Managing the physical appearance of the personnel of luxury hotels who are in contact with customers

By Nathalie Montargot ,
PhD in Managerial Sciences, adjunct professor Groupe Sup de Co La Rochelle (France), laboratoire CEREGE Poitiers

Managing “looks” is a major issue in organizations that try to control their image. A review of the literature shows that the physical appearance of the personnel in contact with customers has a positive influence on the latter in terms of credibility, friendliness, competence, empathy and courtesy. Customers notice “experiential cues” – various sensations (visual, auditive, olfactive, tactile) – from the personnel with whom they enter into contact, and use these cues to evaluate services. Few studies have been made from the manager’s viewpoint of the issue of the personnel’s physical appearance. Borrowing the grid of interpretation designed from studies of customer reactions but shifting focus to managers’ perceptions, this research has formulated two questions. On what sensorial data are managers’ perceptions of their employees’ physical appearance based? To what extent do managers encounter difficulty seeing to it that the establishment’s norms are followed? Various sources (the literature on human resource management, the marketing of services and labor sociology) are reviewed with a focus on employees’ physical appearances and the organization’s dress code. A qualitative methodology was designed through an exploratory survey of twenty luxury hotel managers, who oversee the impressions made on customers and the effects on their symbolic social status. This survey’s findings shed light on the complexity and scope of the “competence of service”, and on the difficulty that managers have of managing the personnel’s physical appearance. As these findings confirm, it is necessary to take into account the emotional, social and physical dimensions of prescribed roles. The sensorial cues perceived by managers are but partly the same as those perceived by customers. The interest of managers, as directors of a stage where services are produced, is to help the personnel have a “reflexive distance” from their prescribed role and from customers’ perceptions. Recommendations are made for support through the formation of a “working community” and training programs to heighten the awareness of sensorial, experiential cues.