Service Quality and customer satisfaction

Question 1

What are the factors for a successful relationship?

Answer 1

Trust - Confidence in the exchange partner’s reliability and integrity
Commitment - Desire to continue in a relationship
Seller’s customer orientation/empathy
Experience/satisfaction
Communication

Question 2

What are the stages in the development of relationship profitability?(Storbacka 1994)

Answer 2

1) Service Quality
2) Customer Satisfaction
3) Relationship Strength
4) Relationship Longevity
5) Customer relationship profitability

Question 3

What is service quality?

Answer 3

• Its an assessment of how well the organisation lives up to customer expectations

Question 4

What can perceived service quality been seen as?

Answer 4

Liljander and Strandvik (1994) have suggested that perceived service quality can be seen as an outsider perspective, a cognitive judgment of a service. It need not even be experienced, it can be based on knowledge about a service provider through word‐of‐mouth or advertising. It is, however, usually also based on experiences with the service.

Question 5

What is technical and functional quality?

Grönroos

Answer 5

Technical’ quality

• what the consumer receives as a result of his interactions with a service firm
• is important to him and to his evaluation of the quality of the service.

‘Functional’ quality
- How he receives them e.g the appearance and behaviour of waiters
- Other customers may cause queues, disturb
the customer, or they may, on the other hand, have a favourable impact on the atmosphere of the buyer-seller interactions.

In summary, the consumer is not only interested in what he receives as an outcome
of the production process, but in the process itself.

Question 6

What does satisfaction result from?

Answer 6

Satisfaction results from an emotional state
- Its very subjective and so varies widely between individuals
-Expectations influence satisfaction - The higher the customer’s expectations, the harder to satisfy them
Customers are satisfied when consumption experience meets their expectations
-There is the need to understand the customer and not oversell to them
Customer expectations are rising

Question 7

How are quality and satisfaction different?

Answer 7

• Quality refers to some attribute of an offer that is provided or produced
• Satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) refers to the customer’s reaction to the offer
• Service quality can be perceived, satisfaction must be experienced.

Question 8

What are some of the UKs top service irritations with customer service?

Answer 8

• Non Uk calls
• Automated calls
• Being passed around lots of people

Question 9

What influences a customers expectations?

Answer 9

Traditional marketing activities—advertising, field selling, pricing, etc.—can be used in order to give promises to target customer Such promises influence the expectations of the customers, and have an impact on the expected service
-traditions (“we have always done so”) and ideology (religion, political involvement, etc.)
may also have an effect on a given customer’s expectations. The same goes for wordof-mouth communication.
-Furthermore, previous experience with a service also influences the expectations of a customer