Hospitality & Tourism Management
Fall 2023
HOST 164: Customer Service Operations
Instructor: Ms. Nitz (mnitz@highline.edu)
Office: Building 26, Room 301
Office Hours: Mondays (Zoom) 3-5pm, Wednesday (In-Person) 9-11am
I-BEST Instructor: Tetyana Matsyuk (tmatsyuk@highline.edu)
Office Hours: Wednesdays 2:00 pm-4:00 pm, Thursdays 9:00 am-10:30 am
Book appointments: https://bit.ly/40K18v0
Class Schedule: Hybrid: In-person class Tues & Thurs 11am-12:05pm
Asynch: Online Only
Text required: HOST courses do not rely on textbooks. All materials for this course will be provided to you
electronically on Canvas
Highline College: 2400 South 240th Street
Des Moines, WA 98198
P: (206) 878-3710
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Providing excellent customer service is essential to the long-term viability of an organization. This business-oriented course focuses on providing customer service in the context of business operations (e.g. retail, hospitality, management) including face-to-face interactions, the expectations of individuals working directly with customers, and how employees can succeed in leaving a positive impression on stakeholders including customers, supervisors, and managers. The course provides fundamental elements of customer service and explains how they can be applied in any organization in real-world situations.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Being aware of the course learning outcomes is paramount to success in all of your coursework. The learning outcomes guide the material each of your courses covers and the manner in which the material is covered. Please make yourself aware of the elements of this course and all other pertinent courses. The course learning outcomes for all HOST classes can be viewed at this web address: http://catalog.highline.edu/
The Student Learning Outcomes for this course are as follows:
• Learners will demonstrate soft and hard skills associated with customer service interactions in a variety of real or hypothetical business settings.
• Learners will identify payment options and back-end (i.e. service provider) impacts for each payment option including PCI compliance, cash as an asset to be managed, and credit card fees.
• Learners will accurately identify POS and PMS strategies including the differences between each, their operational capacities, the reporting types available, and what the most popular softwares are industry-wide.
• Learners will demonstrate effective teamwork and collaboration skills in customer service settings including case studies and skill presentations (e.g. cash handling, business cards).
• Learners will formulate strategies to manage their implicit bias and properly adapt their communication in a service environment.
• Learners will demonstrate effective communication strategies in customer service cases leading to wow factors, loyalty, and successful moments of truth interactions using case studies and presentations.
• Learners will interpret body language in customer service settings in order to adapt their own verbal and nonverbal communication to best fit the customer's needs.
PARTICIPATION
Hopefully participation is fun in our course together this quarter! Participation does not mean only one thing. You are a unique individual and your approach to participation can be as unique as you are.
Participation is technically graded. You can lose or gain up to 10% of your final grade in the course. If you are going to lose more than 3% of your final grade due to a lack of participation, then a meeting will be requested beforehand – you will not lose more than 3 points and be surprised by it. No student will lose more than 10% of their final grade due to a lack of participation. It is also possible to gain a maximum of 10% toward your final grade based on participation. This is big—it’s a full letter grade!
Losing points occurs primarily through cheating such as plagiarism, not attending class, treating members of our class poorly, or submitting multiple assignments after the due date. So long as you put forth a positive effort, we will have fun and your participation will likely be seen in a positive light.
Ways to gain participation points include reaching out to me with any questions/concerns, communicating throughout the quarter, demonstrating care and engagement in the work you submit, asking questions, and encouraging your classmates’ growth.
ASSIGNMENT PROTOCOLS
All final exams take place face-to-face in courses that are scheduled face-to-face. Hybrid and online courses have final exams that take place online. The time and location of your final exam will be dictated by the College. Instructors cannot move final exam locations or times. You are responsible for knowing the time and location of your final exam. This can be located on Highline.edu.
If you miss the final exam but completed the rest of the course then you may be assigned an Incomplete depending on the situation. Incompletes can be made up at a later date in agreement with the instructor. You will not be given an Incomplete if you choose to depart campus early. Flight dates are not a reasonable excuse for missing a final exam.
Assignment Grading
Assignment Type
Points Per Assignment
Total Grade Percentage
Discussion Boards
2
10%
Participation
N/A
10%
Quizzes
100
40%
Paper
100
20%
Final Exam
100
20%
Assignment Explanations
Quizzes: There are 7 quizzes total. They are timed, but you will get two attempts at each of them and your highest score will be kept.
Discussion Boards: We will use our weekly discussion boards reflect on key concepts or share your insights with our classroom community. These are spaces for you to learn from one another and for me to better understand where you’re at. They are only graded out of two because you will get 2 points for completing them, 1 point if you leave them incomplete, and 0 points if you don’t turn them in. They are mostly looking for your effort, reflections, and insights rather than for “right” answers.
Paper: There is one paper. All instructions and the rubric will documented in detail on Canvas.
Final Exam: There is one Final Exam. This exam takes place during Final Exam Week as established by Highline College’s administration. All final exam rules pertain to this exam. For example, you cannot move the time/date of the final exam due to vacation arrangements.