Abstrakt

Intolerant Behaviours Front Desk Service Sabotage in Budget Chain Hotels

Lou-Hon Sun

This study uses semi-structured in-depth interviews with budget hotel front desk staff to extract and summarize the types of service sabotage behaviour and motive. Simplifying the service process and rejection of customers are discovered to be the most common types of service sabotage, whereas personal convenience, vindictive psychology on customers, stereotyping, and work pressure are the main motives for sabotaging service. In addition, this study clarifies the difference between the antecedents and motives of service sabotage and analyses the difference between service sabotage phenomena in budget hotels and international hotels Service sabotage refers to employees? conscious actions that are designed to negatively affect customer service. This has been an emerging issue in the recent decade within the service industries that are the mainstay of economic activity, including the serviceoriented hospitality industry. Studies have confirmed that service sabotage is relatively common in the hospitality industry. For example, Harris and Ogbonna conduct 182 in-depth interviews with restaurant and hotel personnel, and more than ninety percent of the interviewees admitted that service sabotage occurred daily in their workplaces. Harris and Ogbonna also reveal that on average, employees engaged in service sabotage twice every three work shifts. This common phenomenon may not only give customers an unpleasant experience but also reduce service quality and customer satisfaction, thereby resulting in adverse consequences for a company?s growth and profitability [1-3]. The concept of service sabotage is different from that of service failure. Lin, Huang, and Huang explain that during service delivery, regardless of whether it is due to personnel, the physical environment, or other tangible and intangible factors, service failure occurs whenever the customer has an unpleasant feeling. Thus, identification of service failures is dependent on the subjective perceptions of customers.