Question

Answer the following questions:
1. Guests at a busy eight-story four-star hotel are consistently complaining about having
to wait too long for the elevator. At 8:00am, some of the elevators are in use by the
housekeeping department whose associates are going up to begin work on the guest
rooms. At the same time, room service has an elevator blocked off to serve in-room
breakfasts because the kitchen and the banqueting departments are using the service
elevators. Then, at about 10:30 am, the housekeepers use the elevators to go down for
their morning break. Guests have come to you as a front office supervisor to report the
issue.

Question:
The general manager recognises your potential and asks you to come up with
suggestions to take care of the problem/challenge. 20 marks

2. As a front office supervisor, you have realised that a client disagrees with your front
office clerk on a request being made. The client is not happy about the outcome and is
seriously angry. Does that mean that the message has not been properly understood by
the client? Or could it mean something else? Explain 20 marks

Answer 1

1. In my opinion, the solution to this problem/challenge is to confine the hotel staff to only use service elevators during morning and evening time when there is more movement of guests through the hotel elevators. Since it is uncomfortable for the hotel guests as they have to wait for long time for the elevators, hence it is better for the hotel staff to use service elevators during peak hours. Also, in case it becomes essential for the housekeeping staff to use main elevators only, then housekeeping and room cleaning activities can be postponed to 12.00 pm instead of morning schedule. This will help in taking some load off the morning peak hours when the elevators are most busy.

2. In my opinion, the client can be unhappy about the outcome and become angry due to both the reasons. The message might not have been properly understood by the client due to some miscommunication by the hotel front office clerk. The front office clerk might have tried to explain it to the client but client could have not understood properly due to communication gap. Also another reason could be due to heated argument between the client and the front office clerk due to which the client got seriously angry. Due to disagreement over a certain point, both of them might have had an argument.