Drawing on recent observations at hotels and resorts in Hội An, Đà Nẵng, Quảng Ninh, Thanh Hóa, Nghệ An, and other locations, Lead-UP Academy’s team of experts is developing an approach that integrates operations management, service standardization, and workforce capability development. This work reflects a research and development (R&D) approach grounded in organizational contexts, with a focus on improvements that can be implemented, monitored, and evaluated in practice.

1. Research Context and Objectives: Enhancing Consistency Across the Customer Journey

In the hotel, resort, and leisure sectors, customer experience quality is shaped across a sequence of touchpoints: reception, accommodation, dining, conferences, recreation, and post-service support. Consistency throughout the customer journey is therefore a central focus of Lead-UP Academy’s research into service enhancement solutions.

In recent studies, Lead-UP Academy’s experts have proactively documented service encounters from the customer’s perspective, combining these observations with analysis through the lenses of operations management and customer experience. Daily observations are systematically organized into assessment reports and action proposals, providing additional evidence to inform property owners and executive management when selecting service quality enhancement solutions. The objective is to identify areas for improvement, formulate hypotheses about underlying causes, and design interventions suited to each property’s context. The consulting activities, training initiatives, and improvement roadmaps presented in the reports remain proposals that require further discussion, assessment, and agreement with the organization before implementation.

2. Research Data and Methods: An Exploratory Approach Based on Firsthand Experience

The primary data sources for the reports comprise records of firsthand experiences, interactions with employees, and selected customer feedback on online platforms. Observations cover multiple service categories at different times, allowing examination of both quality at individual touchpoints and the transfer of information between departments.

Methodologically, the work adopts an exploratory case analysis approach based on experiences within a limited observation period. Initial observations are used to formulate questions for verification and identify directions for improvement. The prevalence, causes, and effects of each issue require further corroboration through operational records, transaction data, and information from management teams. This approach maintains a distinction between observed phenomena, causal hypotheses, and adequately substantiated conclusions. Explicitly identifying data limitations also provides a basis for further assessment before determining the scope and approach to implementation.

3. Analytical Framework: Relationships Among People, Processes, and Operating Conditions

Drawing on experiential data, the reports emphasize the relationships among people, processes, coordination mechanisms, and service delivery conditions. Quality at a given touchpoint is examined in relation to the associated preparation, handover, supervision, and support activities.

An incompletely resolved guest request may be associated with request-handling skills, the clarity of instructions, employee decision-making authority, or shift handovers. Examining each possibility provides a basis for selecting appropriate solutions and avoids attributing all shortcomings to a single cause. Within this analytical framework, improvement proposals are developed at the individual, departmental, and organization-wide coordination levels. Each group of solutions should be linked to implementation conditions, specific responsibilities, and outcomes that can be monitored.

4. Directions for Developing Comprehensive Service Quality Enhancement Solutions

The R&D work is translated into mutually reinforcing groups of solutions that connect service delivery conditions, workforce capabilities, and operations management systems.

4.1. Ensuring Essential Service Delivery Conditions and Functionality

The initial foundation is the maintenance of safe and hygienic service conditions and essential functionality. Proposals for enhancing the customer experience must be aligned with the actual capacity of facilities, equipment, and operational resources. This also provides a basis for prioritizing improvements and allocating budgets. Measures addressing essential service delivery conditions should be considered in relation to standardization, training, and experience enhancement activities.

4.2. Developing Middle Management Capabilities

The next priority is to develop the capabilities of department heads, supervisors, and shift leaders in specific tasks: organizing work, checking service readiness, providing on-site guidance to employees, coordinating request resolution, and analyzing recurring errors. Learning outcomes are intended to be demonstrated through shift plans, the quality of inspections, coaching capabilities, and departmental improvement projects. Management capability is therefore assessed through the ability to organize implementation and maintain quality in daily operations.

4.3. Standardizing Frontline Service Behaviors

For frontline employees, capability development focuses on observable behaviors: proactively welcoming guests, listening, confirming information, providing appropriate assistance, responding when inconvenience arises, and following up on requests until guests receive the outcome. These shared behaviors are adapted to the roles of reception, housekeeping, restaurant, conference, engineering, and recreation personnel to ensure relevance to their respective responsibilities. This provides a basis for designing practice scenarios, delivering on-site guidance, and assessing application after training.

4.4. Refining Service Standards, SOPs, and Coordination Tools

Alongside training, the reports propose reviewing service standards, interdepartmental coordination mechanisms, and standard operating procedures (SOPs). Each procedure should specify who performs the task, the confirmation steps, the required outcome, when updates should be provided, and how matters should be escalated when they exceed the employee’s authority. Tools such as checklists, reference photographs illustrating standards, handover forms, and request-tracking logs are incorporated into the proposed design to support application during working shifts. Integrating procedures with implementation tools provides a basis for tracking accountability, reviewing progress, and confirming service outcomes.

5. Knowledge Transfer Approach: Co-creation and Internal Trainer Capability Development

A central component of the proposed approach is co-creation between consultants and the organization’s personnel. Managers and employees participate directly in reviewing, testing, providing feedback on, and refining operational guidelines.

This participation enables solutions to be assessed against actual work practices, available resources, and the specific requirements of each property. Feedback generated during testing is subsequently used to refine both the content and its application. Internal instructor development - Train the Trainer - is integrated to build the organization’s capacity to maintain and update standards internally. This equips managers and training personnel to continue providing guidance, observing practice, and supporting employees after the consulting phase.

6. Implementation Roadmap and Effectiveness Evaluation Mechanisms

To connect solution design with verification, Lead-UP Academy typically proposes a 60–90-day improvement roadmap, adjusted to the scope of work and circumstances of each organization.

The initial phase focuses on establishing priorities, assigning responsibilities, and ensuring essential service delivery conditions. The subsequent phase involves standardization, coaching, and pilot implementation at selected touchpoints. The final phase focuses on reviewing implementation, analyzing results, refining practices, and establishing mechanisms to sustain improvements.

Evaluation is intended to draw on pre- and post-implementation data using consistent measurement methods. Areas monitored include overdue requests, recurring errors, service readiness, employee behaviors, and managers’ coaching capabilities. Participation figures and satisfaction with training serve as supplementary information. Practical value should be assessed through changes in actual work practices, the ability to use the tools developed, and the extent to which service behaviors are sustained in accordance with established standards.

7. Research Outputs and Directions for Organizational Application

The outputs of the current research phase are assessment reports and a framework of proposed actions. Anticipated implementation deliverables include touchpoint maps, priority lists, shift management tools, critical SOPs, training scenarios, monitoring forms, and progress reports.

This structure supports continued verification, refinement, and adaptation of solutions to the characteristics of each property. Implementation also generates additional data for examining the suitability of training content, coordination practices, and quality management mechanisms. Through recent case studies at hotels and resorts, Lead-UP Academy translates its commitment to supporting businesses into applied research: engaging with practice, identifying issues within operational contexts, developing solutions, and designing evaluation mechanisms.

The intended value is the organization’s capacity for self-directed improvement, in which managers can lead implementation, employees provide proactive service, and departments share responsibility for the customer journey. This is also how Lead-UP Academy brings the spirit of “Learn to Act - Act to Lead” into its R&D activities and the development of consulting and training solutions for businesses.

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Lead-UP Academy | Learn to Act – Act to Lead