RICHARD BARIGIRA GOTZEN, 27, has authored Customer Satisfaction of Hotels in Rwanda, a book that tackles service delivery and customer satisfaction among Rwanda-based hotels. According to him, the book focuses on the front office department of a hotel in terms of communication, professionalism, complaint handling and check in as well as check out experiences. “Writing this book, I wanted to determine the views of different customers in regards to their satisfaction from hotel’s services and to find out the association between front office service delivery and customer satisfaction of hotels in Rwanda,” he said. The cover of his book. He revealed that he was motivated by Mohamed Habimana who taught him about front office operation at the University of Tourism and Business (UTB). He is now the Events Coordinator Officer at Kigali Convention Bureau. Richard started his research as well as working on this book in 2018. He said that it took him almost a year and a half, adding that he used his experience from an internship he did at Marasa Umubano Hotel and research done at Ubumwe Grande hotel and other hotels. This is the only hotel that accepted to be mentioned, he said. The other hotels, he added, he conducted the research privately where I would approach customers or some service providers and ask them for information. Most of them would tell me, he continued, but they didn’t want their names to be mentioned. According to the information he collected from 133 researchers, the level of communication and customer care in Rwandan hotels has improved. The problem is still in professionalism where you would find unqualified and untrained employees working in the front office. Also, he found out that timeliness was still underestimated where customers said that they would wait for a service for around ten minutes. They revealed that the service providers would take that time asking for information from bosses or co-workers, yet they should have had it already. Richard said that being accepted to conduct a research in hotels is still a challenge, adding that most times, the persons in charge fear that you can expose their defects. Even the employees try to go away when you want to talk to them, he said. When asked about the problems in the hospitality sector, Richard pointed out corruption and irregular working hours as the main ones. “It is still difficult to be employed based on your skills, rather it is based on who knows you. They say that new unqualified employees will learn while working and yet those who were trained are there and still unemployed. As a result, they make a lot of mistakes in the quest to get used to the work which affects customer care and undermines the hospitality industry,” he said. “Also in some hotels, supervisors give jobs corruptly. They ask job seekers for money regardless of their experience in hotel operations. When you don’t give the money, they will tell you that you are not a skilful employee. They influence the boss fire you.” Another thing, he continued, is irregular working hours where employees work for twelve hours a day or above yet they should work for nine hours. Richard said that he conducted this research and wrote the book about hospitality because he is involved in the hospitality industry and wanted to explore it at large. He has an experience of above five years and has worked with different hotels such as Radison Blue Hotel, Marriot Hotel, Umubano Marasa Hotel and Epic Hotel. He provides recommendations that can help Rwanda-based hotels deliver better services. “Hotels should follow up on both positive and negative feedback, ensure that they consider customer service in all aspects of their business, continuously look for ways to improve the level of customer service they deliver and provide technology items so that the service providers can be familiar with them,” he said. He revealed that the process of writing and publishing this book wasn’t easy because of the limited time he had and how difficult it was for him to get information. Moreover, he is planning to reach more people. The book can now be found on Amazon. For more information, you can contact him on Email: brgotzen@gmail.com or phone 0788228104 or social media: Instagram: Gotzen_rw Twitter: @gotzen_rw
