Case: Hotel Castle Plaza: Alarming Issue of Customer Service Orientation (No. IIMR-C10-11/2018)

Abstract

The case deals with the concept of complaint handling and service recovery strategies at a five star hotel, Castle Plaza in Delhi, India. Sudhir, the General Manager of the hotel is highly disappointed over the following incidents of last week at the hotel. These incidents were related to customer dissatisfaction and service orientation at the hotel. In the first incident, vegetarian customers were served non vegetarian soup reflecting the careless attitude of the staff. Further, non availability of toiletry packs in the guest rooms was another major issue which heightened the customer dissatisfaction at the hotel. During a steering committee meeting, it was also uncovered that delay in customer complaint handling and lack of proper communication channels is a common problem of the hotel. The case prompts students to explore strategic ways of handling service recovery, complaint management, brand management, team dynamics etc. This case can be taught in the marketing domain at BBA, MBA and Hotel Management courses.