual enjoyment of that destination, its services or the hotel.