Marketing, Chapter 13

Customers have certain expectations about how a service should be delivered. When the delivery of that service fails to meet those expectations, a _______ results.

service gap

heterogeneity, or variability

service quality differs the more humans are needed to provide a service

Standards Gap By setting appropriate ______, training employees to meet and exceed those standards, and measuring service performance, firms can attempt to close this gap.

service standards

The delivery gap can be closed by getting employees to meet or exceed ________ when the service is being delivered by _____ service providers, providing support and incentives, and using technology where appropriate.

service standards; empowering

To meet or exceed customers' expectations, marketers must determine what those expectations are. Yet because of their intangibility, the service quality is often difficult for customers to evaluate. Customers generally use five distinct service dimensions to determine overall service quality:

tangibles, empathy, assurance, responsiveness, and reliability

Using _____ to facilitate service delivery can provide many benefits, such as access to a wider variety of services, a greater degree of control by the customer over the services, and the ability to easily obtain information.

technology

The High Tech, Low Effort quadrant describes situations in which _______.

technology is extremely prominent, but less human effort is required

Responsiveness

willingness to help customers and provide prompt service

service quality

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

Whereas a service is any ______ offering that involves a deed, ______ specifically refers to human or mechanical activities firms undertake to help satisfy their customers' needs and wants. By providing good customer service, firms add ____ to their products.

intangible; customer service; value

intangible

they cannot be touched, tasted, or seen like a pure product can.

Services account for nearly ____ percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), a much higher percentage than was true 50, 20, or even 10 years ago. Why? - - -

80; First, it is generally less expensive for firms to manufacture their products in less developed countries. Second, people place a high value on convenience and leisure. Third, people are demanding more specialized services.

_____ may just be a passing emotion that is overcome. Satisfaction often leads to _____. If a firm not only minimizes but also eliminates any service gaps, customers are likely to rank the firm at the top of customer satisfaction and exhibit significant loyalty to it.

Dissonance; loyalty

Effective service recovery thus demands -______ to customers and involving them in the service recovery -Providing a ___ solution -Resolving the problem ____

Listening; fair; quickly

inseparable

Services are produced and consumed at the same time

perishable

Services cannot be stored for use in the future.

zone of tolerance

The area between customers' expectations regarding their desired service and the minimum level of acceptable service -The difference between what the customer really wants and what he or she will accept before going elsewhere.

In the service context, empowerment means _______. When frontline employees are authorized to make decisions to help their customers, service quality generally improves.

allowing employees to make decisions about how service is provided to customers

Despite a firm's best efforts, sometimes service providers fail to meet customer expectations. When this happens, the best course of action is to attempt to make _____ with the customer and ____ from the experience.

amends; learn

Today, most service firms have developed voice-of-customer programs and employ ongoing marketing research to _______.

assess how well they are meeting their customers' expectations

A very straightforward and inexpensive method of collecting consumers' perceptions of service quality is to gather them _____. Service providers can ask customers how they liked the service-though customers often are reticent to provide negative feedback directly to the person who provided the service-or distribute a simple questionnaire.

at the time of the sale

The High Tech, High Effort quadrant represents situations in which ______.

both human effort and technology are critical

Poor communication between marketers and their customers can result in a mismatch between an ad campaign's or a salesperson's promises and the service the firm can actually offer. The communication gap can be reduced by managing customer expectations and ______.

by promising only what you can deliver, or possibly even a little less

systematic voice-of customer (VOC) program

collects customer inputs and integrates them into managerial decisions

A relatively easy way to manage customer expectations is to coordinate how the expectation is ____ and the way the service is provided. Expectations typically are created through _____.

created; promotions, advertising, or personal selling

The key to distributive fairness, of course, is listening carefully to the _____.

customer

Another excellent method for assessing customers' expectations is making effective use of _______. Even firms with the best formal research mechanisms in place must put ______ on the frontlines occasionally to interact directly with the customers.

customer complaint behavior; managers

Service Gaps Model

designed to highlight those areas where customers believe they are getting less or poorer service than they should (the gaps) and how these gaps can be closed.

Service Product Continuum

doctor -> hotel -> dry cleaners -> restaurant -> apparel specialty store -> grocery store

To ensure that service is delivered properly, management needs to support the service providers in several ways and give them incentives. First, managers and coworkers should provide ______ support to service providers by demonstrating a concern for their well-being and standing behind their decisions. Second, service providers require instrumental support: the systems and equipment to _____ the service properly. Third, the support that managers provide must be _____ and coherent throughout the organization. Finally, a key part of any customer service program is providing _____ to employees for their excellent service.

emotional; deliver; consistent; rewards

Finding a Fair Solution Most people realize that mistakes happen. But when they happen, customers want to be treated ____, whether that means distributive or procedural fairness.

fairly

The Low Tech, High Effort quadrant defines situations in which ______.

humans are strongly present, but the role of technology is less so, such as when a patient chats with a medical professional through Zoom

A straightforward way to think about how such advanced technologies are likely to affect the marketing of services in the future is to distinguish them along two dimensions: -more traditional interactions with ____, such as with a frontline service person, and -interaction with ______, such as a computer or a robot.

humans; technology

So customers have a fairly narrow zone of tolerance for service dimensions that are fairly _____ to them and a wider range of tolerance for those service dimensions that are ____ important.

important; less

factors differentiating services from goods

inseparable, heterogeneous, perishable, intangible

Resolving Problems Quickly The longer it takes to resolve a service failure, the more _____ the customer will become and the more people he or she is likely to tell about the problem. To resolve service failures quickly, firms need clear _____, adequate _____ for their employees, and empowered employees.

irritated; policies; training

To define the zone of tolerance, firms ask a series of questions about each service quality dimension that relate to -The desired and expected _____ of service for each dimension, from low to high. -Customers' perceptions of how well the focal service performs and how well a ____ service performs, from low to high. -The _____ of each service quality dimension.

level; competitive; importance

Some service providers tackle the variability issue by replacing people with ______. Ex. ______

machines; kiosks

Distributive fairness

pertains to a customer's perception of the benefits he or she received compared with the costs (inconvenience or loss).

Because services are intangible, service providers (e.g., physicians, dentists) therefore offer cues to help their customers experience and perceive their service more ______.

positively

Customers want efficient complaint _____ over whose outcomes they have some influence.

procedures

Communication Gap If firms are more _____ about the services they can provide and at the same time manage customer ______ effectively, they generally can close this gap.

realistic; expectations

customer service

refers to human or mechanical activities firms undertake to help satisfy their customers' needs and wants

communication gap

refers to the difference between the actual service provided to customers and the service that the firm's promotion program promises

Procedural Fairness

refers to the perceived fairness of the process used to resolve them.

knowledge gap

reflects the difference between customers' expectations and the firm's perception of those customer expectations.

Evaluation after the purchase may produce three outcomes:

satisfaction, dissonance, and loyalty.

The delivery gap is where the rubber meets the road, where the customer directly interacts with the service provider. Even if there are no other gaps, a delivery gap always results in a ______.

service failure

Reliability

the ability to perform a service dependably and accurately

tangibles

the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials

empathy

the caring, individualized attention provided to customers

standards gap

the difference between the firm's perceptions of customers' expectations and the service standards it sets.

delivery gap

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

The Low Tech, Low Effort quadrant is where

the effort provided by both humans and technology is low -traditional service delivery technologies provided by ATMs, self-service kiosks, or self-scanning devices

Assurance

the knowledge of and courtesy by employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence

Knowledge gap -Knowing what the customer _____ -Customers' expectations are based on their knowledge and experiences. -Firms can close this gap by determining what customers really want by doing ______ using marketing metrics such as service quality and the zone of tolerance (discussed later).

wants; research

Since the purchase risk for service providers of all types can be relatively high, service firms sometimes provide extended ______ and 100 percent ______.

warranties; satisfaction guarantees

Listening to Customers and Involving Them in Service Recovery When the company and the customer ______, the outcome is often better than either could achieve on their own.

work together

An important marketing metric to evaluate how well firms perform on the five service quality dimensions is the ______.

zone of tolerance