Customer relationship building: services Flashcards
What is Provider Gap 1?
The difference between customer expectations of service and a company’s understanding of those expectations
Also known as the Knowledge Gap.
List key factors leading to Provider Gap 1.
- Inadequate marketing research orientation
- Insufficient research
- Not focused on service quality
- Inadequate use of market research
- Lack of interaction between management and customers
- Insufficient communication between contact employees and managers
- Too many layers between contact personnel and top management
- Insufficient relationship focus
- Lack of market segmentation
- Focus on transactions not relationships
- Focus on new customers rather than relationship customers
How can services overcome Provider Gap 1?
By using market research to understand customer expectations
This includes qualitative and quantitative research methods.
What is qualitative research in the context of understanding customer expectations?
Holding informal group discussions with customers
What is the purpose of quantitative research?
To track customer satisfaction via surveys
Example: Surveying 40,000 shoppers a month.
What is ethnography?
The in-depth study of people and cultures through observation, participation, and interviews in their natural environments.
Provide an example of ethnography in market research.
- best western paid 25 over-55 couples to videotape themselves on their travels.
What key finding emerged from the ethnographic study of seniors?
Seniors who negotiated better deals with hotel receptionists did not need lower prices; they enjoyed the thrill of the deal.
What is mystery shopping?
- A method to monitor and measure the consistency of tangible and intangible service performance.
- is someone hired by a company to pose as a regular customer in order to evaluate the quality of service, employee behavior, cleanliness, and overall customer experience—without the staff knowing they’re being evaluated.
Give an example of how mystery shopping is used.
London Underground assesses trains and stations on measures such as cleanliness, lighting, comfort factors, and staff performance.
Define relationship marketing.
Attracting, maintaining, and enhancing customer relationships.
What are the stages in the evolution of customer relationships?
- Customers as strangers
- Customers as acquaintances
- Customers as friends
- Customers as partners
What are financial bonds in relationship marketing?
Incentives offered to customers for remaining with the company, such as reduced prices over time.
What are social bonds?
Intimate relationships built through social or interpersonal connections.
What are customization bonds?
Bonds created when services are tailored to the needs of specific customer groups.
What are structural bonds?
Bonds that occur when services are integrated into the systems or processes of the client company.
What is a customer pyramid?
A segmentation of customers into tiers of profitability, often with more benefits at higher tiers.
Define loyalty in the context of customer relationships.
An individual’s commitment to purchase and patronage of a product.
List benefits of loyalty for customers.
- Confidence benefits
- Social benefits
- Special treatment
- Economic benefits
List benefits of loyalty for service providers.
- Customer behavior benefits
- Human resource benefits
- Economic benefits
What are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems?
Systems designed to keep a history of all contacts a customer has had with the service provider.
Critism of CRM.
Many believe CRM systems misuse customer information and invade privacy.
What are some relationship challenges in customer service?
- Customer is not always right
- Cannot target services to all customers
- No preference for long-term relationships with unprofitable customers
- Difficult customers disrupting service encounters
- Some customers may find marketing activities intrusive
- Privacy concerns including data protection and GDPR
