The service consumer

Question 1

What are the three stages of the service model consumption?

Answer 1

1. Pre-purchase stage
2. Service encounter stage
3. Post-encounter stage

Question 2

What happens during the pre-purchase stage? (3)

Answer 2

1. Customers seek solutions to aroused needs
2. Evaluating a service may be difficult
3. Uncertainty about outcomes increases perceived risk
   (What risk reduction strategies can service suppliers develop? and how can they understand customers’ service expectations)

Question 3

What is need recognition? (1)

Answer 3

Decision to buy or use a service is triggered by need arousal.

Question 4

What are the 3 triggers of need and what are consumers then enticed to do?

Answer 4

1. unconscious minds (personal identity and aspirations)
2. Physical conditions (hunger)
3. external sources (service firms activities)
   = consumers are then motivated to find a solution to their needs, companies may seek opportunities by monitoring consumer behaviours and attitudes.

Question 5

What does the consumer do during the pre-purchase stage? (2)

Answer 5

1. Information search: consumer may look in his/her evoked set (set of products and brands that a consumer considers during the decision-making process)
2. Evaluation of alternatives: need to evaluate alternatives before purchase decision is made.

Question 6

what are the 4 levels/sets of evaluating alternatives for consumers?

Answer 6

1. Complete market set (all available alternatives for problem/need)
2. Awareness set (all available alternatives aware from internal/external search)
3. Evoked set: comes to mind for problem/need from internal and external search
4. Consideration set: actually considered to solve problem/need

Question 7

What is the multi-attribute model? and what are some examples? (2)

Answer 7

Once the consideration set and key attributes are understood, the consumer typically makes a purchase decision.

1. The Multi Attribute Model holds that consumers use service attributes important to them, to evaluate and compare alternative offerings in their consideration set.
2. Examples of attributes – location convenience, friendliness of staff, opening hours, price, quality of service etc.

Question 8

What are the key type of service attributes that consumers evaluate? (3)

Answer 8

1. Search attributes – can be determined by consumer before purchase. (type of food, location, type of restaurant and price
2. Experience attributes – can be determined after purchase/ during consumption.
   (After a vacation/ meal, a haircut, a rock concert).
3. Credence attributes – those difficult to evaluate even after purchase/consumption of the service. Unobservable through search or experience. (legal services, complex medical procedures)
   - High credence (education)………………..Low credence (clothing, furniture)

Question 9

What influences customer expectations of services? (2)

Answer 9

1. explicit and implicit services promises (WoM, past experiences)
2. predicted services, you know what you get.

Question 10

What is the desired service level? (1)

Answer 10

Wished-for level of service quality that customer believes can and should be delivered

Question 11

What is the adequate service level? (1)

Answer 11

the minimum acceptable level of service

Question 12

What is the predicted service level? (1)

Answer 12

service level that customers believes firms will actually deliver

Question 13

what is the zone of tolerance? (1)

Answer 13

Range within which customers are willing to accept variations in service delivery. depends on the importance a consumer places on certain factors.

Question 14

What are four possible strategies to influence customer expectations?

Answer 14

Through explicit service promises:
1. Make realistic and accurate promises that reflect the service actually delivered. Legally consumers are protected.

2. Contact people for feedback on the accuracy of promises made in advertising and personal selling.
3. Avoid engaging in price or advertising wars with competitors because they take the focus off customers and escalate promises beyond the level at which they can be met.
4. Formalise service promises through a service guarantee and get company employees to focus on the promise and get feedback on the number of times promises are not fulfilled.

Question 15

What are implicit service promises? (2)

Answer 15

Are service-related cues other than explicit promises that lead to inferences about what the service should and will be like.

They ensure that:

1. service tangibles accurately reflect the type and level of service provided.
2. price premiums can be justified by higher levels of performance.

Question 16

What do lasting service intensifiers use marketing research for? (2)

Answer 16

1. To profile personal service philosophies of customers

2. Determine sources of derived service expectations and their requirements

Question 17

For implicit services, what is the focus of advertising and marketing strategy? (1)

Answer 17

On ways the service allows the focal customer to satisfy the requirements of the influencing customer.

Question 18

What are possible Strategies To Influence Customer Expectations? (Less Controllable Factors) (7)

Answer 18

1. Personal needs: educate customers on ways the service addresses their needs
2. Temporary service intensifiers: short term individual factors that make a customer more aware of the need for service (during peak periods or in emergencies it is increased)
3. Perceived service alternatives: be fully aware of competitive offerings, and where possible and appropriate match them
4. Self-perceived service role: educate customers to understand their roles and perform them better
5. WoM comms: simulate WoM in advertising by using testimonials and opinion leaders.

• identify influencers and opinion leaders for the service and concentrate marketing efforts on them.
• use incentives with existing customers to encourage them to say positive things.

6. Situational factors: use service guarantees to assure customers about service recovery regardless of situational factors that occur
7. Predicted service: tell customers when service provision is higher than what can normally be expected so that predictions of future service encounters will not be inflated.

Question 19

What is the service encounter stage? (2)

Answer 19

1. Service encounter – a period of time during which a customer interacts directly with the service provider.
2. it ranges from high to low contact. Its about understanding the servuction system.

Question 20

What are the 4 frameworks used for the service encounter stage?

Answer 20

1. Moments of truth: importance for managing touch points.
2. High/Low contact model: extent and nature of contact points
3. Servuction system: variations of interactions
4. Theater metaphor: “staging” service performances.

Question 21

Explain “moments of truth”. (2)

Answer 21

1. “[W]e could say that the perceived quality is realized at the moment of truth, when the service provider and the service customer confront one another in the arena.
2. At that moment they are very much on their own… It is the skill, the motivation, and the tools employed by the firm’s representative and the expectations and behavior of the client which together will create the service delivery process.”
   - Richard Normann

Question 22

Explain the high and low contact model. (3)

Answer 22

it is the emphasis on encounters with service personnel.

1. Low contact: Customer presence required during service delivery (Airline)
2. Moderate contact: Customer inputs required for service delivery (Hairdresser)
3. High contact: Customer co-creates the service product (Marriage Counsellor

Question 23

Distinguish between high and low contact services. (3 and 2)

Answer 23

High-Contact Services:

1. Customers visit service facility and remain throughout service delivery
2. Active contact between customers and service personnel
3. Includes most people-processing services.

Low-Contact Services:

1. Little or no physical contact with service personnel
2. Contact usually at arm’s length through electronic or physical distribution channels.

Question 24

Explain the servuction Model. (3)

Answer 24

1. Servuction system illustrates factors that influence service experience (those visible and invisible to the consumer).
2. Participation may be active or passive
3. Managers must understand interactive nature of services and customer involvement in production process

Question 25

Explain the theatre metaphor with servunction model. (2)

Answer 25

1. Technical Core: (Invisible to customer)
   What goes on in the backstage affects the quality of front stage.
   E.g. health and safety, rules an regulations.
2. Service Delivery (front stage):
   - Where “final assembly” of service elements takes place and service is delivered to customers
   - Experienced by customers as a performance
   - Includes customer interactions with operations and other customers
   E.g. staff, tour operators, waiters etc.

Question 26

Explain the 3 different customer participations in service experience.

Answer 26

1. Customer as productive resource:
   - Customers contribute inputs
   - Customers can influence the quality and quantity of the production process (limit delivery system? Less choices?)
2. Customer as contributor to quality:
   - satisfaction and value
   - Service outcome highly dependent on participation (e.g. Healthcare, education, weight loss)
3. Customer as competitor to the service organisation:
   - Choice of producing the service themselves

Question 27

Explain the integrative perspective of the theatrical metaphor? (4)

Answer 27

• Good metaphor as service delivery is a series of events that customers experience as a performance.
  1. Service facilities: stage of which drama unfolds. this may change from one act to another.
  2. Personnel: front stage personnel are like members of a cast. Backstage personnel are support production team.
  3. Roles: like actors, employees have roles to play and behave in specific ways.
  4. Scripts: specifies the sequence of behaviour for customer and employees.

Question 28

What happens in the post-purchase stage? (2)

Answer 28

1. Evaluation of service performance

2. future intentions

Question 29

How do customers react post service expectation? (expectancy disconfirmation theory) (4)

Answer 29

1. If better than expected - Positive disconfirmation
2. If same as expected - Confirmation
3. if worse than expected - Negative disconfirmation
4. Satisfaction reflects perceived service quality, price/quality tradeoffs, personal and situational factors

Question 30

what is customer delight? ( function of three components)

Answer 30

1. Unexpectedly high levels of performance
2. Arousal (e.g., surprise, excitement)
3. Positive affect (e.g., pleasure, joy, or happiness)

Question 31

What are the strategic links that exist between customer satisfaction and corporate performance?

Answer 31

1. By creating more value for customers (increased satisfaction), the firm creates more value for the owners
2. Getting feedback during service delivery helps to boost customer loyalty