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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is the difference between desired service and adequate service? Why would a services marketer
need to understand both types of service expectations?
Desired service expectations are the upper bound on customer expectations—the level of service the
customer hopes to receive, a blend of what the customer believes can be and should be. Adequate
2. Consider a recent service purchase that you have made. Which of the factors influencing
expectations were the most important in your decision? Why?
This question is designed to get students to personalize and apply to their own experience with the
3. Why are desired service expectations more stable than adequate service expectations?
Desired service expectations are ideal and do not change frequently because what one hopes for does
4. How do the technology changes discussed in the Technology Spotlight in this chapter influence
customer expectations?
Customers have traditionally been somewhat passive consumers of airline services when it comes to
the actual travel, expecting to have an airline employee do most of the work when it comes to
checking in, securing boarding passes, making seat assignments, etc. Advance check-in, electronic
5. Describe several instances in which a service company’s explicit service promises were inflated and
led you to be disappointed with the service outcome.
Virtually all students can report on disappointments they experienced as a result of inflated promises.
Inflated promises about vacations and college courses are two examples that often arise in response to
6. Consider a small business preparing to buy a computer system. Which of the influences on customer
expectations do you believe will be pivotal? Which factors will have the most influence? Which
factors will have the least importance in this decision?
Because this is a business decision, the factors that may be most important include perceived service
alternatives, explicit service promises, and enduring service intensifiers. Business purchase decisions
as a category are generally more rational than personal choices and it is likely that company
7. What strategies can you add to the Strategy Insight in this chapter for influencing the factors?
The purpose of this question is to get students thinking about ways to influence customer expectations
8. Do you believe that any of your service expectations are unrealistic? Which ones? Should a service
marketer try to address unrealistic customer expectations?
This question is designed to initiate a discussion about elevated customer expectations. It is likely
that students will be able to identify services where their expectations are high because their personal
9. In your opinion, what service companies have effectively built customer franchises (immutable
customer loyalty)?
10. Intuitively, it would seem that managers would want their customers to have wide tolerance zones for
service. But if customers do have these wide zones of tolerance for service, is it more difficult for
firms with superior service to earn customer loyalty? Would superior service firms be better off to
attempt to narrow customers’ tolerance zones to reduce the competitive appeal of mediocre
providers?
The wider customers’ zones of tolerance, the more willing they are to accept variations in service—
11. Should service marketers delight their customers?
Companies should always try to exceed the adequate service level, but exceeding adequate service
will not delight customers. Exceeding desired service will delight customers. But in our view,
