Any company that disseminates information through different communications
channels needs to be concerned with integrating this information so that customers
receive unified messages and promises about its offering.
Search costs are the costs invested to identify and choose from services you desire.
Because the production and consumption of services is simultaneous, the mass
production of services is difficult.
Consumers believe that advertisements in publications like Newsweek, Time and
similar magazines have the highest level of credibility.
The work environment of a lawyer does not affect whether clients and/or colleagues
view her as successful and trustworthy.
A hair salon is an example of an elaborate interpersonal service.
Boundary spanners provide a link between internal departments of an organization.
Customers do not contribute to quality service delivery when they ask questions.
Service researchers have suggested that consumers judge the quality of services based
on their perceptions of the technical outcome provided, the process by which that
outcome was delivered and the quality of the physical surroundings in which the service
was delivered.
Research used to track overall service quality that will be used for bonuses and salary
increases of salespeople should have statistical validity.
The easiest area of the balanced scorecard to measure quantitatively is innovation and
learning.
Physical evidence strategy begins with the recognition of the strategic importance of
physical evidence in determining service quality expectations and perceptions and then
moves directly to the identification of additional physical evidence that would do the
job even better than what now exists.
The empowerment of employees is a useful tool in service recovery.
“Stretch” strategies for adjusting capacity to meet demand can be used indefinitely.
Financial measures used in the balanced scorecard include the long-term value of the
customer, the number of new products, return on innovation and number of customer
referrals.
The first step in building a service blueprint is to map contact employee actions.
An airline that sells first-class, business-class and tourist-class seats on its planes has
created tiered-value service offerings.
A customer’s overall service quality evaluation is the accumulation of evaluations of
multiple service experiences.
One of the problems associated with cost-based pricing is the heterogeneity of services,
which limits comparability.
When Wendy’s extended its hours of operation on Friday and Saturday nights to
provide 24-hour fast-food service, it was an example of a service development growth
strategy.
Interaction and measurement are tools used to manage internal marketing
communications.
Service guarantees are appropriate for any company and every service situation.
One of the biggest challenges facing a marketing researcher is converting a complex set
of data into a form that can be read and understood quickly by executives, managers
and other employees who will make decisions from the research.
One of the steps in the process for developing customer-defined standards is to provide
feedback about performance to employees.
The deregulation of industries has actually lessened the demand for services marketing
skills.
Process checkpoint evaluations are commonly used in service industries in which the
services are provided quickly on a one-time only basis.
One way to address service intangibility is to offer the customer a variety of choices.
With relationship marketing, customers receive the specific inherent benefits of
receiving service value and nothing more.
Ad puffery such as “The Best Pizza in the State” could lead to provider gap 4.
Sometimes the personal values of the category of complainers called passives prevent
them from complaining about a service even when they should.
Progressive Insurance examined insurance from the customer’s viewpoint and saw how
difficult it was to get an auto claim processed and paid by insurance companies. Then
the company crafted its service strategy around solving that problem. The company has
fleets of claim adjustors on the road every day, ready to rush to the scene of an accident
in their territory and provide fast claims processing-sometimes on the spot. The ability
of the insurance company to have an adjustor at accident sites so quickly is an example
of which of the following service quality dimensions?
A. Reliability
B. Responsiveness
C. Assurance
D. Empathy
E. Tangibles
Preparing customers for the service process is a strategy for:
A. Managing service promises
B. Resetting customer expectations
C. Managing customer education
D. Managing horizontal communications
E. Exceeding customer expectations
The romantic mountain getaway seemed like the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. The
pictures in the brochure showed couples enjoying the amenities in their cabins. When
the couple arrived, they found a cold, uninviting cabin with a shortage of creature
comforts–no down-filled blankets, no wood for the fireplace, paper plates and cups and
a broken chair. In this service example, the _____ was not what the customers
expected.
A. Internal marketing
B. Management-driven service
C. Interactive communication
D. Relationship marketing
E. Servicescape
Simone called the Puppy Heaven Kennel to reserve a kennel for her German shepherd
while she went on vacation. In terms of the service blueprint, Simone’s telephone call is
an example of a(n):
A. Customer action
B. Onstage contact employee action
C. Backstage contact employee action
D. Support process
E. Audience action
Customers are viewed as _____ when they produce a service for themselves.
A. Customer mix managers
B. Competitors
C. Productive resources
D. Contributors to quality and satisfaction
E. Recruiters
In terms of its servicescape complexity, The White Elephant, a restaurant that
specializes in traditional Thai cooking is an example of a(n) _____ service
environment.
A. Tangible
B. Lean
C. Flexible
D. Open
E. Elaborate
Derrick saves coupons from 10-minute oil and lubrication services (e.g., Jiffy Lube,
Quick Lube and Speedi-Lube) and when he needs to have his car’s oil changed, he
chooses the oil and lubrication service that offers the best deal on a 10-minute oil
change. For 10-minute oil and lubrication services, Derrick defines value as:
A. All that I get for all that I give
B. Everything I want in a service
C. Low price
D. Reliable service
E. The quality I get for the pace I pay
A(n) _____ is a composite of the perceptual satisfaction or service quality measures
collected in an organization.
A. Zone of tolerance chart
B. Salience of dimensions and attributes graph
C. Gap scores tracking tool
D. Importance/performance matrix
E. Customer satisfaction index
Many white-collar workers have heard the story about the busy executive who billed
the doctor for keeping him waiting when the patient showed up promptly at his
appointment time or has dreamed of doing it themselves. This is an example of the
_____ costs of services.
A. Convenience
B. Monetary
C. Psychological
D. Time
E. Search
When Tom and Ruth checked out of the Marriott Hilton Head Resort, they were each
given a brief postage paid survey to complete and return through the mail. The survey
asked 15 questions about their stay at the Marriott Resort. It covered such attributes as
overall satisfaction, check-in speed/efficiency, cleanliness, decor and comfort of their
room, friendliness and efficiency of the staff, quality of dining experience, quality of
merchandise/gift shop, intention to return and willingness to recommend to friends.
Which of the following types of research did Marriott conduct?
A. Complaint solicitation
B. Critical incidents studies
C. Relationship surveys
D. Trailer calls
E. Lost customer research
Which of the following is NOT included in the list of questions managers and
researchers want answered about defensive marketing?
A. What is a loyal customer?
B. How can defection-prone customers be identified?
C. What is the role of service in defensive marketing?
D. What aspects of service are most important for customer retention?
E. What aspects of service are most important for increasing market share?
The weekend cruise cost Jason Riggs $800 dollars. Before leaving on the cruise, Riggs
told his neighbor, “With the money this trip is costing me, the food better be good and
plentiful”. What kind of expectations did Roux have?
A. Minimum tolerable
B. Normative
C. Conventional
D. Functional
E. Ego-based
After Janine returned home from a vacation in California, she noticed that her new
luggage had a five-inch tear in it. Rather than assume that the damaged luggage was a
cost of flying and there was nothing to be done about it, she called the airline’s customer
service center. The person answering the phone at the center mailed her the instructions
for getting her suitcase repaired at the airline’s expense. Janine was pleased with the
repair when the suitcase was shipped home about a month later. In this scenario, Janine
played the role of:
A. Customer mix manager
B. Competitor
C. Productive resource
D. Contributor to quality and satisfaction
E. Recruiter
Provider _____ is the discrepancy between the development of customer-driven service
standards and actual service performance by company employees.
A. Gap 1
B. Gap 2
C. Gap 3
D. Gap 4
The characteristic of a service that means that it cannot be seen, felt, tasted or touched
is:
A. Intangibility
B. Heterogeneity
C. Divisibility
D. Perishability
E. Compatibility
McDonald’s offers home and office delivery service in selected markets in the U.S. and
Canada. McDonald’s delivery service is a _____ growth strategy.
A. Share building
B. Divestment
C. Service development
D. Diversification
E. Market integration
Which of the following is an important consideration for innovating or developing a
new service?
A. Involve only employees in the innovation process.
B. Employ service and design thinking and techniques.
C. Use only words to describe the service.
D. Design elements of the service separately, rather than as parts of a whole.
E. Involve only design experts in the innovation process.
Which of the following is an intangible component of a car repair shop?
A. Replacement parts
B. Employee uniforms
C. Barrel for storing recyclable motor oil
D. The training the mechanic has received
E. Customer waiting area
When Abu went to open a bank account at First National Bank, he was greeted by a
friendly account representative who explained the different types of savings and
checking accounts, as well as other banking services (e.g., ATM, direct deposit, credit
cards and consumer loans) that were available. According to the service marketing
triangle, the actions by the account representative are a form of _____ marketing.
A. Internal
B. Interactive
C. Integrated
D. Strategic
E. External
Rather than treating all of its customers the same, FedEx categorized its customers
internally as “the good, the bad, and the ugly” based on their ___________.
A. Loyalty
B. Profitability
C. Attitude
D. Volume
E. User characteristics
Executive Dry Cleaners charges customers $2.99 to launder a dress shirt rather than
$3.00. Executive Dry Cleaners is using a(n) _____ pricing strategy.
A. Odd
B. Synchro-
C. Discounting
D. Prestige
E. Complementary
Which of the following is NOT a risk incurred by describing services in words alone?
A. Oversimplification
B. Incompleteness
C. Subjectivity
D. Biased interpretation
E. Transformation
Eddie Bauer, a catalog retailer, offers customers three different delivery options: 5 to 7
days via standard delivery; 3 to 4 days via express delivery; or 2 days via express plus
delivery. The delivery rates are higher for faster service. For example, on orders over
$75 standard delivery is $9.95, express delivery is $15.95 and express plus delivery is
S18.95. By offering different delivery options, Eddie Bauer is:
A. Making multilevel service promises
B. Communicating criteria for service effectiveness
C. Managing customer expectations
D. Managing horizontal communications
E. Exceeding customer expectations
A day after USAirways announced its new low fares for the autumn on travel from
New York (i.e., Newark and LaGuardia Airports) to selected cities in the U.S. and
Canada, American Airlines matched their fares. American Airlines is using a _____
strategy.
A. Value pricing
B. Price signaling
C. Demand-based pricing
D. Going-rate pricing
E. Price trimming
________ refers to the fact that a complaining customer expects to be treated fairly,
with care and honesty.
A. Functional equity
B. Procedural fairness
C. Interactional fairness
D. Service equity
E. Outcome fairness
When comparing the value of health clubs, Shaundra believes value comes from
having a “women’s only” nautilus room and “women’s only” aerobic classes. Shaundra
defines 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
On certain days during the week, Disneyworld allows guests who stay at a Disney
Resort hotel to enter the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center or Disney-MGM Studios one
hour before the parks are open to the public. Walt Disney World is minimizing waiting
time by differentiating customers on the basis of:
A. Their willingness to perform the service role
B. The importance of the customer
C. The duration of their stay in the amusement park
D. Their need to have fun
E. The payment of a premium price
Flying across the Pacific Ocean is an eight-hour trip that could be dreadful if you did
not fly Singapore Airlines. One frequent flyer between the U.S. and Japan noted its
cabin crew gives the impression that it is truly their pleasure to serve the passengers. In
short, they make flying with Singapore Airlines very satisfying. In terms of the service
marketing triangle, the cabin crew engages in _____ marketing.
A. Internal
B. Interactive
C. Integrated
D. External
E. Transactional
During Benford Bank’s annual “Stellar Teller” contest, tellers match their skills in the
areas of money counting, knowledge of bank policy and ability to make customers feel
like royalty. To assess money counting skills, tellers are required to sort a mishmash of
ones, fives, 10s and 20s by denomination, arrange the bills so that they all face the same
way, then tally the cash on an adding machine and put it back into a deposit bag. Time
and accuracy count. A bank teller’s money-counting skills are a:
A. Service competency
B. Competitive tendency
C. Service inclination
D. Service responsibility
E. Service detractor
Marriott had an advertising campaign with the following theme: “You can’t be late for
business appointments and neither can we. At Marriott, if your breakfast doesn’t show
up on time, it won’t show up on your bill. That’s because we take our business just as
seriously as you take yours. And our business is service. The commitment is what
makes Marriott the business traveler’s first choice”. If a business traveler, who saw this
advertisement, stayed at a Marriott hotel and did not receive breakfast on time and was
charged for that breakfast, Provider _____ of the gaps model of service quality would
have occurred.
A. Gap 1
B. Gap 2
C. Gap 3
D. Gap 4
New Bedford College requires all students who live in its dormitories to buy a meal
ticket. The meal ticket is to be used in the cafeteria for all breakfasts, dinners and five
lunches every week for each week the college is in session. Students do not like to go to
the cafeteria. They think it is unfriendly and institutional. All who can afford it eat
off-campus unless the weather is bad. On bad-weather days, the cafeteria is busy with
students, faculty and staff. By the end of the day, it is also very messy because the
cafeteria patrons do not clean up after themselves. Spilled food is on the floor and the
tables. The cafeteria supervisor thinks that if the cafeteria patrons could be made to
perform their role in service delivery that everyone would benefit. Suggest some
possible strategies to enhance patron participation.
The development of _____ allows service companies to create, automate and integrate
measurements in all parts of the company in a balanced performance scorecard.
A. Relationship marketing
B. Search engines
C. Data mining
D. Integrative marketing
E. Enterprise-wide software
_____ are services produced entirely by the customer without any direct involvement
or interaction with the firm’s employees.
A. Actor-oriented services
B. Drama monologues
C. Self-service technologies
D. Frequency marketing programs
E. Competitive differentiators
You can get a haircut in one of the rural counties that surround Atlanta for $15. You
will pay around $45 for the same haircut if you buy it in one of the five counties that
make up the Atlanta area. Which type of competition-based pricing does this best
exemplify?
Discuss the following statement: “Service quality dimensions are driven by employee
behavior.”
A friend of yours plans on opening a home cleaning service. She has decided to
“delight” her customers to gain a competitive advantage over her similar services. For
example, while other cleaning crews vacuum, dust and mop, she will have her
employees do extras like cleaning the fireplace, washing clothes and bathing pets. She
believes these extra services on top of what customers expect will guarantee her
success. What information can you provide her with that may help her develop a
profitable business?
Rusty Black owns and manages a video rental store. It is not part of a chain, so Black
has had to experiment with ways to get customers into his store and make them want to
browse when they get there. He is thinking of specializing in science fiction/monster
movies. Explain how Black could use the servicescape in a variety of strategic roles to
increase store traffic. Provide specific examples of how the servicescape could perform
the four different strategic roles.
What type of pricing strategy will most likely be used by marriage counselors, bridal
consultants, public accountants and tax attorneys?
How would environmental psychologists describe the emotion elicited in a mother
forced by her elementary-aged son to go to a haunted house with particularly gruesome
sights and bloodcurdling screams?
CompuMark is a company that provides marketing and computer expertise to
companies who want to set up their own Web sites. The owners of the company believe
they need to improve customers’ perceptions of the service provided by CompuMark.
As a result, the owners hired a service marketing research company to conduct research
about its customers’ expectations. The research was appropriately designed, executed
and presented to the owners. Discuss the two most likely occurrences at this point in the
research process. What is the role of the service marketing research company in
determining what the owners of CompuMark will do next?
Discuss conducting marketing research for a national car rental company.
List the three major determinants of desired service levels.
Which provider gap is a company trying to narrow when it concentrates on developing
a service recovery strategy?
Discuss service quality as a competitive advantage for a service provider.
Discuss the challenges that companies face when ending customer relationships.
What are the two types of interactive activities that an organization can use to improve
upward communications?
Provide an example of each type.
George was asked by an employee of a local do-it-yourself store to describe in detail his
experiences in the store as he bought house paint, caulk and brushes. He later learned
several of his acquaintances had been asked to do the same thing. What research
method was being used by the do-it-yourself store?
List the two types of future expectations research.
The Bank of Charleston uses a Performance Measurement Program that links its most
important customer-defined standards to tangible and measurable aspects of service
provision and uses the feedback provided by this program to locate and improve service
problems. What term should be used to describe the bank’s Performance Measurement
Program?
The ad for Walt Disney World shows enthralled spectators watching the daily Disney
character parade and has several guests to the park explaining how much they enjoyed
the parade. Why is Disneyworld using testimonials in its ads?
What is the first step in developing customer-defined standards?