_____ is a key determinant of whether an offering should be classified as a product or a
service.
A. Physicality
B. Audience passivity
C. Intangibility
D. Perception
E. Abstraction
When Marilyn returned to her oncologist’s office for a checkup. She was pleased to
find the waiting room had been remodeled and it now contained a large aquarium.
There was even a sign that said watching fish is an excellent stress reducer. Since
Marilyn did not feel nearly as anxious before going to the oncologist’s examination
room, she decided the addition of the swimming fish was a good:
A. Major innovation
B. New service for the currently served market
C. Service line extension
D. Service improvement
E. Style change
Product and service features that are unexpected and surprisingly enjoyable are known
as ___________.
A. Satisfiers
B. Musts
C. Delights
D. Ego-oriented services
E. Forecasted intensifiers
Which of the following statements describes a marketing implication that results from
the simultaneous production and consumption of services?
A. Services cannot be returned or resold
B. Service quality depends on many uncontrollable factors
C. Employees affect the service outcome
D. Services cannot be readily displayed or communicated
E. There is no sure knowledge that the service delivered matches what was planned and
promoted
Which of the following statements about customer satisfaction and service quality is
true?
A. Customer satisfaction is a focused evaluation that reflects the customer’s perception
of specific dimensions of service like reliability and responsiveness
B. Service quality is more inclusive than customer service
C. It is correct to use the terms customer service and service quality interchangeably
D. Customer satisfaction is influenced by perceptions of service quality
E. None of the above statements about customer satisfaction and service quality is true
_____ is a form of competition-based pricing that involves charging the most prevalent
price on the market for a service.
A. Value pricing
B. Price signaling
C. Fee for service pricing
D. Going-rate pricing
E. Price trimming
One of the most useful forms of analysis in marketing research is the _____, which
combines information about customer perceptions and importance ratings.
A. Zone of tolerance chart
B. Hierarchical needs matrix
C. Importance/performance matrix
D. Perception/expectation hierarchy
E. Quality/satisfaction chart
On site, customers require two kinds of orientation. They are place orientation and:
A. Time orientation
B. Function orientation
C. Social orientation
D. Cultural orientation
E. Promotable orientation
Molly and Tom are getting married. Last month they hired a caterer for the wedding
reception. This month they attended a wedding for which their chosen caterer had
provided food, dishes and flowers. Neither thought the food was good and Molly
worried that the dishes looked cheap. However, they feel they cannot change caterers at
this date due to the large deposit required by the catering company when it took the job.
Molly and Tom do not want to pay:
A. Extraneous expenses
B. Opportunity costs
C. Switching costs
D. Fixed costs
E. Retained costs
New owners of the Atlanta Falcons wanted to increase attendance by giving customers
want they wanted, such as an online site to purchase tickets, clean restrooms, more
opportunities to interact with the players and family-oriented halftime shows. The first
step to developing these customer-defined standards was to:
A. Translate customer requirements into hard measures
B. Create an action program that contained every possible service encounter
C. Identify the existing service encounter sequence
D. Develop continual feedback mechanisms
E. Brainstorm
Dentists have to earn forty continuing education (C.E.) hours every two years to stay
licensed. Dental Learning Systems Co. (DLSC) prepared and presented dental seminars
around the U.S. to help provide dentists with the access to continuing education
courses. During the 1990s, DLSC introduced a journal that could be used like a
correspondence course for earning C. E. Hours. A dentist gets a list of upcoming
articles/lessons, registers for one that meets his or her need, studies the information
provided in the journal and fills out paperwork for DLSC, which then sends notification
of completion and the C.E. hour(s) earned to the accrediting bureau. The Dental
Learning Systems journal is a:
A. Major innovation
B. New service for the currently served market
C. Service line extension
D. Service improvement
E. Style change
New York City rents a number of its public school facilities to local flea markets on
weekends during the school year and summer months. New York City is using which of
the following strategies for shifting demand to match capacity in its public schools?
A. Differentiate on price
B. Modify timing and location of service delivery
C. Vary the service offering
D. Stretch capacity
E. Communicate with customers
Often, _____ are created by providing customized services to the client that are
technology based and make the customer more productive.
A. Financial bonds
B. Social bonds
C. Customization bonds
D. Structural bonds
E. Heterogeneity
Which of the following would lead to dissatisfying SSTs?
A. Stakeholder-driven failure
B. Poor Internet linkage
C. Management failure
D. Poor design
E. Innovation failure
Parents everywhere are very busy and often cannot spend time with their children. In
the Netherlands, children who want a bedtime story can call the telephone service and
request to listen to one of twenty prerecorded fairy tales. The phone company charges
$7 per story. Because of the prerecording of the stories, this bedtime service reduces the
problems typically associated with the _____ characteristic of services.
A. Versatility
B. Heterogeneity
C. Simultaneous production and consumption
D. Perishability
E. Intangibility
To make car maintenance service more tangible to consumers, Speedi-Lube has added
a large diagram on one of the waiting room walls of its service centers that shows the
underside of an automobile and identifies all of the lubrication points and exactly what
work is being done to the car. As part of its physical evidence strategy, Speedi-Lube
has:
A. Mapped the physical evidence of the service
B. Identified physical evidence opportunities
C. Clarified the roles of the servicescape
D. Recognized the strategic impact of physical evidence
E. Updated and modernized its ambient evidence
WedSafe is the name of one of several companies that provide wedding insurance. For
example, in the event that a wedding is called off, the couple can insure themselves
against loss of their nonrefundable deposits. If WedSafe’s primary marketing effort is
satisfying its customers, the company is in which stage of the customer relationship
evolution?
A. Prospects
B. Leads
C. Friends
D. Associate
E. Acquaintances
The Atlanta Kroger Marketing Area (KMA) publishes a monthly newsletter, Hot Off
the Press, to provide information to its employees about food safety and preparation,
changes in store policy and exceptional service encounters and the employees who were
involved in these encounters. This newsletter is an example of:
A. Vertical communications
B. Vertical integration
C. Horizontal integration
D. Informal communication
E. Interactive marketing
Which of the following statements describes a problem with demand-based pricing for
services?
A. Prices may not reflect customer value
B. Costs are difficult to trace
C. Heterogeneity of services limits comparability
D. Monetary price must be adjusted to reflect the value of non-monetary costs
E. Labor is more difficult to price than materials
In a(n) _____ environment, the servicescape must be planned to attract, satisfy and
facilitate the activities of both customers and employees simultaneously.
A. Saleable service
B. Self-service
C. Customized services
D. Interpersonal services
E. Remote service
Companies sometimes aim too high in setting improvement targets for nonfinancial
measures of performance. Managers tend to make mistakes in this area by assuming:
A. Leading and lagging variables do not influence time utility
B. Qualitative metrics are more telling than quantitative metrics
C. 100 percent customer satisfaction is the only important goal
D. Statistical reliability and statistical validity are always important
E. The improvement of non-financial measures leads to offensive marketing
Which type of research is most reminiscent of an exit interview that would ask a
question such as, “What exactly could we have done to keep you from leaving the
company?” and “Is there anything we can do to keep you from resigning from your
position”?
A. Complaint solicitation
B. Critical incidents studies
C. Relationship survey
D. Post transaction survey
E. Lost customer research
On the military base where Micah is stationed, there is a large, well-stocked garage
where he can take his car to do necessary maintenance. The garage charges modest
space and tool rental fees. Micah really enjoys tinkering with the engine, but he’s not
very knowledgeable. That’s why he’s glad that there is a trained mechanic on duty at the
garage. The mechanic will answer Micah’s questions and check his work to make sure
that he has done nothing to damage his car’s engine. Micah was especially proud of
himself when he replaced his carburetor recently. Which of the following service
delivery roles is Micah, the customer, performing?
A. A customer mix manager and recruiter
B. A competitor and productive resource
C. A productive resource and contributor to quality and satisfaction
D. A contributor to quality and satisfaction and competitor
E. A recruiter and competitor
Which of the following is NOT an element of the traditional marketing mix?
A. Production
B. Place
C. Product
D. Price
E. Promotion
Service companies experience difficulty in setting standards to match or exceed
customer expectations because of a lack of:
A. Simultaneous organization and presentation
B. Vertical communication
C. Employee partnering
D. Functional integration
E. Operational benchmarking
Provider _____ is the difference between customer expectations of service and
company understanding of those expectations.
A. Gap 1
B. Gap 2
C. Gap 3
D. Gap 4
Salespeople are often on the road three nights every week. They cannot afford to stay
in the most luxurious of hotels, but they do appreciate amenities like a good mattress, a
firm pillow and a comfortable work area. They want the price they pay to be
commensurate with the amenities provided by the hotels. They tend to define value as:
A. All that I get for all that I give
B. Whatever I want in a service
C. Low price
D. Reliable service
E. The quality I get for the price I pay
American Airlines pilots and crews are trained to inform customers immediately when
flight delays occur and to keep customers advised at regular intervals about the changes
in a flight’s schedule. By keeping customers informed during a flight, American Airlines
is closing provider _____ of the gaps model of service quality.
A. Gap 1
B. Gap 2
C. Gap 3
D. Gap 4
Provider _____ is the difference between service delivery and the service provider’s
external communications.
A. Gap 1
B. Gap 2
C. Gap 3
D. Gap 4
In the simplest terms, _____ are deeds, processes and performances.
A. Attributes
B. Experiences
C. Services
D. Goods
E. Benefits
An effective service guarantee would never be described as:
A. Unconditional
B. Easy to invoke and collect
C. Standardized and/or generic
D. Meaningful
E. Easy to understand and communicate
John’s flight on United Airlines from Chicago to San Francisco departed two hours late
because of a snowstorm in Chicago. The snowstorm that delayed John’s flight is a(n):
A. Personal service influence
B. Spontaneous negative
C. Predictable service influence
D. Uncontrollable situational factor
E. Temporary personal need hindrance
Provider gap 3 would be created when:
A. A fast-food restaurant uses a frequency marketing program
B. An advertisement promises a full-body massage for $5
C. Employees refund customer’s money if they complain about the service they
received
D. A CPA’s tax client neglected to provide her with any receipts or information about
deductible expenses
E. Any of the above occurred
Which of the following is a strategy for ensuring that internal support systems are
customer-oriented?
A. Measure internal service quality
B. Be the preferred employer
C. Include employees in the company vision
D. Empower employees
E. Eliminate all conflict
What two factors influencing customers’ desired and predicted expectations can the
service provider control?
Weight loss centers provide moral support and weight-loss aids to those who believe
they need to diet. The centers often use before and after pictures of their most
successful cases to overcome problems associated with which service characteristic?
What kind of growth strategy is being used when a convenience store in a small rural
town adds a deli sandwich section?
What does a typical service blueprint depict?
There are several steps involved in understanding demand patterns for an organization.
What is the first thing a service organization must do?
How would you explain a service culture to the owner of a talent agency who
represents musicians and comedians who entertain on college campuses?
What is the basic formula for cost-based pricing?
What should be the two primary objectives of the service provider as it enters the
commercialization stage of the new-service development process?
Imagine you are a consultant and you have been asked to give a seminar to bank
employees on how they can use the five dimensions of service to improve customers’
perceptions about the quality of the bank’s service. What ideas would you give them to
better customers’ perception of each of the bank’s service dimensions?
What kind of a research technique is SERVQUAL?
What is the key to closing the customer gap?
What is the last stage of the new-service development process?
Byron Wheatley recently began teaching his tenth 2-hour wine-tasting seminar in the
banquet hall of a restaurant that has a large and varied wine cellar. His class participants
are complaining the class he is teaching is not what they expected. Some are leaving
after the first hour without a word to Wheatley. No participant has ever taken another
one of Wheatley’s classes even though each class studies a different variety of wine.
Which provider gap is causing Wheatley the most difficulty? List some possible
strategies Wheatley can use to close or possibly eliminate this provider gap.
Last spring the advisement center at Santa Rosa Community College was unable to
help all the students who wanted advice on the school’s new core curriculum. During
the summer the advisement center has hired you to analyze its operational procedures
for any inefficiencies. As it exists now, students enter a room, take a chair or more
likely a position standing up and get to talk to their assigned advisor whenever that
advisor becomes free. Since all the advisors have access to the same information, you
have suggested that the center set up queues. Briefly explain the different queue
configurations and indicate which would be best in this situation.
Describe the three factors necessary for appropriate service standards.
What are the two important considerations for service innovation?
Which type of conflict is most commonly felt by an employee whose income depends
largely on tips instead of a salary?
What’s the difference between horizontal and vertical internal communications?
When creating a service blueprint, what step follows mapping the service process from
the customer’s point of view?
What are the challenges and risks in using yield management?