This document summarizes a presentation made by Mohsen Ghanadzadeh and Ali KiaKazemim on customer service at Ramada hotels. It discusses Ramada's research into hiring, training, and motivating employees to improve customer satisfaction scores. The research identified characteristics to screen for during hiring, implemented more interactive training techniques, and created smaller, more frequent rewards for employees. As a result, Ramada's customer service ratings increased by 30.5% and they were recognized as one of the world's most admired companies. The document recommends Ramada consider additional factors like room quality and price when evaluating customer satisfaction.

1. Presentation by:
Mohsen Ghanadzadeh
Ali KiaKazemim

2. Topic Overview
• Perceived customer service
• Mid-tier hotels showing recent downward trend
• Ramada holds steady but bracing for problems
• Ramada embraces three areas of customer satisfaction:
 Hiring
 Training
 Motivation

3. Company Background
• 9000 properties
• More than 50 countries
• 31000 employees
• Businesses
• Hotel
• Event Management

4. Background Information
• Three Business’s Ramada learned from:
• Disney
• Set benchmark for exceptional customer service
• Southwest Airlines
• Captured an essence of “fun” in air travel
• TGI Friday’s
• Low employee turnover, and high
employee loyalty

5. Management Dilemma
• Customers frequenting mid-tier hotels noted
declining service levels.
• RFS needed to prevent this industry trend.

6. Management Question
• What programs in hiring, training, and motivation
should Ramada develop and implement in order to
prevent declining service?

7. Research Question
• What characteristics are indicative of workers capable
of delivering exceptional customer service?
• Which employee characteristics should be used in
hiring Ramada workers?
• Which approaches to training are exceptional-service
firms using?
• How can Ramada motivate employees to show
exceptional customer service?

8. Hypothesis
• New training techniques and employee satisfaction
equals exceptional customer service.
• Data collection
• Hired Unifocus
• In-depth guest surveys at every property
• D.K. Shifflet’s syndicated research on customer service
• Use 10-point scale

9. How data was collected
• Target Audience
• 31,000 employees at 900 Ramada properties
• Face-to-face (Open-ended) employee input
“To bring about change in corporate culture and mindset would
take more than employees checking off boxes on a piece of
paper”

10. How data was collected
• Plan of Action
• Rather than have a stereotypical meeting, they created an
atmosphere similar to a hotel grand opening
• Festive atmosphere, food, comedy
• Headquarters staff arrived:
• Morning: Extracted information from management, hearing
issues
• Afternoon: Employees invited to share their ideas and concerns
about the three initiatives.

11. How data was collected
• All answers from management and employees:
• Recorded on a detailed summary form for record and
analysis

12. Results of Research
• Hiring
• characteristics of self-motivated
employees discovered by
Predictive Index used as hiring
screens

13. Results of Research
• Training
• Boring & Ineffective
• RFS’s Benchmarking states:
• Exceptional customer service stems from a more
interactive (fun) training approach
• Higher employee involvement generates more
knowledgeable employees
• Happy customers

14. Results of Research
• Prior Rewards for accomplishment
• Originally big ticket rewards, over long period
• Employee Response
• Became lackluster as time progressed
• Solution:
• Create more incentives over a shorter period of time for
greater inspiration and involvement

15. Management Decisions
• Establish what factors influence employees
(Hiring)
• Screen prospective employees for characteristics
revealed by Predictive Index
• RFS Training
• Traditional method scrapped, integrated new
interactive, multimedia training. Additionally, self-
paced learning has been established at less busy
Ramada’s

16. Management Decisions
• Motivation Program
• Focuses on rewarding employees on different levels of
accomplishment
• Performance
• Supervisor
• Peer Nomination
• Completion of Training Modules
• Continued self-directed efforts for personal development by
employees

17. Accomplishments
Hiring
◦ Allowed for RFS to understand what to look for in a prospective
hire, personality and mentality
Training
◦ Discovered that traditional methods became outdated and that
establishing newer, more interactive and modern techniques, could
catalyze employees
Motivating
◦ Smaller awards over a shorter term were more attainable than
larger over long term.

18. Post Research Results
• Ramada now scores in the good to exceptional range
within the D.K Shifflet service ratings
• Increase of 30.5%
• Employees are more interactive and using their point
system to gain rewards and gifts
• The motto of “Personal Best” is company wide
rather than just an HR term.

19. Post Research Results
• As a result of their efforts:
• Named to the 2009 Fortune World’s Most Admired
Companies
• Wyndham Worldwide ranked second on the list in the
hotels, casinos and resorts category

20. Recommendations for Ramada
• Consider more factors in addition to HR Factors in
customer satisfaction.
• Room’s Quality
• Price
• Consider more HR areas rather than which have been
highlighted in Shifflet’s researches.
• Organizational Culture