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four factors that affect service quality:
1. analysis of customer expectations 2. service quality specifications 3. employee performance 4. management of service expectations
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In most developed countries, including Germany, Japan, Australia, and Canada, services account for about __ percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).
70%
Examples of Assurance
A highly trained financial advisor A known and respected service provider A doctor's bedside manner
Examples of Responsiveness
A server refilling a customer's cup of coffee without being asked An ambulance arriving within 3 minutes
Examples of Emapthy
A store employee listening to and trying to understand a customer's complaint A nurse counseling a heart patient
management of service expectations
Advertising Good internal communications
Although many service problems are one-time events that cannot be predicted or controlled ahead of time, what can help increase consistency and reliability
Although many service problems are one-time events that cannot be predicted or controlled ahead of time, employee training and the establishment of standard procedures can help increase consistency and reliability.
Examples of Reliability
An accurate bank statement A confirmed hotel reservation An airline flight departing and arriving on time
Evaluation Criteria: Tangibles
Appearance of physical facilities Appearance of service personnel Tools or equipment used to provide the service
experience qualities
Attributes, such as taste, satisfaction, or pleasure, that can be assessed only during purchase and consumption of a service
______ plays a key role in providing competitive advantage for the service provider.
Customization
______ is one of the most important factors in providing high service quality to customers.
Employee satisfaction
Evaluation Criteria: Empathy
Listening to customer needs Caring about customers' interests Providing personalized attention
what may be the first sign that a nonprofit organization is performing marketing activities.
Making promotional decisions
nonprofit marketing
Marketing activities conducted to achieve some goal other than ordinary business goals such as profit, market share, or return on investment
analysis of customer expectations
Marketing research Open communication with employees
Evaluation Criteria: Responsiveness
Returning customer phone calls Providing prompt service Handling urgent requests
Inseparability of production and consumption - Resulting Marketing Challenges
Service provider cannot mass-produce services. Customer must participate in production. Other consumers affect service outcomes. Services are difficult to distribute.
Customer contact - Resulting Marketing Challenges
Service providers are critical to delivery. Requires high levels of service employee training and motivation. Changing a high-contact service into a low-contact service to achieve lower costs is difficult to achieve without reducing customer satisfaction.
Heterogeneity - Resulting Marketing Challenges
Service quality is difficult to control. Service delivery is difficult to standardize.
Client-based relationships - Resulting Marketing Challenges
Success depends on satisfying and keeping customers over the long term. Generating repeat business is challenging. Relationship marketing becomes critical.
The tangibility continuum
This describes how tangible a product is; ranges from pure good to service dominant; ex. sugar (sort of pure good) to restaurant (good-service mixed) to education (service-dominant); knowledge helps a company create a marketing strategy
peak demand
Times when many customers need a service
service quality specifications example
a bank may require its employees to conform to a dress code. Likewise, the bank may require that all incoming phone calls be answered by the third ring or that emails be answered within two hours
marketing strategy for non-profit should include
a blueprint for making decisions about product, distribution, promotion, and price
target public
a collective of individuals who have an interest in or concern about an organization, product, or social cause
There is a direct relationship between the satisfaction of a company's contact employees, which is manifested in a positive attitude and
a good work ethic, and the satisfaction of its customers.
A service offered by an organization is generally
a package, or bundle, of services consisting of a core service and one or more supplementary services.
the primary difference between a service and a good is that
a service is dominated by the intangible portion of the total product.
More than 12 percent of workers age 30 and younger have
a tattoo, meaning the level of acceptance of body modifications in the service industry, even in traditionally buttoned-up industries like accounting, is bound to increase over time.
high-contact services generally involve...
actions directed toward people, who must be present during production.
financial price
an exact dollar value that may or may not be charged for a non-profit product
Social media can be
an inexpensive and effective means of training and engaging employees, as well as spreading awareness of stellar service to customers.
Customer service involves ...
any human, mechanical, or electronic activity that adds value to the product.
by nature, services consist of
assistance, convenience, and availability.
credence qualities
attributes that customers may be unable to evaluate even after purchasing and consuming a service
the appearance of the facility is important in high or low contact services?
both because in low the customer likely will need to be present to initiate and finalize the service transaction and in high the client will often receive the service at the facility
off-peak pricing
charging different prices during different times of the day or days of the week to reflect variations in demand for the service
interactions that result in satisfied customers who use a service repeatedly over time.
client-based relationships
When preparing advertisements, service marketers should be careful to use
concrete, specific language to help make services more tangible in customers' minds.
The success of many services depends on
creating and maintaining client-based relationships
the level of interaction between the service provider and the customer necessary to deliver the service
customer contact
Employee and customer satisfaction levels have a direct relationship with
customer retention and loyalty.
Nonprofit organizations develop marketing strategies by ...
defining and analyzing a target market and creating and maintaining a total marketing mix that appeals to that market.
If this level of expectations is provided, the customer will be very satisfied.
desired
Customers usually have two levels of expectations:
desired and acceptable
client publics
direct consumers of a product of a nonprofit organization
A number of equipment-based services can be delivered at arm's length, including
electric, online, cable television, and telephone services.
employee performance
employee training evaluation and compensation systems
Services have very few search qualities. Instead, they possess
experience and credence qualities
Two types of monetary pricing exist:
fixed and variable.
It has been estimated that customers tell _____times as many people about bad service as they do about good service.
four
example add for service
geico "that spin class won't pay for itself"
variation in quality.
heterogeneity
In developing the product, nonprofit organizations usually deal with
ideas and services.
Services have six basic characteristics:
intangibility, inseparability of production and consumption, perishability, heterogeneity, client-based relationships, and customer contact
Service marketers are very concerned about
inventory management, especially balancing supply and demand for services.
the beneficiaries of a nonprofit organization are
its clients, its members, or the public at large.
the most critical aspect of service quality specifications is
managers' commitment to service quality.
Intangibility requires service marketers, such as stylists or attorneys, to ___
market promises to customers.
a marketing strategy directs...
marketing activities and resources toward achieving organizational goals.
Service companies sometimes use ____, to discover customer needs and expectations.
marketing research, such as surveys and focus groups
Many nonprofit organizations also use
personal selling,
Heterogeneity usually increases as
the degree of labor intensiveness increases.
When designing service delivery, marketers must pay attention to ____
the degree of personalization that customers in their target market desire.
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heterogeneity provides one advantage to service marketers:
It allows them to customize their services to match the specific needs of individual customers
demand-based pricing
a price-setting method based on estimates of demand at different prices
Whereas a business seeks out target groups that are potential purchasers of its product, a nonprofit organization may
attempt to serve many diverse groups.
is it easier or harder for administrators to evaluate the performance of professors or social workers than it is for sales managers to evaluate the performance of salespeople in a for-profit organization.
harder
Distribution decisions in nonprofit organizations relate to
how ideas and services will be made available to clients.
general publics
indirect consumers of a product of a nonprofit organization
Contact employees in most service industries (bank tellers, flight attendants, servers, sales clerks, etc.) are often the
least-trained and lowest-paid members of the organization
If customers perceive the available services in a service category as being similar in quality, and if the quality of such services is difficult to judge even after these services are purchased, customers may seek out the
lowest-priced provider.
the unused service capacity of one time period cannot be stored for future use
perishability
The U.S. Army uses ______ when its recruiting officers attempt to persuade men and women to enlist.
personal selling
Because of the intangible nature of services, customers sometimes rely heavily on ____ as an indicator of quality.
price
Developing a channel of distribution to coordinate and facilitate the flow of nonprofit products to clients is necessary, but in a nonprofit setting, marketers may need to
revise the traditional concept of the marketing channel because the independent wholesalers available to a business enterprise do not exist in most nonprofit situations.
If the product is an idea, what will facilitate distribution?
selecting the right media to communicate the idea
ikea taskrabbit
service example of value to time
Pricing strategies of nonprofit organizations often ...
stress public and client welfare over equalization of costs and revenues.
example of client vs general public
the client public for a university is its student body, and its general public includes parents, alumni, and trustees. The client public usually receives most of the attention when an organization develops a marketing strategy.
The difference between desired and acceptable levels of expectations is called
the customer's zone of tolerance.
The biggest obstacle for customers in evaluating service quality is
the intangible nature of the service.
example of target market vs target public
the target public for Accion International is anyone interested in supporting international development and relief work. However, the target market for Accion's advertisements consists of people in developing nations who want microloans to start businesses and spur economic development.
Availability is thus part of
the total service
nonprofit organization marketing
the use of marketing concepts and techniques by organizations whose goals do not include making profits
To deliver on promises made, a company needs to have
thorough internal communication among its departments, especially management, advertising, and store operations.
The way to ensure that employees perform well is to
train them effectively so they understand how to do their jobs by Providing information about customers, service specifications, and the organization itself during the training
nonprofit marketing is divided into what categories?
two categories: nonprofit-organization marketing and social marketing.
When a donation-seeking organization will accept a contribution of any size, it is using _______ pricing.
variable
examples of high and low contact services
High-contact services include health care, real estate, and legal services. Examples of low-contact services are tax preparation, auto repair, travel reservations, and dry cleaning.
Marketers may also promote their services as a tangible expression of
consumers' lifestyles.
service quality
customers' perceptions of how well a service meets or exceeds their expectations
_____refers to the fact that the production of a service cannot be separated from its consumption by customers
inseparability ex airline flight is consumed and produced at the same time
The upscale London restaurant Bob Ricard use of off-peak pricing
introduced off-peak pricing to bring in diners who rarely eat at luxury restaurants because of the high prices. The restaurant now charges 25 percent less for à la carte menu items during off-peak times and 15 percent less during "mid-peak" times. The strategy has doubled the number of customers coming in during normally slow hours
The growth in business services can be attributed to
the increasingly complex, specialized, and competitive business environment.
The prices of such services as pest-control, dry cleaning, carpet cleaning, and health consultations are usually based on
the performance of specific tasks.
when a student attends a tutoring session for a class, the core service is ..
the tutoring.
The goal of the san fransisco demand time parking meter pricing structure is
to decrease the amount of time people spend searching for parking spaces and thereby reduce congestion and greenhouse emissions
ex of intermediaries.
travel agents facilitate the delivery of airline services, independent insurance agents participate in the marketing of a variety of insurance policies, and financial planners market investment services.
equipment-based services are also often ...
standardized into packages. ex: basic, standard, and premium cable
To cope with customized services being expensive for both provider and customer, some service marketers offer
standardized packages.
Because customers often rely on brand names as an indicator of product quality, service marketers at organizations whose names are the same as their service brand names should ____
strive to build a strong national image for their companies.
Business services include ..
support and maintenance, consulting, installation, equipment leasing, marketing research, advertising, temporary office assistance, and janitorial services
A supplementary service ...
supports the core service and is used to differentiate the service bundle from those of competitors.
Examples of services high in credence qualities are
surgical operations, automobile repairs, and legal representation.
to ensure that client-based relationships actually occurs, the service provider must
take steps to build trust, demonstrate customer commitment, and satisfy customers so well that they become very loyal to the provider and unlikely to switch to competitors.
To cope with the problem of intangibility, marketers employ _____to assure customers about the quality and professionalism of the service
tangible cues (such as well-groomed, professional-appearing contact personnel and clean, attractive physical facilities)
Promotion of services typically includes
tangible cues that symbolize the service.
five dimensions consumers use when evaluating service quality:
tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy.
The importance of services in the U.S. economy led to
the United States being known as the world's first service economy.
A core service is
the basic service experience or commodity that a customer expects to receive
A customer trying to select an intangible product usually relies more heavily on ...
the brand to act as a cue to the nature and quality of the service.
The service characteristics of inseparability and level of customer contact contribute to ...
the challenges of demand management.
______meaning no face-to-face contact occurs between the customer and the service provider
"arm's length"
Research findings by American Express state that 70 percent of surveyed American consumers would spend an average of______ percent more for a product from a company that provides good customer service.
17%
Examples of Tangibles
A clean and professional-looking doctor's office A clean and neatly attired repairperson The freshness of food in a restaurant The equipment used in a medical exam
Evaluation Criteria: Reliability
Accuracy of billing or record keeping Performing services when promised
Intangibility - Resulting Marketing Challenges
Difficult for customer to evaluate. Customer does not take physical possession. Difficult to advertise and display. Difficult to set and justify prices. Service process is usually not protectable by patents.
Evaluation Criteria: Assurance
Knowledge and skills of employees Company name and reputation Personal characteristics of employees
Perishability - Resulting Marketing Challenges
Services cannot be stored. Balancing supply and demand is very difficult. Unused capacity is lost forever. Demand may be very time sensitive.
customer-contact jobs, such as at call centers, are outsourced to the homes of workers
homesourcing
A practice that has gained popularity among U.S. businesses as telecommunications technology has improved is
homesourcing,
high-contact services typically require that the customer go to the production facility so the physical appearance of the facility
may be a major component of the customer's overall evaluation of the service.
Compared with goods marketers, service providers are more likely to
promote price, guarantees, performance documentation, availability, and training and certification of contact personnel.
Of the five dimensions consumers use when evaluating service quality, _____ is the most important in determining customer evaluations of service quality
reliability
tangible attributes like color, style, size, feel, or fit that can be evaluated
search qualities,
Service marketers should take steps to avoid ----
sending messages that consumers might construe as promises that raise customer expectations beyond what the firm can provide.
service quality specifications
service goals management commitment to service quality
Marketing channels for services usually are
short and direct, meaning the producer delivers the service directly to the end user. ex credit card services
To make a service more tangible, promotions for services may
show pictures of facilities, equipment, and service personnel.
Service marketers are less concerned with ______ than are goods marketers
warehousing and transportation
Consider Liberty Mutual Insurance, service add example
which features the Statue of Liberty on its logo. This image symbolizes strength and reliability to consumers.
Services should be priced ______ in mind.
with consumer price sensitivity, the nature of the transaction, and its costs
Because of the heterogeneity and intangibility of services, _______ is particularly important in service promotion
word-of-mouth communication