Exam 13: Designing and Managing Services

The SERVQUAL scale includes the five determinants of service quality. Companies schooled in and practitioners of this craft are among the highest rated consumer friendly firms doing business today. What are the five determinants that firms like Air Canada, Canadian Tire, and Ritz-Carlton honor so highly?

As a newly hired marketing associate, you have asked your boss if the firm has service-quality specifications spelled out for ensuring exceptional customer service. His answer is "no, we all know what the consumer expects; after all we have been doing this for over 30 years." Recalling your marketing management services marketing chapter, you identify this attitude as a factor leading to the creation of what "gap" in the service-quality model?

When the cell phone providers' offer "weekends free" they are employing which of the following strategies to deal with perishability?

Many manufacturers price their equipment low and compensate by

To differentiate their service, a provider can add ________ to the package of services already provided.

Services have four distinctive characteristics that greatly affect the design of marketing programs. Please list these characteristics and briefly explain each.

Clients judge the service not only by its ________ but also by its functional quality.

Consumer expectations are not affected by statements made by organizational representatives or ads.

The model of service-quality expectations is based on the premise that customer perceptions and expectations of service quality change over time, but at any one point in time are a function of prior expectations of what will and what should happen during the service encounter, as well as the actual service delivered during the last contact. The researchers' empirically tested model contends that the two different types of expectations have opposing effects on perceptions of service quality. List these two models.

Customers play an active role in the delivery of services. How as Mountain Equipment Co-op dealt with this issue of coproduction?

Which of the following is an example of a gap between management perception and the service-quality specifications?

Services high in ________ qualities are those services that have characteristics the buyer normally finds hard to evaluate even after consumption.

Clients judge service not only by its technical quality but also by its price.

Which of the determinants of service quality involves the ability of employees to convey trust and confidence?

A plumbing firm is considered a service firm since they are providing "services" to households and businesses. The service component then would fall into which one of the following categories of offerings?

Employees who adopt extra-role behaviours can be a critical asset in handling complaints.

Delighting customers is a matter of meeting expectations.

In which of the following cases is a service provider trying to increase non-peak demand?

When initiating self-service technologies, some companies have found that the biggest obstacle is not the technology itself, but ________ customers to use it.

The "brown trucks" of UPS have helped to create strong brand equity. Explain why such physical facilities are especially important.