The primary constraint on service production for a popular, well-established theater
company that annually presents a series of musical comedies is:
A. Equipment
B. Labor
C. Money
D. Facilities
E. Time
Customer _____ are beliefs about service delivery that function as standards against
which performance is judged.
A. Attitudes
B. Judgments
C. Goals
D. Expectations
E. Perceptions
Variations in the supply and demand of services result in:
A. Inadequate management of service promises
B. Over-promising in advertising and personal selling
C. Insufficient word-of-mouth-communication
D. Inadequate horizontal communication
E. Differences in policies and procedures across distribution units
The key drivers of service quality, customer retention and profits include:
A. The servicescape and internal marketing
B. The five dimensions of service quality and service encounters
C. External marketing communications and employee training
D. Public relations and direct marketing
E. All of the above
Vernon has a used Nordic Track he wants to sell. He has been told to take it to Play It
Again Sports. The retail outlet buys used athletic equipment and resells it. Vernon took
his Nordic Track to a store near his house and was given $60 for the machine. Later he
learned that other Play It Again Sports stores would have paid him at least $100 for the
exercise machine and as much as $120. Vernon’s dissatisfaction with Play It Again
Sports is the result of:
A. Inadequate management of service promises
B. Over-promising in advertising and personal selling
C. Inadequate customer education
D. Inadequate management of customer perceptions
E. Differences in policies and procedures across distribution outlets
One benefit of _____ is that it identifies failure points and common problems in the
service and can help establish an early-warning system for future defectors.
A. Failure ethnography
B. A survey of buyers’ intentions
C. Focus groups
D. Lost customer research
E. Future expectations research
Without good mailing lists, businesses cannot engage in effective direct-marketing
advertising. On average 20 percent of the U.S. population moves annually. Return Path
is a company that provides changes of addresses to businesses. It takes a business’s
mailing list, compares it to address changes that it gathers daily in its database and
makes any necessary corrections. Return Path is a part of which trend in the services
marketing industry?
A. The increasing importance of service industries to the U.S. and world economies
B. The decrease of human interaction as a result of widespread use of technology-based
services
C. The growth in the use of technology-based services
D. Increased competition in the direct-mail industry
E. The fact that direct marketing firms are placing increased emphasis on providing
services
Cadet Uniform Services, a Canadian company that rents uniforms to major
corporations, requires its new delivery drivers to go through a year-long training
regimen before they receive their own delivery routes. First, new drivers go through
three months of training to learn the whole scope of the business before setting foot in a
delivery truck. Then they ride with experienced delivery drivers for nine months to
watch how they interact with customers. According to the service marketing triangle,
Cadet’s training program is a form of _____ marketing.
A. Internal
B. Hierarchical
C. Interactive
D. Integrated
E. External
When Theo complained out loud that the hotel restaurant did not serve breakfast late
enough in the morning, a hotel worker overheard him and went to the kitchen. When
the hotel worker returned, he presented Theo with a plate of sweet rolls, a cup of coffee
and the hotel’s apology for having to close down the breakfast service early. Which
service recovery strategy is being used in this example?
A. Make the service fail safe
B. Learn from lost customers
C. Treat customers proactively
D. Use procedural fairness
E. Respond quickly
Which of the following is NOT a strategy a service provider would use if its goal were
to manage customer expectations?
A. Create tiered-value service offerings
B. Negotiate unrealistic expectations
C. Communicate criteria for service effectiveness
D. Teach customers to avoid peak demand periods and see slow periods
E. Offer choices
The _____ dimension of service quality is the caring, individualized attention given to
customers.
A. Reliability
B. Responsiveness
C. Assurance
D. Empathy
E. Tangibles
Which of the following is NOT an example of an effective pricing strategy to use when
the customer defines value as “all that I get for all that I give?”
A. Price framing
B. Price skimming
C. Complementary pricing
D. Results-based pricing
E. Price bundling
For those people who think they need some sort of psychological counseling but don’t
feel they have the time, the Internet offers www.hear2listen.com, which allows users to
communicate with a licensed therapist at a cost of $1 per minute. Due to a(n) _____, the
web site’s owners know most of their business comes in the evenings and on weekends,
so they have hired therapists to work for the Internet service at these times.
A. Random demand fluctuation
B. Relative demand shift
C. Predictable demand cycle
D. Vertical demand configuration
E. Organized demand pattern
When customers complained that employees at Freddy’s Fast Stop Stores were
unfriendly, Freddy’s instituted its Smiling Service program, which required all
employees to greet and make eye contact with every customer they see within 5
seconds and always smile and offer help whenever the customer appeared to need any.
Employees were counseled, sent to training courses and terminated if they failed to
follow these instructions. What mistake did Freddy’s make when it instituted this
program?
A. It did not want to use audits or operating data to see how well the new program was
being implemented
B. It chose a hard standard without seeing if a soft standard would be more appropriate
C. It selected behavior/actions for service standards instead of attributes
D. It did not establish a means of measuring performance against standards
E. It chose a soft standard without seeing if a hard standard was more appropriate
An advertisement for the Four Seasons Hotel featured Marlene Wei, a housekeeper at
the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago. Copy for the advertisement noted that “Marlene is
the soul of concern. She cannot sleep well at night unless she is certain you will. Her
mission is to enhance your personal comfort and, in turn your professional efficiency
the following day”. By featuring Marlene Wei in an advertisement, the Four Seasons
Hotel is _______ to address service intangibility.
A. Featuring service employees in advertising
B. Using brand icons
C. Using documentation
D. Using viral marketing
E. Leveraging social media
Which of the following is NOT a base for differentiating waiting customers?
A. Willingness to perform service role
B. Importance of the customer
C. Duration of the service transaction
D. Urgency of the job
E. Payment of a premium price
Which of the following in NOT an example of technical outcome quality?
A. The taste of a meal at a restaurant
B. An airplane arriving on time at an airport
C. A pest control company eradicating termites in a townhouse
D. The sales associate greeting a customer in a specialty clothing store
E. A utility company connecting electricity for a customer’s new home
Kelso Massage Therapy promises its clients that there wait for a massage will be less
than fifteen minutes or the massage is free. What type of service recovery tool is Kelso
Massage Therapy using?
A. Offer a guarantee
B. Respond quickly
C. Do it right the first time
D. Implement the service paradox
E. Act proactively instead of reactively
The comment card that is often found on the tables at a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant
asks about the customer’s perceptions of the quality of the food, its cleanliness and the
friendliness of the employees. These questions are focusing on _____ in Wendy’s
balanced performance scorecard.
A. Competitive measures
B. Customer perceptual measures
C. Financial measures
D. Innovation and learning
E. Operational measures
The carpenter came to install the new flooring in the Stephenson’s kitchen two weeks
ago. Once he had removed the old flooring, he announced he needed to go get a sander
to smooth out the subflooring. He has not been back. A person who is an irate type
when it comes to complaining would react to this by:
A. Taking no action whatsoever
B. Assuming he had done something to alienate the carpenter
C. Using the phone to check up on the status of the carpenter at most once a week
D. Begging the carpenter to come back and finish the job
E. Firing the first carpenter and hiring another one who is willing to complete the job
One significant difference between the U.S. and Japanese culture is the love and
respect the Japanese give their elders. A service provider who is trying to cater to the
needs of the elderly might talk to some Japanese-Americans to gather some ideas on
how to improve service quality. The cultural difference should make the service
provider view providing service to the elderly from a different perspective. This sort of
service research is called:
A. Multicultural surveys
B. Market-oriented ethnography
C. Process checkpoint evaluations
D. Requirements research
E. Diversity studies
(p. 18) Which of the following types of research has a high monetary cost?
A. Complaint solicitation
B. Critical incident studies
C. Mystery shopping
D. Lost customer research
E. Future expectations research
The radio ads for the Kia automobile dealership promises that the prices on its cars is
lowest in the Memphis area. Categorize these ads as a source of customers’ desired and
predicted service expectations.
In many cultures, weddings are timed to occur on lucky days. In 2011, wedding
planners from Las Vegas, Nevada to Mumbai, India knew long before the auspicious
date of November 11th (11/11/11) that this would be one of their busiest days of the
year, if not the century. Because other dates would just not be as lucky for the blushing
brides and grooms, and simply would not suffice, the wedding planners had to prepare
all year for more weddings on this one date than on any other day throughout the year.
This example illustrates the _____ characteristic of services.
A. Versatility
B. Heterogeneity
C. Simultaneous production and consumption
D. Perishability
E. Intangibility
The appliance store told the home owner that it would deliver her new stove on
Monday between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. The appliance store is uses which of the following
waiting line strategies?
A. Establishing a reservation process
B. Making waiting fun or at least tolerable
C. Expanding waiting room capacity
D. Differentiating waiting customers
E. Employing operational logic
Supermarkets with express checkout lanes for customers purchasing 10 items or less
are using which of the following waiting line strategies?
A. Establishing a reservation process
B. Making waiting fun or at least tolerable
C. Expanding waiting room capacity
D. Differentiating waiting customers
E. Employing operational logic
In a _____ pricing strategy, new services are introduced at high prices with large
promotional expenditures.
A. Penetration
B. Skimming
C. Prestige
D. Contingency
E. Visible
_____ conditions include background characteristics of the environment such as
temperature and lighting.
A. Ergonomic
B. Holistic
C. Physiological
D. Ambient
E. Environmentally-driven
A regional chain of travel agencies uses role-playing to determine how courteously and
efficiently a potential employee will handle difficult customers who keep changing their
minds. The travel agency is assessing:
A. Service competency
B. Empathy
C. Assurance
D. Service inclination
E. Service responsibility
From the customer’s point of view, the most vivid impression of service occurs in the
service _____ when the customer interacts with the service firm.
A. Event
B. Socialization
C. Encounter
D. Arrangement
E. Linkage
FedEx measures customer satisfaction and service quality with a 12-item statistical
measure called the Service Quality Indicator. One of the items measured by FedEx is
the number of missed pickups per day. In a balanced performance scorecard, the
number of missed pickups per day would represent a(n) _____ measure.
A. Competitor
B. Customer
C. Financial
D. Innovation and learning
E. Operational
Which of the following describes a reason why integrated marketing communications
have not been the norm in many companies?
A. Employees circumvent interactive communication norms
B. Communication autonomy often leads to employee ambiguity
C. Customer empowerment is short-term
D. Various parts of the company are responsible for different aspects of communication
E. The servicescape is designed to impede external communication
Hyatt Hotels has installed automated check-in machines at some of its hotels. To check
in and get a room key, guests insert a credit card into the machine. A guest using Hyatt
Hotel’s automated check-in machine is playing the role of a:
A. Customer mix manager
B. Competitor
C. Productive resource
D. Contributor to quality and satisfaction
E. Recruiter
The McDonald’s arches and the Toys ‘R’ Us mascot Geoffrey Giraffe are both examples
of which composite dimension?
A. Ambient conditions
B. Functional forms
C. Spatial shapes
D. Signs, symbols and artifacts
E. Holistic icons
When students at Fairleigh Dickinson University complete a student evaluation of
faculty questionnaire at the end of a semester, one of the items they are asked to
evaluate on a five-point scale is, “The instructor presented the material clearly and
summarized major points”. This statement evaluation is a _____ measurement.
A. Tangible
B. Basic
C. Formal
D. Soft
E. Informal
What is a “third place?” Discuss the circumstances under which a servicescape can take
on the character of a third place.
What is a hair salon owner looking for when he takes the time to see if a prospective
hair stylist is a good listener, has a pleasing personality and likes to work with people?
Martine wants to open an after-school tutoring service for students in 6th through 9th
grade. How can a thorough knowledge of customers’ expectations improve the
probability of her success?
University presidents often have access to funding to pay to have widely recognized
people such as Malcolm Gladwell, Maya Angelou or Bill Clinton come to their
campuses as speakers. When negotiating with speakers’ bureaus for the services of these
individuals, college presidents are primarily concerned with the “get” component of a
service and monetary price is not of primary concern. What types of pricing strategies
should the speakers’ bureau use if they wish to appeal to the value as defined by the
university presidents?
Jade Taylor has run an advertising agency long enough to understand that the customer
is not always right. He is interested in identifying his profitable customers. Define the
four customer profitability tiers that might help Jade to analyze his customer base?
Lorenzo attended his first antique auction last night. He did not enjoy the experience
because a number of the attendees smoked and Lorenzo does not smoke. Also a number
of people did not seem serious about buying. It appeared to Lorenzo that some
attendees were there simply to visit with their friends. Lorenzo was there to buy and he
often had trouble hearing the auctioneer because of the talking. In terms of customer
participation, what is the term used to describe Lorenzo’s interaction with the other
attendees? What advice would you give the auction house if they wanted to improve the
auction experience for customers like Lorenzo?
Why have managers replaced traditional tools for measuring a company’s performance
with the balanced scorecard?
Heather Lui wants a lawn maintenance company that will pull all the dandelions and
other weeds out of her lawn and that will keep her bushes shapely, but she’ll settle for a
company that will mow her lawn every ten days. According to the text what are the two
expectations at the upper and lower boundaries.
What organization is represented by the abbreviation ACSI?
For what communications purpose would a service company create cross-functional
teams?
What do deeds, processes and performances have in common?
What type of qualitative research is used to monitor changes in customer expectations
and to provide a forum for customers to suggest and evaluate new service ideas?
How have companies traditionally measured their performance?
Describe the form of service research known as mystery shopping and discuss its
potential benefits to service organizations.
Which type of complainer has sometimes been called the service provider’s best
friend?
List the four bases that can be used to differentiate waiting customers.
On which of the provider gaps does an inappropriate servicescape have the greatest
impact?
What is the central focus of the gaps model of service quality?