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CHAPTER 4:
CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICE
CHAPTER TOPICS
Customer Perceptions
Customer Satisfaction
Service Quality
Service Encounters: The Building Blocks for Customer Perceptions
Technology Spotlight: Customers Love Amazon
Global Feature: Differences In Service Quality Perceptions and Rage Across Cultures
Strategy Insight: Customer Satisfaction and the Bottom Line
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
1. Provide a solid basis for understanding what influences customer perceptions of service and the
relationships among customer satisfaction, service quality, and individual service encounters.
2. Demonstrate the importance of customer satisfaction – what it is, the factors that influence it, and the
significant outcomes resulting from it.
3. Develop critical knowledge of service quality and its five key dimensions: reliability, responsiveness,
empathy, assurance, and tangibles.
4. Show that service encounters or the “moments of truth” are the essential building blocks from which
customers form their perceptions.
LECTURE TIPS & AIDS
1. One of the suggested exercises in the back of the chapter is to have students keep a journal of various
service encounters they have with different organizations. If you indeed do have students do a
journal, these can be used as reference points in discussing the various concepts in this chapter.
Through their service encounter experiences students can relate to the various topics being discussed
and can easily share illustrations of the various points being made in the chapter when called upon.
2. One approach to take in discussing the differences between remote service encounters and
person-to-person encounters would be to have students compare experiences for the same type of
service with the two types of encounters. For example, as suggested in Exercise 5 at the end of the
chapter, students might compare and contrast using Amazon.com to purchase a book versus going to
a traditional bookstore to do the same thing. Other student purchases may also be used, such as
buying a car, clothing, compact disks, etc. This discussion is probably better suited toward the end of
the chapter after service encounters have been discussed in detail to give students a point of reference
for making comparisons.
QUESTIONS TO USE WITH CHAPTER OPENING VIGNETTE
Chapter 4: Zane’s Cycles
1. Which of the service strategies used by Zane’s Cycles gives you a real “wow?” Why?
2. Do you know of an “entrepreneurial” service provider that currently uses service strategies in a
similar way to provide exemplary customer service? Describe.
3. Is there a smaller or start-up service provider that you use or know about that could benefit from
implementing some of Zane’s Cycles’ service strategies? Describe the service provider, the specific
strategy or strategies and how the implementation would be of benefit.
ACTIVE LEARNING ACTIVITIES
1. Choose an example of an ideal service encounter that you have experienced recently.
What was the source of satisfaction?
Why was the encounter so special? What did the employee do?
What were your expectations?
What could the company do to ensure that this kind of encounter is the “rule” rather than the
“exception” (if you think it should ensure this)?
2. Choose an example of a very bad service encounter that you have had recently.
What was the source of dissatisfaction? Can you categorize the encounter according to the
four common themes?
What did the employee do to make this such a bad encounter? What were your expectations?
What should the employee have done?
Using the GAPS model of service quality, can you identify likely gap(s) that may have
caused this service failure?
3. Choose a local company to visit with the following questions in mind:
How do you think customers evaluate the services of this company? (e.g., what is important
to them in choosing this kind of service, and how will they know if they have received quality
service?)
Think about the five dimensions of service quality: reliability; tangibles; responsiveness;
assurance; and empathy. How do they apply to this company? Which dimensions might be
the most/least important?
Assume you measured service quality (i.e., comparing customer perceptions of service
against their expectations) for this company and found it low compared to competitors. Why
might this be occurring? (Use the GAPS model to help think about this question.)
POTENTIAL VIDEO CLIPS TO USE IN ILLUSTRATING CHAPTER 4 CONCEPTS
“Five Easy Pieces” – Jack Nicholson and three women friends attempt to order items not
exactly on the menu at a restaurant. The waitress will not allow them to order anything that is not
explicitly listed on the menu, displaying poor “adaptability” (a source of dissatisfaction in this service
encounter).
“Saturday Night Live Goes Commercial” (specifically, two “Giving Change” clips) – A
1commercial spoof of MetroBank, a bank who specializes in giving correct change. This clip could
be used to discuss the difference between satisfaction and service quality. Customers using
MetroBank may be satisfied with the bank’s ability to make correct change, but if this were indeed
their positioning strategy customers would not likely have high perceptions of service quality.
“The Wedding Planner” – In a scene that 2begins with a wedding toast that is assisted by the
wedding planner (Jennifer Lopez), a potential (very wealthy) client comes with her parents to meet
with the wedding planner and see how a wedding for her might be conceptualized. The wedding
planner shares a vision for an extravagant wedding. In the brief three minutes the potential clients are
with her, she convinces them that she has the expertise, knowledge, and ability to create a wonderful
wedding—thus illustrating the assurance dimension of service quality.
“The Cable Guy” – In this movie there is a scene where customer Steve’s cable goes out while on a
date (at his house) with his girl. He remembers that he has a preferred customer card from an
employee (Jim Carey) at the cable company and all he has to do is page him when he has any
problems. The service man arrives in expedient time (as soon as the phone number is dialed) and
“fixes” the cable connection problem in minutes…an (extreme) example of responsiveness.
“For Love or Money” (1993). (In Chapter 2 within the first 15 minutes or so.) The clip begins with
Michael J. Fox’s character walking down the corridor and into a bar, just before he says, “Hey,
Vincent! What’s happening in your sordid little world today?” The clip ends with the Michael J. Fox
character saying “If I’m worth it.” to Michael Tucker (after being offering a tip of $5). This illustrates
the anticipation of needs, spontaneity and recovery in a service encounter.
“Dunston Checks In” (1995). 3 scenes: 03:49-04:35 (length 00:46); 66:36-66:52 (length 00:16);
71:55-72:53 (length 00:58). The scenes show several episodes taking place in a five star hotel that
wants to earn a sixth star, but fails to deliver the appropriate service as it focuses too much on one
specific mystery consumer instead on all of its guests.
POSSIBLE WEB SITES FOR CHAPTER 4
Company Location
Amazon.com www.amazon.com
American Customer Satisfaction Index www.theacsi.org
BizRate.com www.bizrate.com
Doubletree Hotels www.doubletree.com
Enterprise Rent-a-Car www.enterprise.com
German Customer Satisfaction Barometer www.servicebarometer.de
Gomez, Inc. www.gomez.com
Harrah’s Entertainment www.harrahs.com
L. L. Bean www.llbean.com
Mayo Clinic www.mayoclinic.com
Nordstrom www.nordstrom.com
Xerox Corporation www.xerox.com
Zane’s Cycles www.zanes.com
APPROPRIATE CASES FOR CHAPTER 4
From previous Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler Services Marketing texts:
Zappos.com 2009: Clothing, Customer Service, and Company Culture [included in the sixth
edition of this text: Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler (2013) Services Marketing: Integrating
Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
People, Service, and Profit at Jyske Bank [included in the sixth edition of this text: Zeithaml,
Bitner, and Gremler (2013) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm,
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
Shouldice Hospital Limited (Abridged) [included in the fifth edition of this text: Zeithaml, Bitner,
and Gremler (2009) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
Hong Kong Disneyland ) [included in the fifth edition of this text: Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler
(2009) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill Companies]
Virgin Mobile USA: Pricing for the Very First Time [included in the fifth edition of this text:
Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler (2009) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across
the Firm, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
easyCar.com [included in the fourth edition of this text: Zeithaml, Bitner, and Gremler (2006)
Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Companies]
Starbucks: Delivering Customer Service [included in the fourth edition of this text: Zeithaml,
Bitner, and Gremler (2006) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm,
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
Virgin Atlantic Airways [included in the third edition of this text: Zeithaml and Bitner (2003)
Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Companies]
Northwest Airlines and the Detroit Snowstorm [included in the third edition of this text: Zeithaml
and Bitner (2003) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
AT&T (A): Focusing the Services Salesforce on Customers; AT&T (C): Employees as Customers
[included in the second edition of this text: Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) Services Marketing:
Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
EuroDisney: The First 100 Days [included in the second edition of this text: Zeithaml and Bitner
(2000) Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill Companies]
Chartered Bank of Canada [included in the first edition of this text: Zeithaml and Bitner (1996)
Services Marketing, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies]
From other sources:
Canyon Ranch [Harvard Business School Case 9-805-027, 2005]
