57) A ________ is a small number of customers who give you feedback on specific issues in
your business—quality, convenience, hours of operation, service, and so on.
A) survey
B) questionnaire
C) focus group
D) All of the above
58) Customer surveys and questionnaires should:
A) be short.
B) not give biased results.
C) use simple ranking systems.
D) All of the above
59) Surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups are considered to be:
A) primary research.
B) secondary research.
C) data collation.
D) All of the above
60) ________ is a process in which computer software that uses statistical analysis, database
technology, and artificial intelligence finds hidden patterns, trends, and connections in data so
that business owners can make better marketing decisions and predictions about their customers’
behavior.
A) Demographic collection
B) Target marketing
C) Data mining
D) None of the above
61) What drives my customers’ buying behavior? Are they receptive to new products or are they
among the last to accept them? What values are most important to them? These questions are to
identify:
A) psychographic data.
B) geographic data.
C) demographic data.
D) All of the above
62) Too often, business plans describe in great detail what the entrepreneur intends to
accomplish but pay too little attention to how he plans to accomplish it.
63) The marketing function cuts across the entire company, affecting every aspect of its
operation.
64) The product or service offered is the foundation of any marketing-oriented business.
65) The primary goal of any business, according to Theodore Levitt, is to create and keep a
customer.
66) A bootstrap marketing plan should have four objectives: profit, profit, profit, and profit.
67) Tracking demographic trends is interesting, but it is not essential to building or implementing
a successful marketing plan.
68) Market research frequently only confirms the intuition of the small business owner.
69) Small companies are at a definite disadvantage compared to larger ones when it comes to
conducting market research since it is so expensive.
70) While market research is a sophisticated and complex process, the small business owner can
conduct some of it for him/herself, but will need assistance interpreting it.
71) The primary general goal of market research is to identify and profile the target market and
most profitable customer in it.
72) The marketing approach that companies of all sizes strive to achieve is mass marketing.
73) The goals of one-to-one marketing are to attract, retain and increase the purchases by the
target customer.
74) Small business owners can use market research to uncover potential market opportunities.
75) Small businesses have found out that social media such as Facebook and Twitter are
expensive.
76) Individualized marketing requires business owners to gather and assimilate detailed
information about their products.
77) Most marketing experts contend that the greatest marketing mistake small businesses make is
defining their target market too specifically or clearly.
78) A target market is the group of customers at whom the company aims its products and
services.
79) The most effective way to market to the diversity of the American market is to choose a
single ethnic segment and market to it as if it were a homogeneous market.
80) The increasing diversity of our population is creating a marketing “threat” to small
businesses because they can’t profitably serve small niches.
81) Price is the safest criterion upon which to build a competitive edge.
82) Generally speaking, small businesses are more effective at relationship marketing than larger
companies.
83) While customer contact is important to a small business, excellent products and low prices
can offset any problems a small business may have with customer service.
84) Most dissatisfied customers complain about rude or discourteous service to the owner or
manager.
85) The difference between weak customer service and “world-class” customer service is attitude
and attention to detail.
86) Giving customers a chance to complain about a problem usually is fruitless; once a business
makes a customer angry, he typically will not buy from that company again under any
circumstances.
87) Since front-line service workers are not able to predict the causes of customer complaints,
managers must be the ones to identify potential customer service problems.
88) Perhaps the worst of all marketing catastrophes is to have great advertising and a poor
quality product or service.
89) The ultimate goal of TQM is to avoid quality problems.
90) The best way for a small business to ensure quality products is to use quality inspections.
91) If employees are committed to quality, management’s commitment becomes unimportant.
92) When asked what they want from a business they deal with, most customers say
convenience.
93) Because of their organizational and managerial flexibility, small businesses often can detect
and act on new opportunities faster than large companies.
94) The ability to innovate is one of the greatest weaknesses of the entrepreneur.
95) The key to successful innovation is spending “megadollars” on research and development
and hiring staff who are very creative.
96) The level of customer service in most small companies is excellent.
97) It is the position of your authors that companies that do not offer quality customer service
will eventually fail, for that reason.
98) Truly customer-oriented companies seek to go beyond customer satisfaction, striving for
customer astonishment.
99) Listening to customers and responding to what you hear from them is a highly effective way
to achieve stellar customer service.
100) Satisfied customers exhibit at least one of three characteristics: loyalty, resistance to
competition’s attempts to lure them away with lower prices, and increased purchases.
101) Technology has little impact on the quality of customer service a small company offers.
102) TCM focuses solely on reducing administrative time in product development.
103) The key to successful time compression management is speeding up the manufacturing
process, since manufacturing consumes 90% of the time it takes to get the order into the
customer’s hand.
104) Speeding new products to market is one of the philosophies of Total Quality Management
(TQM).
105) Profits generally are low and marketing cost high in the introductory stage of the product
life cycle.
106) Sales and profits peak in the growth stage of the product life cycle.
107) Marketing experts recommend introducing a new product only when the existing one is in
the maturity stage of the product life cycle.
108) One of the most commonly cited reasons for a new product failing is that it is not
adequately differentiated from competitive products.
109) When a company makes a product available to the customer when he/she wants it, the
company is providing place utility to the customer.
110) Service companies tend to use the manufacturer-to-customer distribution channel more than
any other.
111) Relatively few consumer goods use the manufacturer-to-retailer-to-consumer distribution
channel.
112) The price element of the marketing mix affects both sales volume and profits.
113) A small company’s promotional goals may include creating a brand image, persuading
customers to buy, and/or to develop brand loyalty.
114) Promotion involves both advertising and lengthy warranties.
115) Almost everyone agrees that the price of the product or service is a key factor in the
decision to buy.
116) A free trial offer is an example of non-price competitive factor.
117) The marketing mix consist of the “4Ps” : Product, Plot, Place, Promotion.
118) Individualized (or one-to-one) marketing is a system of gathering data on individual
customers and then developing a marketing plan designed specifically to appeal to their needs,
tastes, and preferences.
119) What are the objectives of a bootstrap marketing plan?
120) What is the value of market research to the small business owner? How can he/she use it?
121) What is market research?
122) How is the target market important to the small business? What does this concept signify
about changes in marketing?
123) What is relationship marketing? What characterizes each of the four levels of customer
involvement that is part of relationship marketing?
124) What is “revenue at risk?”
125) What characterizes companies that “get it right the first time,” that have an emphasis on
quality?
126) What can an entrepreneur do to be more effective at innovation?
127) Discuss how a company can achieve stellar customer service and satisfaction.
128) What is time compression management and what does it involve?
129) Describe the product life cycle, naming and explaining what characterizes each stage.
130) Identify the four common channels of distribution, briefly explaining their use by small
businesses in moving their product to the customer.