Total Quality Management and Key Performance Indicators of Airbnb (Term Paper Sample)

AIRBNB MANAGEMENT REPORT
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Airbnb Management Report
Executive Summary
The declining operations of Airbnb are highly associated with diminishing customer satisfaction resulting from low quality services. This report aims at demystifying the challenges facing Airbnb by identifying the concepts of quality management affecting the organization. Also, the paper sheds sufficient light Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can help quantify and control these challenges and assist in providing quality services to the company’s global clientele. Further, the report provides recommendations that can help the organization mitigate quality-related issues and maintain its productivity in both the short- and long-run.
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Executive Summary PAGEREF _Toc33520962 \h 2Introduction PAGEREF _Toc33520963 \h 4Concepts of Quality Management PAGEREF _Toc33520964 \h 4Quality Management and Total Quality Management (TQM) PAGEREF _Toc33520965 \h 5Key TQM Components PAGEREF _Toc33520966 \h 5Airbnb’s Current Problems PAGEREF _Toc33520967 \h 6Reviews by Trustpilot PAGEREF _Toc33520968 \h 7Airbnb’s Quality Against the Dimensions of Service Quality PAGEREF _Toc33520969 \h 8Reliability PAGEREF _Toc33520970 \h 8Responsiveness PAGEREF _Toc33520971 \h 9Assurance PAGEREF _Toc33520972 \h 9Empathy PAGEREF _Toc33520973 \h 9Tangibles PAGEREF _Toc33520974 \h 10Impact of KPI on Delivering Consistent and Effective Quality Management PAGEREF _Toc33520975 \h 10Customer Service Indicator PAGEREF _Toc33520976 \h 10Efficiency Indicator PAGEREF _Toc33520977 \h 11Impact Indicator PAGEREF _Toc33520978 \h 11Advantages Associated with KPI PAGEREF _Toc33520979 \h 11Conclusion and Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc33520980 \h 12References PAGEREF _Toc33520981 \h 13
Introduction
Service quality is the most critical aspect in the tourism and hospitality sectors, and organizations are continually developing and actualizing plans to see that they adhere to specific quality indicators. Usually, this compellation comes from significant stakeholders in the industry, such as consumers and regulators. Companies have also made considerable attempts to ensure that they provide the best services for their customers by setting standard and quality control measures. The action is partly and mostly motivated by the growing influence of customer feedback in not only the service sectors but also a wide range of segments within the broad manufacturing industry. Recently, Airbnb has attracted a media spotlight due to substantial claims against the quality of its services. This report will elucidate the critical quality issues facing Airbnb by applying practical quality measures and provide practical recommendations to the organization’s management.
Concepts of Quality Management
Quality management entails the efforts put in place to ensure that activities and tasks undertaken within an organization meet a certain level of excellence. Ideally, quality managers collaborate in drafting a quality policy that best fits the desired goals of the entity at large. Also, they must create a practical implementation plan that will help the organization in pooling all resources and actualizing the quality strategy at hand (Dale, Bamford, and Van der Wiele, 2013). Lastly, there must be identifiable quality control metrics that will help in determining the effectiveness of the controls by qualifying their impacts on the daily business undertakings (King and Cichy, 2006). Thus, quality management is a process in itself that involves sequential actions by various internal stakeholders of an organization. However, the involvement of customers is also possible, particularly in cases where the company is testing the practicality of its quality assurance mechanisms.
Quality Management and Total Quality Management (TQM)
Total quality management (TQM) is a term that derives from quality management but emphasizes on the maximum quality assertion by adding other critical elements in the process. In effect, TQM assigns responsibility to every party involved in the production and delivery of a product or service. It is worth contemplating that TQM was initially proposed to mitigate the quality deficiencies facing the manufacturing industry. However, the concepts of TQM have gained global recognition and application in the tourism and hospitality industries following their proven usability. Dr. William Deming is reputed and credited for the development of TQM, and he proposed concepts that managers can incorporate into their guidelines and process standards to minimize errors. Such defects can later reduce the quality of the final product or service, thereby creating significant risks to the organization as a whole.
Key TQM Components
Various scholars have attempted to elucidate the key elements of TQM by articulating the quality areas of concerns within organizations offering products or services [(Dotchin and Oakland, 1992); (Dahlgaard‐Park et al., 2006); (Pun and Yiu, 2017)]. Initially, Dr. Deming proposed 14 components that he believed would promote efficiency and quality control in Japanese companies. These concepts have been modified, expounded, and explicated to meet the dynamic consumerism experienced in all sectors globally. Generally, there exist seven key concepts that summarize and reflect the original principles proposed by Dr. Deming and other scholars. They are:
Quality
Quality Management
Quality Policy
Quality Control
Quality Assurance
Conformity; and
Quality Circle
Fundamentally,