The Effect of Front-Desk Employees' Characteristics on Customer Satisfaction: An Empirical Evidence from Norwegian and Pakistani Respondents

Abstract

In today’s competitive business environment, customer’s satisfaction is a valuable aspect to achieve for hotel industry. The present study intended to check the effect of front-desk employees’ characteristics on customers’ satisfaction. Whenever a person enters into a hotel, he/she meets with the front-desk staff first and want to get answers of all queries. Therefore, front-desk employees should possess certain characteristics that can better satisfy the needs of all customers. As, front-desk employees are important resource of hotel industry, that serve basis for first impression on customers’ mind. For study purpose, four characteristics of front-desk employees were identified through literature namely friendliness, problem solving, empathy and enthusiastic service. In addition, study also aimed to find out whether the level of customer’s satisfaction with service attitude of front-desk employees differ significantly among Norwegian and Pakistani customers. To validate the study hypotheses, sample of 142 respondents was selected conveniently (i.e. 68 Norwegians and 74 Pakistanis). Pearson correlation, regression analysis and T-test were applied by using SPSS. Findings revealed that three characteristics i.e. friendliness, empathy and enthusiastic service has positive and significant influence on customers’ satisfaction. While, problem solving showed insignificant influence on customer’s satisfaction. In addition, no significant difference were found among the satisfaction level of Norwegian and Pakistani respondents concerning front-desk employees’ characteristics. This study will provide practical implications for human resource managers, marketers and academia that can enhance satisfaction of the hotels’ guests effectually.