The birthday party and the Gossip

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Week-2, Experience-1 by Angshu: “The birthday party and the Gossip”

Date: 30-June-2009

Time: 9-00 to 11-00 PM

Location: Hotel Ganga Regency, Sakchi, Jamshedpur

Background

In the due course of time and in the true spirit of XL, the birthday of one-of-my-best-friends was celebrated on 21^st June. The poor chap (or should I say the lucky birthday-boy!) was gloried with tangibles like egg and beer along with more precious intangibles like congenial birthday bumps. But the selfish individual that I am - was not much delighted on that day as I was when came to know about the birthday party on 30^th June.

Prior Expectation

When Ankur informed me that we are going to gossip – did not feel like! But then he clarified it was ‘Gossip’ – the bar cum restaurant at Ganga Regency – and now my expectations started building up. Never been to this place earlier but the positive description that I have heard prompted me to have positive expectations. Ganga Regency being a premium place, expected good food and wine along with posh ambience and quality service.

Actual Experience

After Vinay and me shaved our one week unshaved beards and Vikash and Ankur made due efforts to become fairer to impress the fairer gender, we left our hostel around 7-50 PM. Though the meeting time was decided as 7-30 PM and meeting venue as Bodhi tree – an empty Bodhi tree greeted us when we reached there at around 8 PM. Members from the fairer gender were late as usual but still found it tough to beat Ankur on fairness. Our gossip started with fairness comparisons and thus started our journey towards ‘Gossip’. All nine of us fitted ourselves in one auto and the gossip journey continued. We reached our destination at around 8-30 PM. The reservation was done and we were shown our 10-seater table. We took our seats and started looking at the menu card – the gossip continued! While 'koi duja' [name edited on request] was busy posing for her next ‘facebook portfolio’ to be shot by Akshay; Vinay and Ankur made sure that Rashi and Neetika don’t feel lonely! The ‘three-foodies’ – Vikash, me and Vasudha devoted our full attention in deciding the liquid and solid objects of ‘gastronomical’ desires. The waiter came and the orders were placed. The photo-shoots, the practical applications of impression management, the long wait, the thinking adventures of lost souls, the gossip and the silence continued in parallel. It was not very long and suddenly the ‘waiting creatures’ realized that they are waiting for not-less-than-one-hour. The waiter was called and asked to expedite the process of bringing in the objects of ‘gastronomical’ desires. Once again the photo-shoots, the practical applications of impression management, the long wait, the thinking adventures of lost souls, the gossip and the silence continued in parallel. It was not very long and again the ‘waiting creatures’ realized that they are waiting for not-less-than-half-an-hour. The waiter came and the ‘it’s coming’ cliché was uttered once again. Anyways, after three such interruptions and continuations the objects of ‘gastronomical’ desires finally landed on our table and then respective plates. The creatures engaged in not-so-different yet not-so-similar activities till now concentrated their attention to one of the most important basic instincts of human beings. The drive of hunger and thirst stimulated by the wait, incessant gossip and cues from not-so-far-tables finally culminated. And, ‘the end’ was a happy ending!

Service Trinity Model

Core Service

o Preparation of Food o Serving of food o Ambience and service

Funding Mechanism

o Customer Pays

Customer Management System

o Well mannered employee

Employee Management System

o Select and train customer focused waiters o Select and recruit good chefs

SERVQUAL Ratings

Dimension	Rating	Remarks
Tangibles	5	Physical facilities, ambience and food was of very good quality
Reliability	3	Food was good but serving was late
Responsiveness	2	Took a long time to serve food
Assurance	3	Waiter was courteous but repeated ‘it’s coming’ did not inspire confidence
Empathy	4	Waiters provided caring individual attention but nothing outstanding

[Rating is given on a scale of 1-5; 1=Very Bad, 2=Bad, 3=Neutral, 4=Good and 5=Very Good]

Critical Analysis & Suggestions

· In case of high-end restaurants the customer expectation is high and they cannot afford to be ‘not-so-good’ in any of the parameters. Though the ambience and food was very good the not-so-prompt service degraded the quality of overall service.

· We observed that there were many different types of people in the restaurant. There were XLRI students like us, there were professionals, and there were local business men with their family and so on. While some were engaged in incessant talks others were disturbed by the resulting noise. A high-end restaurant can prevent low income people by using deterrent pricing. But even in high-income group there are so many varieties. Most importantly a service institution cannot debar a customer from the service if s/he is eligible and willing to pay the required fees. But at the same time the people from different segments cause dissonance and overall customer experience is adversely impacted. Service firms need to come up with some innovative and customized strategy to counter this apparent irony.

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