Total Quality Management at Ritz Carlton

Ritz Carlton was the first hotel that received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. It received the award for the first time in 1992. In 1999 it won the award for the second time. This stood as recognition for its continuous improvement towards quality.

Ritz Carlton concentrates on the principle needs of its major customers and tries to offer them with caring service. Focus towards technology and performance of the employees are Ritz Carlton’s greatest strength. It has helped the company to receive the award twice and improve its quality.

According to Martin (1986, p 83) the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company uses self directed teams. These process teams are aligned with the way customers come in contact with the hotel: 1) pre-arrival team; 2) arrival, stay over and departure team; 3) dining services team; 4) banquet services team and 5) engineering and security team. In a self directed work team members may have specific individual roles but the team shares accountability for meeting performance objectives.

The Ritz Carlton follows what the new Baldrige criteria call for demonstrate a balance between financial results and customer and employee satisfaction. At all levels of the organization the Ritz Carlton operates the service quality which can be internalized and communicated aggressively.  Ritz Carlton’s five principles are Motto Service, Service Values, employee Promise, and Credo. These above principles are together referred as Gold standards. Ritz Carlton admits their employees to act and think independently with creativity for the benefit of the company and the customers (Barsky and Nash, 2003, pp 42; Greenberg, 2004).

Many sources of information are used by Ritz Carlton to understand their customers. On a daily basis Ritz Carlton collects quality related data and uses customer satisfaction. Every employee is involved to use information systems and asked to respond to the data in order to deliver error free services understand preferences of guest and create quality improvement opportunities.

On the whole Ritz Carlton can be considered as a role model in the service industry that purely cares on its customers and the quality of its services delivered.

References

• Greenberg P (2004), Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective: Insider tips on getting the Best Value, Service and Security, Villard Books, New York
• Barsky J and Nash I (2003), Customer Satisfaction: Applying concepts to industry, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration, New Jersey, 43 (1): 39-46