TB0465 Copyright © 2016 Thunderbird School of Global Management, a unit of the Arizona State University Knowledge Enterprise. This case was written by ProfessorNeena Sondhi, International Management Institute, New Delhi, for the sole purpose of providing material for class discussion. It is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. Any reproduction, in any form, of the material in this case is prohibited unless permission is obtained from the copyright holder.Neena Sondhi Customer Relationship Management: The Tudor House Makes Amends February 2016: “The customer is the boss and he is always right.” Sita Sen, Associate Marketing Director of the Tudor House, Delhi looked at the poster behind her office chair. The adage seemed to be the gospel which summed up the dilemma that loomed large over her at the moment. Hospitality as an industry had always been fraught with consistent customer issues. Sita had been in the hospitality and entertainment business long enough to realize that nowhere was the adage “the customer is king” more applicable. But the challenges had increased in complexity in a 24/7 interconnected world in which one had to deal with wired customers. The customer always had something to say—and more often than not had something to complain about—on any virtual platform that was available. Sita looked with annoyance at a Facebook group post by a vexing customer which had been forwarded by Anand Dewan, or AD, the nickname by which he was known, vice president of hospitality and general manager at the Tudor House, Delhi. The customer had gone to a popular food group—with nationwide membership—and posted his complaint about the Tudor House, New Delhi, there. The issue was about a small cake decoration request for his dad’s birthday that had been misunderstood. He had complained to Danish Delicatessen (the bakery at Tudor House). Further, the customer had plastered the group’s wall with pictures, and the group’s members had been going berserk since then. AD had allocated the responsibility of handling the customer issue to Sita. Customer advocacy was important in this business, especially post the all-encompassing social media world that customers lived in today. But did one give in to every irritating customer? Was Dewan testing her managerial capabilities by asking her to make a decision and implement it? The decision required maintaining a perfect balance between appeasing the irate customer and yet not creating a precedent for further complaints at the Tudor House. The operative question was, after all, how much was “enough”? The Tudor House Group: Old-World Luxury The Tudor House hotel, New Delhi, had been operational since 1950. It enjoyed a prime location in the beautiful capital city. The hotel had a distinguished legacy as one of the pioneering five-star hotels of independent India.
