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Executive Summary The first part of this report will deal with the organization itself. We chose the Aparto business, a business owned by the Hines company, which offers student accommodation to students across the UK and Ireland. The Aparto residence discussed throughout this report is the Montrose Aparto, situated across from UCD.

The service offered by the Montrose is one of high quality, in the belief that a student residence should be a personal experience above all. The Montrose Aparto offer a positive, homely and interactive atmosphere. The Montrose Aparto’s building manager, Rob Moyes was interviewed for this report, and provided the necessary information on service quality, standards, expectations, and the main challenges this service encounters. Their targeted customers are students of course, with their main focus on UCD students. With around 78,500 full-time students in Dublin, the increasing demand for student accommodation is becoming a worrying trend. Montrose Aparto is then competing with UCD’s student accommodation, along with private homes or apartments.

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The second part of this report will report on the way in which Aparto deal with the certain gaps between customers and their service. Aparto responds to these gaps in a variety of ways both effectively, and ineffectively. In relation to the customer gap, the Montrose Aparto have been consistently trying to fix imperfections as quickly as possible, hiring young RAs to connect to the students and maintain the fresh look and feel student’s expect. With the first provider gap, they seek to add benefits that satisfy their customers, rather than conduct research, and focus on customer interactions with a specifically segmented market, UCD. In regards to the second provider gap, they design their standards and quality around industry standards, focusing more on the image customers need to see. With the third provider gap, Aparto focuses on training employees in standards, and using RAs to recover any service dissatisfaction. Finally, in relation to the fourth provider gap, Aparto cooperate all external communications to ensure that the same message is promoted in all areas of advertisemen t.

Table of Contents The first part of this report will deal with the organization itself. We chose the Aparto business, a business owned by the Hines company, which offers student accommodation to students across the UK and Ireland. The Aparto residence discussed throughout this report is the Montrose Aparto, situated across from UCD. The service offered by the Montrose is one of high quality, in the belief that a student residence should be a personal experience above all. The Montrose Aparto offer a positive, homely and interactive atmosphere. The Montrose Aparto’s building manager, Rob Moyes was interviewed for this report, and provided the necessary

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information on service quality, standards, expectations, and the main challenges this service encounters. Their targeted customers are students of course, with their main focus on UCD students. With around 78,500 full-time students in Dublin, the increasing demand for student accommodation is becoming a worrying trend. Montrose Aparto is then competing with UCD’s student accommodation, along with private homes or apartments.

The second part of this report will report on the way in which Aparto deal with the certain gaps between customers and their service. Aparto responds to these gaps in a variety of ways both effectively, and ineffectively. In relation to the customer gap, the Montrose Aparto have been consistently trying to fix imperfections as quickly as possible, hiring young RAs to connect to the students and maintain the fresh look and feel student’s expect. With the first provider gap, they seek to add benefits that satisfy their customers, rather than conduct research, and focus on customer interactions with a specifically segmented market, UCD. In regards to the second provider gap, they design their standards and quality around industry standards, focusing more on the image customers need to see. With the third provider gap, Aparto focuses on training employees in standards, and using RAs to recover any service dissatisfaction. Finally, in relation to the fourth provider gap, Aparto cooperate all external communications to ensure that the same message is promoted in all areas of advertisement.

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aparto An introduction to the company; The service chosen for the purpose of this assignment is the Aparto Student Accommodation. It is a business owned by the Hines company, a global and private real estate investment, development and management firm. Hines was founded in 1957 by Gerald D.Hines. The company operates in 201 cities across 21 countries and has $100 billion worth of assets under management, $54.5 billion of these assets are used to provide fiduciary investment management services and the remaining $45.5 billion is used to provide third-party property level services.

Hines provide many services, but for this assignment we decided to base this project on their ‘Aparto’ business, which was created to offer student accommodation. The Aparto business was created by Hines in order to develop a new rapidly expanding portfolio of student accommodation developments. The Aparto residence has started to grow in Europe, especially throughout the UK and Ireland.

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The first aparto building here in Ireland was acquired in 2016. The Aparto business and student resident that we will focus on is the ‘Montrose Aparto’, a building that has been redesigned from an old hotel. After the reconstruction and improvements needed, the old Montrose hotel opened it’s doors in September 2016 as the Montrose Aparto, a residence that currently hosts 210 students. The service offered by the Montrose Aparto is that of high quality, where they believe that a student residence should not be just a room where the student will stay, but rather a personal experience. At the Montrose they offer a very positive, homely and interactive atmosphere, where they run a program of regular social events and fun initiatives. They also provide common areas with spaces designated for study. The 210 ensuites at the Montrose Aparto offer a wide range of choice when it comes to choosing the right room for you. The rooms they offer, for example, include a twin ensuite, a classic ensuite, an accessible ensuite, a top floor ensuite or even a superior ensuite, where price differs from room to room. Each one has different space availability, privacy, storage space and a balcony, if selected.

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The Montrose Aparto offer: ●

Private rooms, with private showers and toilets in each room, and your own 4ft double bed,

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Shared kitchens with 8 people and a lounge area where everyone can watch TV and play games. (A cleaning service for every kitchen is also included, once a week)

● Utility bills and contents of insurance (electricity,water,heating,tv license) ● Super fast broadband and wifi ● A lot of bike storage ● A team of ready to help staff who are available at their 24h reception ● Regular programmes of social events which are organized by the RA’s, who try to be a friendly face, around the same age group as the students, so the student feels that he/she has someone to talk to if something goes wrong or they feel uncomfortable about something. ● Laundrette

Other buildings also have pets and gymnasiums so that the students are entertained, but this is not the case of Montrose due to the fact that the building used to be a hotel. The Montrose have a lot of improvements to make regarding the accommodation and this is one of their main objectives going forward. Their target market is that of students of course, with their main customer being UCD students, primarily due to its location at an approximate walk of ten minutes. This is one of the main reasons why they advertise themselves around the university. They also aim to target medium to high income students due to the high cost you pay yearly, a much higher cost than any building on campus. They also offer attractive

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payment plans, but as they say: Sometimes there are people who just simply can’t afford it.

Interviewee: Rob Moyes, Montrose Building Manager

We interviewed Aparto’s building manager Rob Moyes. Mr. Moyes is in charge of the whole building and he provided us with a lot of useful information in relation to the jobs in which he carries out within the business and clearly analysed the services

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which they offer. He began by discussing how he and his team are trying to make the necessary improvements and changes to the building. As was previously mentioned, the Montrose building used to be a hotel and having turned it into an accommodation, the building is lacking in necessities for students. He described that there is a lot to be done as the building is very old and little by little they are improving the standards of their service so that they can ultimately offer the same, high standards offered right now by their other accommodations. Mr Moyes also spoke to us about the Aparto business’ marketing strategies, which are carried out by a company in the Uk. This company mainly deals with the marketing strategy for the whole year and also deals with the problems that may arise. Within the building, Mr Moyes and his team carry out local marketing.

The current trends in this industry: There has been an enormous increase in the total number of students in third level education over the past several decades. There has also been a rapid population growth in the Irish cities which has created an increasingly competitive situation for space to live in Dublin along with other cities that host third level educational institutions in Ireland.

Dublin has around 78,500 full-time students – almost 43% of the total Irish student population with Dublin hosting 11 of the institutions. With 3 universities, 4 institutes of technology and 4 colleges of education the increasing demand for student accommodation is becoming a worrying trend. The Montrose Aparto, which we have used for the purpose of this assignment, falls into the student accommodation/ hospitality industry.

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The aim of the organization which we chose to interview is to provide students with a homely environment, where students can receive an excellent service and from excellent people. Having interviewed the general manager at the Montrose accommodation offered by the Hines company, we can see that the industry in which they compete in is student accommodation. The Montrose Aparto tries to focus on UCD students as it is so close and is basically on campus, but are aiming to provide their service to medium to high income customers, as despite their payment plans, people find the accommodation prices unaffordable.

The Montrose accommodation service, are a new company, who have set their prices high as what they offer is more than just a room in a student hall. They offer a variety of benefits for example a lovely team of staff, events, modern kitchens, common rooms, a very welcoming reception and more. The Montrose are competing with UCD’s student accommodation, along with private homes or apartments which students can get for a better price. But it is absolutely not that easy to find accommodation in Dublin. The Montrose offer an ideal set up, in a brilliant location where students can get a very positive service experience. But the issue is, is that they only offer 210 rooms and at a very high cost.

The Student accommodation industry on the “tangibility” spectrum: When it comes a service, there are two key aspects that need to be considered, tangibility and intangibility. Unlike a good, a service incorporates both aspects and their varying degrees of influence can greatly affect how you manage a service. In the case of student accommodation, the main service is provided through the intangible factors.

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The feel of the apartment, the friendliness of the staff and residence, events thrown by the accommodation, and the atmosphere as a whole. These factors are what impart a sense of feeling upon the customer and thus must be managed accordingly. However, these factors are mainly determined through the use of tangibles, such as the decorations and layout of the residences, staff uniforms, and food provided. On the the tangibility spectrum, student accommodation would lie towards the middle, but with a greater dominance of intangibles. This is because the tangibles, whist important, only help to provide the intangibles which define the service.

Critical analysis of the GAPS MODEL for Aparto: The customer GAP: The customer GAP involves the difference between what the customer thinks or believes should happen and what actually happens. Having spoken to Mr. Moyes, the manager at the Montrose Aparto, he explained to us that one of the biggest things that a student expects from this accommodation is that their money has the value that it was expected to have. As said before, the cost to stay at the Montrose accommodation is much more than the cost of living on campus.

The Montrose Aparto is not as modern as the other Aparto buildings and the work and remodeling required here is more than double that of the other buildings. This is one of Mr. Moyes biggest fears, as he fears that students will come into the building, to be disappointed as it is not as fresh and modern as expected, and hence, feel that their money was not worth it.

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So in order to to overcome this GAP, apart from the ongoing, current fixing of imperfections which they are carrying out as fast as they can, and without bothering the current students, what they have done to give the building that fresh and modern air was hiring RA’s. The RA’s, or Residence assistants, are young, more or less the same age as the students living at the Montrose, who organize events in the common rooms once or twice a week, so the students feel involved. It also gives a young perspective, as mentioned before. Furthermore, the Ra’s also try to help the student residents with whatever issues he/she may have. As the RA’s are more or less the same age as the students living here, the company also ensure that the students feel comfortable talking about their problems with the RA’s. It is the main role of the Ra’s to help the residents because they may share common interest or they may have gone through similar things at some point in their lives. Ultimately, what they are trying to do, is to give their customers that feeling of freshness and a modern space to enjoy a homely service experience.

The Provider GAPs: Provider GAP 1: The first provider gap is the difference between what customers expect from a service and what companies think customers expect from a service. In other words, this gap is a reflection on the companies not knowing what customers expect. The knowledge about what customers expects is basic to begin offering a service, and while impossible to know exactly, as nobody will know it better than them, it is possible and very much recommended to have an accurate approach to satisfying their needs and wills.

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The main reason for which this gap exists is an inadequate marketing research orientation. Leaving aside that a company must put all their efforts on investigating what customers want or expect from its services, meaning doing as much research as necessary to find it, may result in research that is not focused on service quality which may cause the gap to exist or become bigger.

In the case of Aparto, according to Rob Moyes, they assume that all the customer worries about, is value for money and the return they obtain from the money they spend on accommodation. The Montrose Aparto do not carry a continuous research on what customers expect. In fact, they see the marketing department as an advertisement and public relations department. They pretend to give value to the money that customers pay by providing them with many services in exchange: friendly service, quick fixing and repairing service, common spaces, social events and so on. Instead of carrying out a good quality marketing research to find out what customers really want, they tend to offer them a lot of extra services. This might satisfy the customer, but is highly inefficient for the company. When talking about not knowing what customers expect, another very common cause is the insufficient relationship focus. As a result of this insufficient relationship focus, a loss of customers may occur as once they have obtained your service, they do not come for more. This is because companies can fail to segment their market properly or may focus on transactions rather than their customers. In fact, some companies just focus on keeping a constant flow of new customers, rather than caring about the current customers. At the Montrose Aparto, they focus highly on the customer. They have segmented very well and their target is medium-high income UCD students. In addition, because they have segmented very accurately, they are able to offer their customers a lot of extra services and are always willing to hear from its

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customers. They also offer some advantages to those returning customers, a 5% discount, or the ability to choose the bedroom they want, arriving a week after without an extra charge, etc. This allows Aparto to be constantly adapting and improving, resulting in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Another key factor, closely related to the previous, is the lack of upward communication which is very important to maintaining a constant interaction between customers and the management of the firm. When the interaction between the management and the customers is inexistent or even insufficient, due to no employee-customer communication or there are too many layers between contact personnel and top management, the gap becomes bigger. Aparto care about customer satisfaction and the firm deals with this by ensuring a friendly and open environment, achieved through the hiring of highly qualified workers to provide a successful upward communication. The customer, as Rob Mayes said in the interview, must feel comfortable enough to talk to the employees without any impediment and that is why their employees are of the same age group of the customer and always predisposed to listen. These employees report directly to managers.

The last, but not the least, because that may result in this gap becoming bigger is an inadequate service recovery. As time goes by, customer’s requirements may change and services start to fail to adapt to these requirements. When this can happen, or even when a mistake is made, the firm has to have appropriate recovery mechanisms in place to solve service failures. They must be willing to listen to the customer and make amends when things go wrong. The Montrose Aparto is highly encouraged and employees are trained to listen to customer complaints and deal with them effectively through its employees, who are always willing to listen and help the customers. Most of customers’ complaints are related to every-day damages or breakdowns and they are easily solved by the same employees. If not, Aparto’s

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employees transfer the complaints to the managers so they can apply, design or redesign a mechanism to solve them. All in all, we can say that Hines closes this gap effectively, but inefficiently. Instead of making research to find out what customers really want and need, instead, they offer them a wide range of services and responses to keep them happy. While it can seem like a good way of dealing with it, and customers may result satisfied, it is ...