Services Marketing Final

Emotional Labour

"The act of expressing socially desired emotions during service transactions" Occurs when there is gap between what employees feel inside, and emotions that management requires them to display to customers Performing emotional labour in response to society's or management's display rules can be stressful Good HR practice emphasizes selective recruitment, training, counselling, strategies to alleviate stress

Types of Service Environment

*Message-creating medium*: symbolic cues to communicate the distinctive nature and quality of the service experience *Attention-creating medium*: make servicescape stand out from competition and attract customers from target segments *Effect-creating medium*: use colours, textures, sounds, scents, and spatial design to enhance desired service experience

Spatial Layout

- Floor plan - Size and shape of furnishings, counters, machinery, equipment, and how they are arranged - Functionality: ability of those items to make the performance of the service easier

Managing Capacity and Demand

1. Define productive capacity 2. Manage Capacity 3. Understand Demand 4. Manage Demand

Components of Service Blueprint

1. Define standards for front-stage activities 2. Specify physical evidence 3. Identify main customer actions 4. Line of interaction (customers and front-stage employees) 5. Front-stage actions by customer-contact personnel 6. Line of visibility (btwn front stage and backstage) 7. Backstage actions by customer-contact personnel 8. Line of internal interaction (btwn customer-contact personnel and other service personnel/IT) 9. Support processes involving other service personnel/IT *Identify fail points and risks of excess waits

Service Talent Cycle for Service Firms

1. Hire the right people 2. Enable your people 3. Motivate and Energize your people

Six Service Quality Gaps

1. Knowledge Gap 2. Policy Gap 3. Delivery Gap 4. Communications Gap 5. Perceptions Gap 6. Service Quality Gap

The Wheel of Loyalty

1. build a foundation for loyalty 2. create loyalty bonds 3. reduce churn drivers

People are part of the service environment

Appearance and behaviour of both service personnel and customers can strengthen impression created by service environment or weaken it - for employees, once they are dressed up, they must perform their parts - for customers, marketing communication may seek to attract those who appreciate the service environment and are also able to enhance it by their appearance and behaviour - newcomers often look at existing customers before deciding whether to patronize the service firm

Ten Propositions to make waiting more bearable

1. unoccupied time feels longer than occupied time 2. solo waits feel longer than group waits 3. physically uncomfortable waits feel longer than comfortable ones 4. pre- and post-process waits feel longer than in-process waits 5. unexplained waits are longer than explained waits 6. unfamiliar waits seem longer than familiar ones 7. uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits 8. unfair waits are longer than fair waits 9. anxiety makes waits seem longer 10. people will wait longer for more valuable services

The Russel Model of Affect

Arousing/Sleepy + Pleasant/Unpleasant Arousing + Pleasant = Exciting Sleepy + Pleasant = Relaxing Arousing + Unpleasant = Distressing Sleepy + Unpleasant = Boring

Drivers of Affect

Affect can be caused by cognitive processes of any degree of complexity Most service encounters are routine - it's the simple cognitive processes that determine how ppl feel in a service setting The more complex a cognitive process becomes , the more powerful its potential impact on affect

Jaycustomer

a customer who behaves in a thoughtless or abusive fashion, causing problems for the firm, its employees, and other customers *no organization wants an ongoing relationship w/ an abusive customer

Purpose of Service Environment

Be part of the value proposition Convey the planned image of the firm and support its positioning and differentiation Shape customers' experience and their behaviour Facilitate the service encounter and enhance both quality and productivity

How to enable effective service recovery

Be proactive - on the spot, before customers complain Plan recovery procedures - identify most common service problems and have prepared scripts to guide employees in service recovery Teach recovery skills to relevant personnel Empower personnel to use judgement and skills to develop recovery solutions

Create Loyalty (Step 2) - Deepening the Relationship

Bundling/Cross-selling services makes switching a major effort that customer is unwilling to go through unless extremely dissatisfied w/ service provider Customer benefit from buying all their various services from the same provider - one-stop-shopping, potentially higher service levels, higher service tiers, etc.

Reward Based Bonds

Can be financial or non-financial bonds or a combination of both Financial rewards/bonds - discounts on purchases, loyalty/reward programs, cash-back programs Non-Financial rewards (including intangible rewards) - priority to loyalty program members for waitlists and queues in call centres; higher baggage allowances, priority upgrading, access to airport lounges for frequent flyers - special recognition and appreciation Reward-based loyalty programs are relatively easy to copy and rarely provide a sustained competitive advantage

Service Process Redesign

Changes in external environment make existing practices obsolete and require design of underlying processes Redesign or creation of new processes to stay relevant

7 Types of Jaycustomers

Cheat Thief Rule breaker Belligerent Family feuders Vanda Deadbeat

Advantages of Blueprinting

Distinguish between "frontstage" and "backstage" Clarify interactions and support by backstage activities and systems Identify potential fail points; take preventive measures; prepare contingency Pinpoint stages where customers commonly have to wait

how to close the communication gap

Close the internal and external communications gaps by ensuring that communications promises are realistic and correctly understood by customers Educate managers responsible for sales and marketing communications about operations capabilities: - seek inputs from frontline employees and operations personnel when new communications programs are being developed - let service providers preview ads before customers are exposed to them - get sales staff to involve operations staff in face-to-face meetings w/ customers Ensure that communications content sets realistic customer expectations Be specific w/ promises and manage customers' understanding of communication content - pre-test all advertising, brochures, telephone scripts, and website content prior to external release to see if target audience interprets them as the firm intends

Common Failures in CRM Implementation

Common reasons for failure - viewing CRM as a technology initiative - lack of customer focus - not enough understanding of customer lifetime value (CLV) - inadequate support from top management - failure to reengineer business processes - underestimating the challenges in data integration

Reduce Key Churn Drivers

Conduct Churn Diagnostic Address Key Churn Drivers Proactive: - deliver quality service - reduce inconvenience and monetary costs - have fair and transparent pricing - industry specific drivers (e.g. cell phone industry) Reactive: - take active steps to retain customers Implement effective complaint handling and service recovery procedures Increase switching costs

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Customer perspective - unified customer interface that delivers customization and personalization - vast service improvement and increase customer value Company perspective - better segment, tier customer base and target promotion - implement churn alert systems if customers are in danger of defecting

Customers as Service Co-Creators

Customers not only bring needs and expectations, they also need to have relevant service production competencies As "partial employees" customers also need to be recruited and trained. Firms need to get those with the skills and motivation to do the tasks WHY? Customers can influence productivity and quality of service processes and outputs for the relationship to last, both parties need to cooperate with each other

Deadbeat

Customers who fail to pay (as distinct from "thieves" who never intended to pay in the first place) - prevention action is better than a cure (e.g. insisting on prepayment; asking for credit card number when order is taken) - customers may have good reasons for not paying -> if the client's problems are only temporary ones, consider long-term value of maintaining the relationship

Internal Erosion

Deterioration of internal processes, creeping bureaucracy, and evolution of spurious standards

Common Applications of CRM

Data collection - customer data such as contact details, demographics, purchasing history, service preferences and the like Data analysis - data captured is analyzed and categorized - used to tier customer base and tailor service delivery accordingly Sales force automation - sales leads, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities can be effectively identified and processed - entire sales cycle from lead generation to close of sales and after-sales service can be tracked and facilitated through CRM system Marketing Automation - mining of customer data enables the firm to target its market - goal to achieve one-to-one marketing and costs savings, often in the context of loyalty and retention programs - results in increasing the ROI on its marketing expenditure - CRM systems also allows firms to judge effectiveness of marketing campaigns through the analysis of responses Call Center Automation - call centre staff have customer info at their finger tips and can improve their service levels to all customers - caller ID and account #s allow call centres to identify the customer tier the caller belongs to, and to tailor the service accordingly -> E.g. platinum callers get priority in waiting loops

Vandal

Deliberately destroys or damages service facilities and equipment Service vandalism includes pouring soft drinks into bank cash machines; slashing bus seats, breaking hotel furniture Bored and drunk young people are a common source of vandalism Unhappy customers who feel mistreated by service providers take revenge Prevention is the best cure

Understand Demand

Do demand levels follow a predictable cycle? - one day (varies by hour) - one week (varies by day) What are the underlying causes of these cyclical variations? - employee schedules - school hours and vacation - season changes in climate - occurrence of public or religious holidays Do demand levels seem to change randomly? - day-to-day changes in the weather - accidents, fires, and certain criminal activities - natural disasters Can demand for a particular service over time be disaggregated by market segment to reflect such components as follows? - use patterns by a particular type of customer or for a particular purpose - variations in the net profitability of each completed transaction

Components of Effective Service Recovery System

Do the Job right the first time (procedural) + Effective complaint handling (interactional) = Increased satisfaction and loyalty (outcome) identify service complaints, resolve complaints effectively, learn from the recovery experience

Putting SSTs to the Test

Does SST work reliably? - firms must ensure that SST are dependable and user-friendly Is the SST better than interpersonal alternatives? - customers will stick to conventional methods if SST doesn't create benefits for them If it fails, what systems are in place to recover? - always provide systems, structures, and technologies that will enable prompt service recovery when things go wrong

How to Close Knowledge Gap

Educate management about what customers expect - increase interactions btwn customers and management - facilitate and encourage communication btwn frontline employees and management - implement an effective customer feedback system that includes satisfaction research, complaint content analysis and customer panels

How to Close the Delivery Gap

Ensure that customer service teams are motivated and able to meet service standards: - improve recruitment w/ a focus on employee (e.g. job fit) - train employees on the technical and soft skills needed to perform their assigned tasks effectively - clarify employee roles so that they understand what their roles are - empower managers and employees by pushing decision-making power down the organization - provide regular feedback Install the right technology, equipment, support processes, and capacity: - select the most appropriate technologies and equipment for enhanced performance - ensure that employees working on internal support jobs provide good service to their own internal customer, the frontline personnel - balance demand against productive capacity Manage customers for service quality: - educate customers so that they can perform their roles and responsibilities in service delivery effectively

Approaches to Service Redesign

Examining service blueprint with key stake holders - w/ goal of improving customer satisfaction & productivity, reducing service failures and cycle time Eliminating non-value-adding steps - simply front-end and back-end processes by focusing on *benefit-producing* part of service encounter Shifting to self-service - increase in service quality and productivity - lower costs - enhance technology reputation - differentiates company

Four conditions potentially faced by fixed-capacity services

Excess Demand (Demand exceeds maximum capacity) - too much demand relative to capacity at a given time Demand exceeds optimum capacity - upper limit to a firm's ability to meet demand at a given time Demand and Supply are *balanced* at the level of optimum capacity - point beyond which service quality declines as more customers are serviced Excess Capacity - too much capacity relative to demand at a given time

Symptoms of Service Process that needs redesigning

Extensive information exchange Data that is not useful High ratio of checking or control activities to value-adding activities Increased exception processing Customer complaints about how inconvenient and unnecessary procedures

The Mehrabian-Russel Stimulus-Response Model

Feelings are a key driver of customer responses to service environments Environmental Stimuli and Cognitive Processes -> Affective Response: Please and Arousal -> Response Behaviour: approach or avoidance and cognitive processes (perception of quality and satisfaction)

When is Empowerment Appropriate?

Firm's business strategy is based on personalized, customized service and competitive differentiation Emphasis on extended relationships rather than short-term transactions Use of complex and non-routine technologies Service failures are non-routine and cannot be designed out of the system Business environment is unpredictable, consisting of surprises Managers are comfortable letting employees work independently for benefit of firm and customers

The Power of Service Guarantees

Force firms to focus on what customers want Set clear standards Require systems to get and act on customer feedback Force organizations to understand why they fail and to overcome potential fail points Reduce risks of purchase and build loyalty

How to Close the Policy Gap

Get customer service processes right: - use rigorous, systematic, and customer-centric process for designing and redesigning customer service processes - standardize repetitive work tasks to ensure consistency and reliability by substituting hard technology for human contact and improving work methods Develop tiered service products that meet customer expectations: - consider premium, standard, and economy level products to allow customers to self-segment according to their needs; or - offere customer different levels of service at different prices Set, communicate, and reinforce measurable customer-oriented service standards for all work units: - establish for each step in service delivery a set of clear service quality goals that are challenging, realistic, and explicitly designed to meet customer expectations - ensure that employees understand and accept goals, standards, and priorities

Blueprinting

Identify key activities in creating and delivering service Define big picture before drilling down to obtain a higher level of detail

Strategies to Reduce Customer Complaint Barriers

Inconvenience - difficult to find the right complaint procedure - effort (e.g. writing and mailing a letter) - put customer service hotline numbers, email the website, and/or postal address on all customer communication materials Doubtful payoff - uncertain whether any or what action will be taken by the firm to address the issue the customer is unhappy with - have service recovery procedures in place and communicate this to customers (e.g. in customer newsletter and website) - feature service improvements that resulted from customer feedback Unpleasantness - fear of being treated rudely - fear of being hassled - feeling embarrassed - thank customers for their feedback - train service employees not to hassle and to make customers feel comfortable - allow for anonymous feedback

Why is Customer Loyalty important for profitability?

Increase usage/purchases and/or account balances - customers/families purchase in greater quantities as they grow Reduced operating costs - fewer demands from suppliers and operating mistakes as customer becomes experienced Referrals to other customers - positive WOM saves firm from investing money in sales and advertising Price premiums - long-term customers willing to pay regular price - willing to pay higher price during peak periods

Levels of Customer Participation

Low - employees and systems do all the work - (often involves standardized service) - E.g. bus, movie theatre Medium - customer helps firm create and deliver service - (provided needed info and instructions; make some personal effort; share physical possessions) - E.g. hairdresser, accountant, vet High - customer works w/ provider to co-produce/co-create the service - (service is not created w/o customer's active participation) - customer can jeopardize quality of service outcome E.g. weight loss, marriage counselling

How to Close the Perception Gap

Make service quality tangible and communicate the service quality delivered: - develop service environments and physical evidence cues that are consistent w/ level of service provided - for complex and credence services, keep customer informed during service delivery on what's being done, and give debriefings after the delivery so that customers can appreciate the quality of service they received - provide physical evidence (e.g. for repairs, show customers the damaged components that were removed)

Build High-Performance Service Delivery Teams

Many service require cross-functional coordination for excellent service delivery Teams, training and empowerment go hand-in-hand Creating Successful Service Delivery Teams - emphasis on cooperation, listening, coaching and encouraging one another - understand how to air differences, tell hard truths, ask tough questions - management to set up a structure to steer teams towards success

Rulebreaker

Many services need to establish rules to guide customers safely through the service encounter - gov't agencies may impose rules for health and safety reasons - some rules protect other customers from dangerous behaviour - e.g. Ski patrollers issue warnings to reckless skiers by attaching orange stickers on their lift tickets - ensure company rules are necessary, not should not be too much or inflexible

Inverted Organizational Pyramid

Middle management and Top management support front line Frontline staff Customer

Assessing the Value of a Loyal Customer

Must not assume that loyal customers are always more profitable than those making one-time transactions - large customers may expect price discounts in return for loyalty - revenues don't necessarily increase w/ time for all types of customers Tasks: - determine costs and revenues for customers from different market segments at different points in their customer lifecycles - predict future profitability

Manage Demand

No Action *Insufficient Capacity* Reduce and shift demand using the 4 Ps - increase price - product design (don't offer time-consuming services during peak periods) - time and place of delivery (extended hours) - promotion and education (e.g. communicate peak periods) Inventory Demand using Queueing and Reservation Systems - tailor the queueing system to market segments (e.g. by urgency, price and importance of customers) - use the psychology of waiting time to make waits less unpleasant - inventory demand using reservation systems *Insufficient Demand* Increase Demand using the 4 Ps - lower priec - product design (e.g. find additional value propositions for the same capacity) - add locations - promotions and education (e.g. offer better promotion bundles) Create alternative use - use for differentiation - reward your loyal customers - development new customers - reward employees - barter capacity

3 Main Causes of Role Stress:

Organization vs. Client - dilemma whether to follow company rules or to satisfy customer demands - acute in organizations that are not customer oriented Person vs. Role - conflicts btwn what jobs require and employees' own personality and beliefs Client vs. Client - conflicts btwn customers that demand service staff intervention

What is Customer Participation

Participation is the action and resources by the customer including physical, cognitive, and even emotional inputs/involvement

Motivate the frontline

Pay and bonus Job content - ppl are motivated and satisfied knowing they are doing a good job Feedback and recognition - ppl derive a sense of identity and belonging to an organization from feedback and recognition Goal achievement - specific, difficult but attainable and accepted goals are strong motivators

The Customer Pyramid

Platinum - which segment sees high value in our offer, spends more with us over time, costs less to maintain, and spreads positive WOM Gold Iron Lead - which segment costs us in time, effort and money but does not provide the returns we want? Which segment is difficult to do business with?

Behavioural Consequence of Affect

Pleasant environments result in approach, whereas unpleasant ones result in avoidance Arousal amplifies the basic effect of pleasure or behaviour - if environment is pleasant, increasing arousal can generate excitement; leading to a stronger positive consumer response - if environment is unpleasant, increasing arousal level will move customers into the distressed region

Complaint Handling and Service Recovery Process

Procedural Justice -> Interactional Justice -> Outcome Justice

Productive Capacity

Productive capacity can take several forms in services: - physical facilities designed to contain customers - physical facilities designed to store or process goods - physical equipment used to process people, possessions, or info - labour - infrastructure

Hire the right people

employe multiple, structured interviews observe candidate behaviour conduct personality tests give applicants a realistic preview of the job

Pros and Cons of SSTs

Pros: - greater convenience (often as close as nearest computer) including time savings, faster service, flexibility of timing, and flexibility of location - greater control over service delivery, more information, and higher perceived level of customization - lower prices and fees Cons: - SSTs Fail (System is down, PIN numbers not accepted) - SSTs are poorly designed (difficult to understand and use) - People themselves mess up (forgetting passwords, failing to provide info as requested)

How Generous Should Compensation Be?

Rule of thumb for managers to consider: - what is the positioning of our firm? - how severe was the service failure? - Who is the affected customer?

Adjusting Capacity to Match Demand

Schedule downtime during periods of low demand Cross-train employees Use part-time employees Invite customers to perform self-service Ask customers to share Rent or share extra facilities and equipment

Importance of Service Personnel

Service employees are important to customers and competitive positioning because the front line is: - the service firm - the brand Frontline is an important driver of customer loyalty - anticipate customer needs - customize service delivery - build personalized relationships Frontline employees also: - affect sales - determine productivity

Enable your People

Service employees need to learn: Organizational culture, purpose and strategy - get emotional commitment to core strategy and core values - get managers to teach "why", "what" and "how" of job Interpersonal and technical skills - both are necessary but neither alone is enough for performing a job well Product/Service Knowledge - staff's product knowledge is a key aspect of service quality - staff must explain product features and help consumers make the right choice

Types of Service Guarantees

Single attribute-specific guarantee - one key service attribute is covered Multi-attribute-specific guarantee - a few important service attributes are covered Full-satisfaction guarantee - all service aspects covered with no exceptions Combined guarantee - all service aspects are covered - explicit minimum performance standards on important attributes

Types of Queueing Configurations

Single line/ Single server/ Single stage - what Chatime is rn Single Line/ Single Servers at Sequential Stages - Chipotle, Subway Parallel Lines to Multiple Servers - Costco Designated Lines to Designated Servers Single Line to Multiple Servers (Snake) - Tim Hortons Take a number (single or multiple servers) - Uottawa info service

Higher-level Bonds

Social Bonds - based on personal relationships btwn providers and customers - harder to develop and takes a longer time to build, but also harder to imitate and thus, better chance of retention in the long term Customization Bonds - customized service for loyal customers - customers may find it hard to adjust to another service provider who cannot customize service Structural Bonds - mostly seen in B2B settings w/ some C2C examples - align customers way of doing things w/ supplier's own processes -> joint investments in projects and sharing of info, processes, and equipment

Levels of Employee Involvement

Suggestion Involvement - employee make recommendation through formalized programs Job Involvement - employees use a wide variety of skills - employees need to be retrained - supervisors need to be reoriented (from directing to facilitating) High Involvement - information is shared - employees skilled in teamwork, problem solving, etc. - participate in management decisions - profit sharing and stock ownership

Customer Response Categories to Service Failures

Take some form of public action - complain to the service firm - complain to a third party - take legal action to see redress Take some form of private action - defect (switch provider) - negative WOM Take no action

Targeting the Right Customers (Step 1)

Target the right customer and match them to what firm can deliver - how do customer needs relate to operations elements? - how well can service personnel meet expectations of different types of customers? - can company match or exceed competing services that are directed at same types of customers? Focus on number of customers served as well as value of each customer - some customers more profitable than others in the short term or long term "Right customers" are not always high spenders - can come from a large group of people that no other supplier is serving well

The Customer Satisfaction-Loyalty Relationship

Terrorist (no loyalty, ver dissatisfied) Zone of Defection (low loyalty, dissatisfied) Zone of Indifference (it's okay) Zone of Affection Apostle

Cheat and Thief

The Cheat - thinks of various way to cheat the firm The Thief - no intention of paying - sets out to steal or pay less - services lend themselves to clever schemes to avoid payment - e.g. bypassing electricity meters, riding free on public transportation *Firms must take preventative actions against thieves, but make allowances for honest but absent-minded customers

Belligerent and Family Feuders

The belligerent shouts loudly, maybe mouthing insults, threats and curses - service personnel are often abused even when they are not to be blamed - confrontations btwn customers and service employees can easily escalate - firms should ensure employees have skills to deal with difficult situations -> in a public environment, priority is to remove person from other customers -> may be better to support employees' actions and get security or the police if necessary if an employee has been physically attacked Family Feuders: - people who get into arguments with other customers - often members of their own family

Customer Acquisition vs. Retention

The cost of acquiring a new customer over retaining an existing one Retention marketing has today become a core business requirement

Self-Service Technologies SST

Ultimate form of customer involvement - customers undertake specific activities using facilities or systems provided by service supplier - customer's time and effort replace those of employees E.g. internet-based services, ATMs, self-service gasoline pumps Information-based services can easily be offered using SSTs - used in both supplementary services and delivery of core product - e.g. eBay - no human auctioneer needed btwn sellers and buyers Many companies seek to encourage customers to serve themselves using Internet-based self-service - Challenge: getting customers to try this technology

How to Design Service Gurantees

Unconditional Easy to: - understand and communicate - invoke and collect Meaningful to the customer Credible

Flowcharting Service Delivery

Used to display the sequence of the different steps in delivery service to customers Way to understand total customer service experience Shows how nature of customer involvement w/ service organizations varies by type of service: - people processing - possession processing - mental stimulus processing - information processing

Knowledge Gap

a type of service gap; reflects the difference between customers' expectations and the firm's perception of those expectations

Impact of Ambient Conditions

ambient environment is composed of hundreds of design elements and details that must work together to create desired service environment Ambient conditions are perceived both separately and holistically sounds such as noise and music lighting and colour schemes odor and scent air quality and temperature

Impact of Scent

an ambient smell is one that pervades an environment - may or may not be consciously perceived by customers - not related to any particular product Scents have distinct characteristics and can be used to obtain emotional, physiological, and behavioural responses

Benefits of Reservation

avoid customer dissatisfaction due to excessive waits controls and smoothes demand allows implementation of revenue management and preselling of service to differnt customer segments Data captured helps organizations - prepare financial projections - plan operations and staffing levels

Why customers are more profitable over time

base profit profit from increased usage profit from reduced operating costs profit from references/referrals profit from price premium

Manage Capacity

capacity is fixed, but more people are served at the same level of capacity Stretch and shrink: - push service personnel to work faster for brief periods of peak demand - offer inferior extra capacity at peaks (e.g. bus/train standees) - reduce amount of time spent in process

How to Close the Service Gap

close gaps 1 to 5 to consistently meet customer expectations after closing gaps 1-5 then gap 6 can be closed

Impact of Colour

colour have a strong impact on people's feelings Hue = pigment of colour Value = degree of lightness or darkness of the colour Chroma = hue-intensity, saturation or brilliance ppl are drawn to warm colour environments warm colours encourage fast decision making and are good for involvement decisions or impulse buys cool colours are preferred for high-involvement decisions

Impact of Signs, Symbols, and Artifacts

communicate the firm's image help customers find their way let customers know the service script First time customers will automatically try to draw meaning from the signs, symbols and artifacts Challenge is to design such that these guide customer through the service delivery process - unclear signals from a servicescape can result in anxiety and uncertainty about how to proceed and obtain the desired service

Service Recovery Paradox

customers who experience a service failure that is satisfactorily resolved may be more likely to make future purchases than customers without problems If second service failure occurs, the paradox disappears - customers' expectation have been raised and they become disillusioned Severity and "recoverability" of failure may limit firm's ability to delight customer with recovery efforts Best strategy: Do it right the first time

IMpact of Music

in service settings, music have powerful effect on perceptions and behaviours, even if played at barely audible levels structural characteristics of music - such as tempo, volume, and harmony - are perceive holistically fast tempo and high volume increase arousal levels people tend to adjust their pace, either voluntarily or involuntarily to match tempo of music

Boundary Spanners

link inside of organization to outside world and often experience role stress from multiple roles they have to perform

Why do customers complain?

obtain compensation vent their anger help to improve the service out of concern for others

Policy Gap

the difference between mgmt's understanding of customers expectations and the quality standards established for service delivery. We call it the policy gap because the management has made a policy decision not to deliver what they think customers expect. Reasons for setting standards below customer expectations are typically cost and feasibility considerations.

Delivery Gap

the difference between the firm's service standards and the actual service it provides to customers

Service Gap

the difference between what customers expect to receive and their perception of the service that is actually delivered

Perception Gap

the difference between what is actually delivered and what customers feel they have received because they are unable to judge service quality accurately

Communication Gap

the difference between what the company communicates and what the customer understands and subsequently experiences This gap is caused by two sub-gaps. First, the *internal communications gap* is the difference between what the company's advertising and sales personnel think the product's features, performance, and service quality level are and what the company is actually able to deliver. Second, the *external communications gap* (also referred to as the *over-promise gap*) can be caused by advertising and sales personnel being assessed by the sales they generate. This can lead them to over-promise in order to generate sales.

Allocate Queues based on:

urgency of job duration of service transaction payment of premium price importance of customer *virtual queues - no physical waiting*