Chapter 11: Employees' roles in service delivery

Question 1

Corporate Culture

Answer 1

The pattern of shared values and beliefs that give the members of an organization meaning and provide them with the rules for behavior in the organization.

Question 2

Service Leadership

Answer 2

A strong service culture begins with leaders in the organization who demonstrate a passion for service excellence. Employees are more likely to embrace a service culture when they see management living out these values.

Question 3

Employees are the brand

Answer 3

The primary image that a customer has of the firm is formed by his or her interactions with the employees of that firm.

Question 4

Service Profit Chain

Answer 4

Establishes relationships between profitability, customer loyalty, and employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity.

Question 5

Boundary Spanners

Answer 5

Boundary spanners provide a link between the external customer and environment and the internal operations of the organization.

Question 6

Emotional Labor

Answer 6

To refer to the labor that goes beyond the physical or mental skills needed to deliver quality service.

Question 7

Subordinate service role

Answer 7

Waiters, bus drivers and hotel receptionists may perceive themselves performing roles that give them a status below that of the customer.

Question 8

Internal Marketing

Answer 8

A complex combination of strategies is needed to ensure that service employees are willing and able to deliver quality services and that they stay motivated to perform in customer-oriented, service-minded ways.

Question 9

Hiring Service Employees

Answer 9

To build a customer-oriented, service-minded workforce, an organization must (1) hire the right people, (2) develop people to deliver service quality, (3) provide the needed support systems, and (4) retain the best people.

Question 10

Empowerment

Answer 10

Means giving employees the desire, skills, tools and authority to serve the customer.

Question 11

Internal Customer service audit

Answer 11

Internal organizations identify their customers, determine their needs, measure how well they are doing and make improvements. The process parallels market research practices used for external customers.