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Joel D. Wisner: University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
William J. Corney: University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: This article was first published in International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, 1997.
Introduction
One widely used method for obtaining customer feedback in the hospitality industry is the customer comment card. Along with customer surveys, customer interviews, focus groups, toll-free telephone numbers and service encounter observations, the comment card offers management the opportunity to receive valuable, standardized feedback in the form of comments, criticisms, and ideas for service performance improvement.
The use of comment cards provides a number of advantages over other feedback garnering approaches. It is inexpensive, it obtains feedback at the time service is rendered to maximize information reliability, and it offers management the opportunity to design the comment instrument to elicit information most important to the organization. Standardized information obtained from comment cards also allows management to perform statistical analyses that help in directing strategies for service improvement.
This article assesses the current status of comment card usage in hotel-restaurants offering high quality, champagne buffets in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. The Sunday champagne buffets are highly competitive and are a very important tradition in Las Vegas. Because they are heavily advertised and are viewed as the ultimate in buffet dining with prices as high as $40 per person, customer satisfaction should be extremely important. Lessons learned from these establishments can be valuable for other organizations that render service in a highly competitive environment.
The research background
The relationship between managements' interaction with customers and service quality or customer satisfaction has been the subject of numerous research studies over the years. All of the research has found that polling customers was necessary for service improvement. McCleary and Weaver (1982) discuss the need to identify elements of customer satisfaction prior to any management efforts to improve employee behaviour and the service delivery system. Customer questionnaires were suggested to identify customer service elements and to evaluate customer satisfaction provided by employees.
Parasuraman et al. (1988), through surveys of consumers, identified five dimensions of service quality which applied to a wide range of service businesses: tangibles (physical goods, equipment, and facilities, and personal appearance), reliability (ability to perform the promised service...