Please read the video transcript and answer the following prompt in 100-150 words. Here is the video transcript (couldn’t upload video)
Prompt: How did The Ritz-Carlton Hotel improve their customer satisfaction through quality improvement?
00:18 >> >> Luxury, service, quality,
00:21 >> these three words capture the essence
00:24 >> of a stay at The Ritz-Carlton.
00:27 >> Creating this atmosphere of refined elegance
00:29 >> and relaxation may appear effortless to a guess
00:33 >> but every employee at any
00:34 >> of the company’s 31 worldwide locations will tell you,
00:38 >> it takes a daily commitment
00:40 >> to make the desired experience happen for each and every guest.
00:44 >> >> The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a place
00:47 >> for the genuine caring comfort
00:48 >> of our guest is our highest mission.
00:50 >> >> We pledge to provide the finest personal service
00:53 >> and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm,
00:56 >> relaxed, yet refined ambiance.
00:58 >> >> The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses,
01:01 >> instills well-being, and fulfills–
01:03 >> >> Even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.
01:07 >> >> Winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1992,
01:12 >> represented a significant milestone in the company’s quest
01:15 >> for quality achievement.
01:17 >> Ralph Vick, general manager of the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton,
01:21 >> participated in the 1992 application process.
01:24 >> >> The preparation for the Malcolm Baldrige application was
01:27 >> a very extensive one.
01:28 >> It took us a few years to really figure
01:30 >> out how we do this thing called Total Quality Management.
01:34 >> And I think one of the things that we identified very early
01:36 >> on was certain processes that were common throughout
01:40 >> of out hotel, all of our hotels.
01:41 >> For the very first time in our industry,
01:43 >> we looked at how work are done.
01:45 >> And through the process and process team management,
01:49 >> we were able to discover some significant ways
01:51 >> for improving our processes within our hotel.
01:55 >> All of which had many ramifications.
01:58 >> Most of them financial,
02:00 >> but a lot of them had moral applications
02:05 >> and really helped us take a look
02:07 >> at how we were running our hotels with our people
02:10 >> and had morale implications
02:13 >> like getting our employees really prompt
02:15 >> about getting the involved in the process.
02:18 >> >> A list of 20 Ritz-Carlton Basics now guide each days
02:22 >> efforts toward a company wide goal
02:24 >> of 100 percent customer satisfaction.
02:27 >> >> The basics play a very, very important role
02:29 >> in quality primarily because quality in a lot
02:32 >> of ways is a foreign subject in our industry so we have
02:35 >> to break it down to the basics.
02:36 >> One of the basics we refer
02:38 >> to is a gentleman that we call Mr. Biv.
02:40 >> And Mr. Biv is an acronym for mistakes, rework, breakdown,
02:45 >> inefficiencies, and variation.
02:47 >> And we call him Mr. Biv because he happens
02:49 >> to be this little gentleman that runs around our hotel and all
02:52 >> of our hotels from time to time and causes complexity
02:54 >> and break down on our system.
02:56 >> And through that simplification, we really are able
02:59 >> to help our employees identify with what some
03:02 >> of those defects are, and help relay and give us better answers
03:06 >> and better input for how to get rid of Mr. Biv in our system.
03:11 >> >> Achievement of quality at the Ritz-Carlton is monitored
03:14 >> through a variety of mechanisms: customer surveys and letters,
03:18 >> employee reports, and financial performance measures.
03:22 >> When problems are detected, they are researched and evaluated
03:27 >> so that appropriate action can be taken.
03:29 >> >> Quality is monitored in our hotels on a daily, weekly,
03:32 >> monthly, and yearly basis.
03:34 >> Primarily daily and one of our tools that we have
03:36 >> that we use is called the daily quality production report.
03:40 >> And it is a conglomeration of a lot of information.
03:44 >> It comes from all over the hotels such as comment cards,
03:48 >> guest incident action form which is a tool that we have
03:51 >> for detailing a guest incident if it happens,
03:56 >> housekeeping reports, engineering reports,
03:59 >> defect reports that are pulled in from our employees
04:02 >> when they’re telling us what’s going wrong
04:04 >> in their work environment on a daily basis.
04:06 >> And with that information, we were able
04:08 >> to identify what our top 10 defects are
04:11 >> in our hotel per month for instance.
04:14 >> And we can take a look at those top defects and project
04:18 >> by project implement a plan for getting rid of that defect
04:24 >> through use of our quality–
04:25 >> and with the use of our quality tools.
04:27 >> All our employees are trained in the TQM processes and one
04:31 >> of the suggestions that we hear
04:33 >> from them quite often are ideas for improvement.
04:37 >> With those ideas of improvement come, in general
04:40 >> and occasionally, a cost associated
04:42 >> for what it’s gonna cost to do that improvement.
04:44 >> And we have trained all our employees along
04:47 >> with our management staff to take a look at using one
04:49 >> of our quality tools, referred to as the cost benefit analysis
04:52 >> for determining if that project is a worth while project or not.
04:55 >> Sometimes, a great idea may be a wonderful idea,
04:58 >> may add tremendous value to our customers feelings and business
05:03 >> in our hotel but, unfortunately,
05:05 >> it may not be a financially feasible product.
05:08 >> And the use of our cost benefit analysis really enables us
05:13 >> to determine whether that project
05:15 >> or that idea is one worth implementing or not.
05:19 >> >> In an industry where the word quality can be just a buzz word,
05:22 >> Ritz-Carlton’s employees, working as a team,
05:26 >> know they must be on their toes at every turn.
05:29 >> >> Quality is on occasion a creative way of dealing
05:33 >> with stress in a hotel particularly as it relates
05:35 >> to self-directed work teams.
05:37 >> When we teach and our employees learn traditional management
05:42 >> responsibilities, they take on an awesome responsibility,
05:45 >> a responsibility that in other industries
05:48 >> and in other hotels they do not take.
05:52 >> And they take it home with them, quite honestly.
05:54 >> It’s an issue such as payroll and forecasting and scheduling
05:57 >> when our employees are doing this traditional management task
06:01 >> whereby they actually go home at night thinking
06:04 >> about who’s not gonna show up for work tomorrow morning?
06:07 >> So it does add a great deal of stress in the work environment
06:11 >> and quite frankly, we know, through our studies
06:13 >> and in other areas in other businesses that [inaudible]
06:16 >> in particular self-directed work teams are not for every one.
06:19 >> We know to expect casualties; some people do not operate well
06:24 >> within a self-directed work team because in our industry,
06:28 >> we traditionally manage from what we refer
06:30 >> to as a command and control point.
06:33 >> And in a self-directed work team,
06:35 >> we realize that our [inaudible] has to relinquish
06:38 >> that command and control.
06:40 >> Well, that command and control is picked up by someone
06:42 >> and it’s our employees.
06:44 >> So it does create stress but most of our employees working
06:48 >> for a career advancement and looking for education
06:51 >> and looking to continue their own growth have been extremely
06:54 >> receptive to the idea
06:56 >> and we have seen our internal customer surveys,
06:58 >> our employee opinion surveys improve greatly as a result
07:02 >> of the implementation of total quality management
07:04 >> and self-directed work teams.
07:06 >> >> What’s the biggest quality challenge facing the
07:08 >> Ritz-Carlton today?
07:10 >> >> Quality is not a fad or a phase
07:12 >> or a program [inaudible] here at Ritz-Carlton.
07:14 >> It’s a way of life for us.
07:15 >> We have very high expectations upon Ritz-Carlton by all facets
07:19 >> from our owners, from our employees, and from our guests.
07:22 >> And through TQM and the use of self-directed work teams,
07:25 >> it will enable us to continue a path of continuous improvement
07:29 >> and reach the levels
07:30 >> that everyone expects from a Ritz-Carlton.
07:34 >> [ Music ]