Operations Management Gap Model

Gap Model Notes:

High quality and perfection are one of the key goals every business, company or organization strives to achieve. A very high level of performance with no defects can be considered after having a look at the Gap model, which gives an insight on how to accomplish that.

The following information explains the model itself and talks about how the gaps are applied in hospitality. There are a few examples on how the gaps emerge within the hotel industry.

1. The positioning gap develops if the product or service concept differs from customer requirements. It is the result of wrongly interpreted information when it comes to customers’ expectations. When management does not understand what customers expect from a service, or even when there is bad management on complaints, there is clearly a positioning gap. To have control on that gap companies usually use qualitative and quantitative market research with the purpose of establishing the current needs and wants of a customer. In a chain hotel this gap can be avoided the same way – via surveys and reviews, as Hilton has SALT – Satisfaction and Loyalty Tracking. It is an online survey program that allows Hilton to track satisfaction levels, guest loyalty, and deal with complaints in real time and allows them to position themselves towards the market.
2. The specification gap in a chain hotel might occur between the management perceptions of the customer’s expectation and the actual service within the hotel. For example managers sometimes have a view that failure to deliver one service feature can be compensated by other feature. Or they understand the guest’s demands, but are not able to suit them. If, for instance, managers have estimated the average waiting time a guest is willing to spend in a queue at the check-in desk, but they do not have enough staff to meet there expectations. Many chain hotels have come up with a solution or a way to soften this gap by applying new technology and changing the design of the servicescape. In a Hilton Hotel, loyal guests can use self-check in machines or online check-in in order to avoid queuing, which saves the management costs on staff, training, etc.
3. If an employee cannot or does not make a product or deliver a service on the required level (standard), a delivery gap will appear.  The reasons that lead to Gap 3 are unclear roles and conflict of interests, lack of team work within the company, poor cooperation of customers, problems with service agents, poor choice of customers, etc. In chain hotels most of the procedures when dealing with a customer are standardized. The market segmentation has been specified and there are different brands for different types of customers. Let’s have a look at a situation when there are new employees in a chain hotel. First of all, they have gone through several steps in order to be selected, and they are being trained in order to fulfill and represent a hotel’s standards, goals and accomplishments. If a new staff member has been trained and has to cover a certain level of service, guests are expecting the same level of service or product promised as usual. Failing to do so can cause a service failure, which also comes with its quality costs. Most of the managers within a hotel focus their attention on that, because their daily activity is all about the managing process.
4. The fourth gap introduced by the Gap model relates to promotional communication. Marketing takes huge role when it comes to advertising and promoting a product or service to the customer. Trough advertising companies make a promise to the customer and if they fail to meet the expectations they have created by this promise, a communication gap occurs. For example chain hotels have loyalty programs (Hilton HHonors, Starwood Preferred Guest, etc.), which are in a way a promise of delivering extra benefits and certain level of service to a returning guest. If an error or failure occurs based on a complaint, it is also added to the guest’s information and later it is considered and reviewed as feedback.
5. The perception gap is between the service quality perceived and that expected by the customer. In a way it is a combination of all the other gaps, but it is the only one on which managers have less or no direct control. Perception can be different from reality. In a certain situation a customer may perceive the service he received as worse as or better than it actually was. When we look at the queuing at a check-in desk, we can see several types of behaviors, which lead to different perception views. If a guest has been warned or asked to wait for 15 minutes and it took only 5 minutes until he was being served, his mind is willing to form the perception of better and faster service.  In chain hotels the perception gap can be quite big due to fact that there are many standardized procedures and guests expect the same level of service in every single hotel of the chain.