Understanding Service Experience: A Critical Incident Technique Approach

Service experience encompass positive or negatives experiences, whilst also differs between individuals while quality begins with the design of the service delivery system and thus being assessed by the customers during the service delivery process. Limited empirical study had been done in the identification of hotel failures while there is also less understanding on the attribution of these failures. Current information and data available are not sufficient and very minimal in the identification of the current and potential hotel failures. As service experience is a subjective matter and differs between individuals, a qualitative stance is deemed appropriate to be applied. In order to obtain this, a technique known as the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) was utilized to investigate the perception of Langkawi resort hotel guests towards their service experiences during their stay in Langkawi, giving particular attention on negative experiences encountered. CIT was deemed suitable to be employed by having customers convey their personal experiences in their own words regarding their recent hotel stay, which are memorable to them either positively or negatively. CIT consists of a specifically defined procedure for collecting important observations of past events, which will then be classified into natural groupings between the events. This paper will highlight an analytical framework of CIT as forwarded by Gilbert and Lockwood (1999) which proposes three major stages of CIT application. These three stages are then broken down into six steps in constructing an explanatory framework of the data collected. By applying CIT, this paper aims to identify the negative experiences that guests generally encounter during their stay in Langkawi resort hotels. The application of CIT has led to the classification of negative incidents into categories and sub-categories. It also aims to explore who is attributable in influencing the negative incidents encountered. This study is considered significant to provide findings which can assist in the identification of common failures that guests generally encounter while staying in hotels in Langkawi whilst also identifying what attributes to these failures. Hence corrective efforts can be adjusted to improve resort hotel’s service experience.