Deck 5: Service Delivery System Design

Question 1

There are key differences between a service and a product.Which of the following is true regarding these differences?

A) Low-contact services as well as manufacturing require employees who are flexible, personable, and willing to work with the customer.
B) The degree of customer contact is usually higher for manufacturing organizations than for service organizations.
C) There is a greater degree of customer participation in the manufacture and sale of goods than there is in the sale of services.
D) Service firms commonly require employees that are more flexible, personable, and willing to work with the customer than is true at manufacturing firms.

Answer 1

Service firms commonly require employees that are more flexible, personable, and willing to work with the customer than is true at manufacturing firms.

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT included in internal service quality in the service profit chain?

A) Workplace design
B) Job design
C) Employee selection
D) Product design

Answer 2

Product design

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT an element of the service product bundle?

A) Facilitating goods
B) Explicit service
C) Implicit service
D) Value of goods/service

Answer 3

Value of goods/service

Question 4

Which of the following is NOT a correct statement?

A) A service is produced and consumed simultaneously.
B) Services are provided in a bundle of services and goods.
C) The service delivery system should be designed primarily around the employees in the system.
D) Low-contact services can usually be made more efficient than high-contact services.

Question 5

Service recovery refers to

A) the ability to quickly restore service following a service failure and provide compensation.
B) the reliance on cryptography to protect commercial activities.
C) security privacy and the protection of intellectual property.
D) the level of confidence users hold that service systems will operate as intended without unanticipated failures or problems.

Question 6

Which of the following are characteristics of a low-contact service delivery system?

A) Lower costs and more standardization.
B) Greater flexibility, need for people who are highly skilled in interpersonal relations, and a customer orientation.
C) Need for people with a high level of technical skills oriented toward efficient processing, well-defined procedures, and smooth flow.
D) Both a and c.
E) All of the above.

Question 7

An example of an implicit service is

A) the safe trip provided by Southwest Airlines to its passengers.
B) courteous service provided by a National Rental Car agent.
C) the state-of-the-art aircraft utilized by Delta Airlines.
D) all of the above.

Question 8

Which of the following statements concerning service guarantees is FALSE?

A) A service guarantee is a mechanism to build customer loyalty.
B) A service guarantee is a way to avoid compensating customers for a service failure.
C) A service guarantee is a tool to clarify exactly what the service must provide.
D) A service guarantee is a way to define a service and ensure satisfactory delivery to the customer.

Question 9

____-contact services require employees with administrative/technical skills and efficient processing routines.

A) High
B) Low
C) Moderate
D) More than one of the above are true.

Question 10

A service recovery process

A) follows every service transaction.
B) is an implicit service.
C) is rapid compensation for a service failure.
D) is none of the above.

Question 11

An example of a service business/organization that has a high degree of customer contact,high customization,and a high degree of labor intensity is

A) retailing.
B) hotels.
C) law practice.
D) schools.

Question 12

Which of the following is NOT a general characteristic of a service?

A) Production and consumption are simultaneous.
B) The service can be transported.
C) No resale is possible.
D) The service cannot be stored.

Question 13

Estate planning would be an example of

A) a co-routed service.
B) a customer-routed service.
C) a provider-routed service.
D) none of the above.

Question 14

The service profit chain shows that _____ is the direct link to profitability.

A) customer loyalty
B) customer satisfaction
C) customer contact
D) employee productivity

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of service operations?

A) Intangible output.
B) The buyer can perform part of the production.
C) The product cannot be stored.
D) Ownership is transferred at time of purchase.

Question 16

The degree of customer contact measures

A) the amount of time the customer is separated from the service delivery system.
B) the amount of time the customer is in the service delivery system.
C) the customization abilities of the service system.
D) none of the above.

Question 17

A service guarantee

A) is like a product guarantee except that it is for a service.
B) specifies exactly what the service delivery system must provide.
C) builds loyalty.
D) all of the above.

Question 18

There are key differences between service and manufacturing organizations.Which of the following is true regarding these differences?

A) Most service organizations cannot inventory their services to absorb fluctuations in customer demand.
B) Most manufacturing organizations easily permit simultaneous production and consumption of system output.
C) Most manufacturing organizations are typically located closer to the customer, such as a central business district location, due to the simultaneity of consumption and production.
D) Service organizations can easily store current capacity in the form of inventories.

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT a differentiator between manufacturing and service operations?

A) Transportation
B) Customer contact
C) Resale
D) Cost per unit

Question 20

A good service guarantee

A) is often an advertising gimmick.
B) is an honest assurance that the customer will be satisfied.
C) has many stipulations and conditions.
D) costs a lot.

Question 21

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

A) Front-office services require the presence of or interaction with the customer.
B) The magazines offered in bank lobby can affect the implicit service.
C) Employees hired for back-office work can often get by with less interpersonal skill.
D) Service delivery design should be aimed only at external customers, not at employees who may be customers of internal services.

Question 22

Researchers Schlesinger and Heskett propose that service organizations

A) value investment in employees as much or more than investment in technology.
B) link compensation and performance for employees at all levels.
C) use technology to support front-line employees, not to monitor or replace them.
D) do all of the above.

Question 23

According to the service matrix proposed by Collier and Meyer,ATM services are categorized as

A) customer-routed services.
B) co-routed services.
C) provider-routed services.
D) none of the above.

Question 24

Which of the following best completes this sentence?
A service guarantee

A) is useful as an advertising ploy to attract additional customers.
B) is an honest assurance that the customer will be satisfied.
C) needs to contain a variety of stipulations and conditions to be cost effective.
D) is all of the above.

Question 25

Consider the following two statements regarding technology in services: (1)Increased automation can have a negative effect on sales.
(2)Technology is less vital to service delivery than to manufacturing.

A) According to the text, both statements are correct.
B) According to the text, both statements are incorrect.
C) According to the text, only statement (1) is correct.
D) According to the text, only statement (2) is correct.

Question 26

Which of the following statements is NOT true about customer contact and the customer contact matrix?

A) High-contact services are referred to as buffered core because these processes are buffered or removed from interaction with the customer.
B) Operations must be concerned with customer contact because higher contact levels can introduce variability into the process.
C) In the middle ground of customer contact, permeable systems have processes that are penetrated by customers in fairly restricted ways.
D) High contact levels may be costly in terms of lost efficiency, but they offer opportunities to increase sales to customer resulting in increased revenues.

Question 27

A visit to Disney World would be classified as which type of service?

A) A provider-routed service
B) A co-routed service
C) A customer-routed service
D) None of the above

Question 28

Concerning grocery shopping experiences,which of the following best represents the concept of the implicit service?

A) The superior selection available from a large grocery store.
B) Reduced levels of antibiotics used in the production of organic beef.
C) Grocery carts designed to look like race cars to appeal to children.
D) A sense of community when buying from a local co-op.

Question 29

Which of the following is the main intent of the service delivery system matrix?

A) It illustrates the continuum of interaction between marketing and operations.
B) It illustrates the strategic choices in service delivery system design.
C) It illustrates the interaction between customer wants/needs and the service recovery plan.
D) It illustrates the complexity and customization required of provider-routed processes.

Question 30

Medical services are an example of which of the following?

A) Customer-routed services
B) Co-routed services
C) Patient-routed services
D) Provider-routed services

Question 31

Which of the following is a characteristic of high-contact services?

A) High-contact services are used when face-to-face interaction is not required.
B) High-contact services require employees with administrative/technical skills and efficient service delivery methods.
C) High-contact services can work at average demand levels.
D) High-contact services require higher prices and more customization.

Question 32

Which of the following is NOT given as a source of customer-introduced variability to a service delivery system?

A) Uncertainty in what customers will prefer from the service product bundle.
B) Uncertainty in the ability of customers to participate in the service.
C) Uncertainty in the customer's willingness to interact with back-office service providers.
D) All of the above are sources of customer-introduced variability.

Question 33

The customer is a part of the service delivery process and may introduce inefficiencies into the service delivery system.

Question 34

Which of the following is NOT a finding of research on global offshoring of services?

A) Services involving transaction processing are commonly offshored and are viewed as commodity services.
B) The global supply of talented service workers may be shrinking, causing organizations to move fast to hire them.
C) Global service providers have proven the ability to deliver consistently high quality, explaining a big part of outsourcing's popularity.
D) Engineering, legal services, and analytical work are leading categories of commonly offshored service work.

Question 35

Which of the following is a common potential benefit of outsourcing services?

A) Increased control over the service delivery.
B) Increased ability to focus on core competencies.
C) Decreased need to attend to people (customers of the service) allowing greater focus on processes.
D) Decreased need to control the quality of the service because it is outsourced.

Question 36

Implicit service is also known as tangible service.

Question 37

Which of the following is correct concerning high-contact services?

A) To increase the efficiency of high-contact services, the organization should look to reduce the amount of customer-introduced uncertainty by limiting customization.
B) It is easier to smooth the peaks and valleys of demand for high-contact services than for low-contact services.
C) High-contact services are generally less variable and easier to price competitively.
D) All of the above.

Question 38

The most important factor for improving employee satisfaction in the service-profit chain is

A) employee retention.
B) revenue growth.
C) internal service quality.
D) customer satisfaction.

Question 39

Which of the following is NOT true regarding service recovery and guarantees?

A) Service failure can result in a satisfactory overall experience for the customer if the recovery is prompt and done well.
B) A service guarantee can motivate employees to deliver high-quality service.
C) Research indicates open-ended guarantees are more effective with customers because they don't spell out exactly the service recovery plan.
D) Service guarantees are a source of insight to how the service delivery system can be improved.

Question 40

Which of the following is considered a back-office process?

A) A follow-up phone call to a computer repair customer for information not gathered when the computer was dropped off for repair.
B) A customer picking up a furniture purchase from a store's loading dock.
C) Servicing a hotel guest's room (emptying trash, replacing towels) while the guest is out.
D) All are considered back-office processes.

Question 41

Co-routed services offer a larger amount of choices to customers than do customer-routed services.

Question 42

According to the service profit chain,employees are more likely to be satisfied when management works to improve internal service quality.

Question 43

Describe the difference in service delivery system design for customer-routed services versus provider-routed services.

Question 44

McDonald's uses what Levitt refers to as "the job shop type approach to service."

Question 45

Describe differences in sales opportunities and production efficiency for varying levels of customer contact.

Question 46

A small improvement in customer loyalty can substantially improve the profitability of a service firm.

Question 47

Identify some of the prominent differences between service operations and manufacturing operations.Describe the challenges that are unique to service operations,and describe some methods to overcome them.

Question 48

Design a service product bundle for a new airline company operating between Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport (MSP)and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).The route between MSP and LAX is extremely competitive with several major airlines providing daily service.How can your design help the new airline company dominate the existing competition?

Question 49

The major difference between the service delivery system matrix and the product-process matrix is that service process design generally does not vary with customer volume.

Question 50

What are the five types of customer-induced variability that affect service operations,according to Frei?

Question 51

Service guarantees are only for consumers outside the firm,and do not apply to internal customer relationships within a firm.

Question 52

Outsourcing is the export of service activities to other countries.

Question 53

High-contact services are more likely to be front-office operations,and low-contact services are more likely to be back-office operations.