Marketing Chapter 13

One of the most effective methods to assess how well a firm is delivering adequate service to consumers is to employ the ________ Model to evaluate their service provision.

Gaps

Variability in service delivery at a restaurant can result from all of the following EXCEPT:

a manager who designs a speicific way for all hostesses to accept reservations over the phone.

Service quality is defined as:

customers' perceptions of how well a service meets or exceeds their expectations

Commitment to delivering quality service:

is driven primarily from the top down.

An effective method to assess customer service expectations is to analyze customer _________ behavior in which management is told by buyers what dissatisfies them.

complaint

A tire store finds that its business is heavily skewed to the weekend that they have less than 15% of customers on Monday through Wednesdays. Since rotating, rebalancing, and replacing tires is a service, one of the dilemmas facing the firm is that they cannot ___________ the service for the weekend.

stockpile

Mary went to the local supermarket, where she stopped regularly, to purchase her groceries for the week. Which of the following was a delivery gap that resulted in a service failure by the grocery store?

Mary had to wait a long time in he checkout line because the clerk kept making errors using the cash register

Match each of the five dimensions of service quality with its defintion.

Reliability - Ability to perform the service dependably and accurately Responsiveness - Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service Assurance - Knowledge and courtesy by employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence Empathy - Caring, individualized attention provided to customers Tangibles - Appearances of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communciation materials

A customer who is dissatisfied with a restaurant's service delivery and finds it to be quite different from what was promised in the advertising is very likely to do all of the following EXCEPT:

become a loyal patron

Susan is looking to purchase a cruise to Alaska. In the search process, she discovers that this purchase is different from purchasing an automobile, in that the cruise:

cannot be easily separated from the service providers such as the stewards and crew

Ryanair advertised the lowest rates in Europe with fares of $12 between Paris and Munich. However, when Bill arrived at the airport, he had to pay $28 in taxes, $25 for one small carry-on bag, $6 for a non-alcoholic beverage, and $2.50 to use the restroom on the plane. Between Ryanair and the customer there is a _________.

communication gap

A continuing dilemma for marketers of services is to understand buyers' ___________, which means to understand in advance what they think will be delivered based on their previous experiences and knowledge.

expectations

Since humans' work output cannot be standardized to the same degree as the output of a machine, one substantial difference between the marketing of services and products is the _________ of service delievery. For example, a restaurant is dependent on different chefs, servers, customers, and conditions within the resaurant that alter the uniformity of the output.

heterogeneity

Buying a service such as a haircut, a medical treatment, or a lawyer's advice is perceived as more risky to the consumer, because of the service characteristic of ___________, since the service cannot really be sampled in advance nor can it be returned.

inseparability

One difference between products and services is demonstrated by a hair salon, where the stylist delivers the service at the sme time the customer recievbes it. This is called _________.

inseparability

Bill's father is going to have major heart surgery. The uncertainty the family is feeling is in part due to health care services being ________. The patient and his family are not able to precisely measure the quality of his care and treatment.

intangible

Despite having to deal with difficult guests, the service provier has to respond inoffensively and can be motivated to provide "service witha smile" when the firm:

provides support and incentives to motivate quality service

While no service provider hopes for a situation of poor service delivery, it can be converted into a situation of building positive interaction and buyer loyalty. The key is to deliver sound, swift, service ________ that resolves the problem and shows the buyer that the firm is listening to the complaint and working to find a fair solution.

recovery

One of the most important factors to adequate service recovery is for the provider to:

respond to the customer and resolve the problem quickly

The Service-Product Continuum evidences:

that most firms combine both goods and services in the offerings.

Delivery gaps always result in a service failure.

True

In the provision of a service, there are several possibilities to mismatch the service and customers' needs resulting in one of few types of service _________, in 1. communication, 2. delivery, 3. standards, or 4. knowledge.

gaps

The primary reason there is greater heterogeneity in services than in products is because:

human inputs generate differences

Firms are able to gain a better understanding of customers' service expectations by engaging in quantiative and qualitative market ________, which can be extensive and expensive.

research

Customer __________ refers to human or mechanical activities undertaken by firms to help satisfy their customers' needs and wants.

service

A travel agency has made several major mistakes in booking a trip to Greece and wants to make amends and try to retain customer loyalty. Which of the following would NOT be a good way the travel agency to address the problem?

Delaying the resoultion of the problems until all managers at the agency can meet to agree on an approach

Susie decided to try a weight loss program by Extreme Fit Foods that promised she could lose 15 pounds her first week. Susie followed the guidelines exactly and only lost 1 pound the first week. She is planning on canceling her membership and telling her other friends not to try Extreme Fit Foods. What mistake did Extreme Fit Foods make?

It needs to communicate accurate results information to meet customers' expectations

Match the type of service gap with its definition.

Knowledge Gap - the difference between customer expectations and what the firm perceives the customer to expect Standards Gap - difference between the firm's perceptions of customers wants and the service standards it sets Delivery Gap - difference between the firm's service standards and the actual service it provides to customers Communications Gap - difference between actual service provided to customers and the service that the firm's promotion program promises

Match each of the following traits of services with an example of how that trait affects the delievery of the service in a manicurist's salon.

Perishable - There is a waiting line on Friday and Saturdays afternoons, but those time slots cannot be inventoried for when there is no demand. Intangible - It is difficult for the salon to convey the benefits of a new type of a new hand cleaning technique. Heterogeneous - On Fridays and Saturdays, the staff is different and the normal process is shortened from 55 to 45 minutes per customer. Inseparable - Customers tend to get upset when their favorite manicurist is not working.

Marissa works for a local restaurant. Each time a customer reports a compliment to a manager about an employee, the employee receives a star pin to wear. What is the advantage of the "star pin" to the restaurant and Marissa?

The star pin is a reward that reinforces the provision of excellent customer service, and makes the employee feel recognized.

Jane has multiple managers at her retail job. It is company policy that customers cannot return items without a receipt, but sometimes managers will allow customers to receive store credit for their returns. One day a customer was irate that Jane would not allow a return for store credit because the manager on duty adhered to the company policy. The customer wrote a complaint about jane to the corporate office. What needs to change about this situation?

The support that managers provide must be consistent and coherent throughout the organization

When a firm such as Ruth's Chris Steak House tells servers to "use your best judgment" in serving a customer who is not satisfied with this $40 steak, it is allowing the server to make decisions at the point of delievery. This is called __________.

empowerment

Three of the dermatologist's patients have very different skin problems. The doctor needs to customize each patient's diagnosis and treatment because of the _________ characteristic of services.

heterogeneity

Services marketing differs from the marketing of products in all of the following ways EXCEPT:

inconvertibility

When a dentist fills a cavity in a patient's tooth, there is the element of _________ that indicates the dentist should try to engage the patient in the process as much as possible since she must be present for the service.

inseparability

Sally is having trouble deciding which college to attend. While there are buildings, classrooms, and libraries to evaluate, the actual learning is much more difficult to evaluate. It is this __________ of the purchase that makes marketing the service, a college education, complicated.

intangibility

A restaurant is facing a problem in service delivery on a night when there are twice as many customers dining as usual. An integral part of recovery fo the service dilemma is to provide both distributive and procedural __________ in resolving the delays in getting all customers served.

justice

The marketing manager needs to conduct both quantitative and qualitative research and communicate with customers and employees on an ongoing basis in order to understand buyers' expectations and to reduce the _________ gap.

knowledge

Often an otherwise horrible service deliver can be turned around and used to build customer loyalty and commitment. The firm needs to allow the customer to air his grievance and for the firm to _______ him.

listen to

The delivery of quality service is the task of everyone in the firm, but the commitment to quality service is established and illustrated best by _________, which establishes policy and sets examples for the entire company.

management

The marketing metric used to evaluate if a firm is performing on the five service quality dimensions by finding the minimum level of acceptable service is:

the Zone of Tolerance

One of the characteristics of services that makes them different from product marketing is the fact there is tremendous _________ in delivery based on how te provider is performing the task at different times. The same waiter, for example, might provide excellent service one day, and the next day, when he is not feeling well, his delivered service might be terrible.

variance