Question 1

The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, maintains its five-star rating by focusing on five service characteristics: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. The hotel has been updating rooms built in the early part of the 20th century to meet the needs of 21st-century visitors. To accomplish this, it spent millions in improvements, renovating rooms, and adding a new outdoor pool complex. These renovations focus on the ________ service characteristic.

Accepted Answer

Tangibles refer to the physical appearance of the service facility and any tangible materials associated with the service. Renovating rooms and adding new amenities like an outdoor pool complex are examples of improvements that focus on the tangibles service characteristic.

Question 2

A systematic ________ program collects customer inputs and integrates them into managerial decisions.

Accepted Answer

A voice-of-customer program is designed to collect customer inputs through various channels such as surveys, focus groups, and social media, and then integrate those inputs into managerial decisions. This helps businesses understand customer needs and preferences, improve products and services, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. A quality gap analysis identifies gaps between customer expectations and perceived service quality, while empowerment involves giving employees more autonomy and authority to make decisions. The zone of tolerance refers to the range of acceptable service quality, and standards analysis involves measuring performance against industry benchmarks and best practices.

Question 3

Yum Yum Ice Cream Shoppe provides each employee with a clean, sharp-looking uniform. It also instructs employees to keep the work area neat, tidy, and uncluttered. Yum Yum Ice Cream Shoppe emphasizes ________ in the five service quality dimensions.

Accepted Answer

Tangibles dimension focuses on the physical appearance of facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials. The provision of employee uniforms and emphasis on neatness and tidiness of the work area falls under the tangibles dimension.

Question 4

Which service gap is the Hotel Arista trying to address when it takes time and spends up to $1,700 to train a new employee?

Accepted Answer

The answer of Which service gap is the Hotel Arista...

Question 5

Today, almost every sales rep can immediately check the company's inventory and production schedule electronically. This allows sales reps to sell what is available and make promises to customers that they can keep. This technology has improved service delivery through

Accepted Answer

The technology mentioned in the text allows sales reps to immediately check inventory and production schedules electronically, giving them greater ability to obtain information about what products are available for sale.

Question 6

The ________ gap can be reduced by managing consumers' expectations and promising only what can be delivered or possibly even a little less.

Accepted Answer

The communication gap refers to the difference between what a company promises to deliver and what it actually delivers. Managing consumers' expectations by promising only what can be delivered or possibly even a little less helps in reducing this gap.

Question 7

The service dimension called ________ refers to the ability of the firm's employees to convey trust and confidence.

Accepted Answer

Assurance specifically refers to the ability of the firm's employees to convey trust and confidence to customers, which fits the description given in the question. Reliability and responsiveness are also service dimensions, but they do not directly relate to conveying trust and confidence. Empathy and tangibles are also service dimensions, but they focus more on understanding and meeting the customer's needs and providing physical evidence of the service.

Question 8

To meet or exceed customers' expectations, marketers must

Accepted Answer

To meet or exceed customers' expectations, marketers must first determine what those expectations are. This involves conducting market research, gathering feedback from customers, and analyzing consumer behavior to understand what they want and need from a product or service. Once marketers have this information, they can tailor their marketing efforts to meet these expectations and create a positive customer experience. Knowing where customers live or how often they buy products may be useful information, but it is not directly related to meeting or exceeding their expectations. Recognizing that expectations are intangible is also important, as they may be based on emotions, past experiences, or cultural norms, rather than concrete factors. Empowering customers to meet their own expectations is a customer-centric approach, but marketers still need to understand and anticipate these expectations to provide effective support and resources.

Question 9

Bryan has been directed by his boss to determine if the company is meeting customers' service quality expectations. One of Bryan's problems is that services are ________, making evaluation of service quality difficult.

Accepted Answer

The term "intangible" refers to services that cannot be seen, touched, or felt, making it difficult to evaluate their quality. This is a common challenge in the service industry, as opposed to tangible goods that can be physically inspected and measured.

Question 10

Although firms such as restaurants have difficulty controlling service quality from day to day, they do have control over

Accepted Answer

Restaurants can control how they communicate the services they promise through advertising, menus, and other marketing efforts. This can help manage customer expectations and shape perceptions of service quality. The other options are not within a restaurant's direct control.

Question 11

Professor Thompson is a seasoned professor. When students seek her out to advise them, she never turns them away because she believes that with all her years of experience, she can help them. The students, in turn, are confident in her and trust her advice. For these students, ________ is the most important of the five service quality dimensions.

Accepted Answer

Assurance is the most important dimension in this context because it reflects the students' confidence in Professor Thompson's knowledge and ability to help, which is based on her experience and the trust they place in her advice.

Question 12

If a firm promises more than it can deliver,

Accepted Answer

Promising more than what can be delivered creates a communication gap between the firm and consumers. This can harm the trust and reputation of the firm.

Question 13

The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, maintains its five-star rating by focusing on five service characteristics: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. Employees are instructed to always address a guest by name, if possible. To accomplish this, employees are trained to listen and observe carefully to determine a guest's name. Which service characteristic is this an example of?

Accepted Answer

Addressing a guest by name to make them feel valued and understood is an example of empathy, which involves showing care and personalized attention to customers.

Question 14

When choosing where to eat lunch, Sharon looks for restaurants where she will be seated promptly and served her meal quickly. For Sharon, ________ is the most important of the five service quality dimensions.

Accepted Answer

Sharon values responsiveness the most, as she prioritizes being seated and served quickly.

Question 15

US Bank uses a complex polling system coupled with a customer response measurement system to assess consumers' responses to new products and services. US Bank is using a(n)________ program to improve service quality and service offerings.

Accepted Answer

US Bank is using a voice-of-customer program to assess consumers' responses to new products and services. The use of a polling system and customer response measurement system are both components of a voice-of-customer program. The goal of this type of program is to better understand the needs and wants of customers and use that information to improve service quality and offerings.

Question 16

Physicians regularly overstate the expected recovery time from surgery, knowing that managing patients' expectations will reduce the ________ gap associated with their service.

Accepted Answer

Physicians overstate recovery times to manage expectations, reducing the communication gap between what patients expect and what is delivered.

Question 17

Lisa will only let André do her pedicure. She has tried other manicurists, but she knows from experience that André makes her toenails look perfect every time. For Lisa, ________ is the most important of the five service quality dimensions.

Accepted Answer

The most important service quality dimension for Lisa is reliability, as she values the consistency and trustworthiness in the service provided by André.

Question 18

Calvin Hardware was in bad financial shape. It owed so much money that vendors put the store on a cash-only delivery basis. As a result, the store had a dwindling inventory of goods to sell. The owner directed the sales staff to tell any customer asking about an unavailable item that it was on backorder and would be in stock the following week. When customers returned a week later as instructed, the item would still be unavailable. The owner's policy created a(n)________ gap.

Accepted Answer

The owner's policy to direct the sales staff to provide false information to customers about the availability of products creates a communication gap. The customers are not receiving accurate information, and this can result in loss of trust and credibility for the store.

Question 19

Brenda works at a car repair center. On Tuesday she received a call from a distraught long-time customer, Stefan, who needed his car repaired quickly so he could take his son to college. After carefully listening to Stefan, Brenda made sure to address him by name as they worked out a plan. Which aspect of service quality is Brenda using in her response?

Accepted Answer

Brenda is showing empathy by addressing Stefan by name and taking his situation into consideration.

Question 20

Because services are intangible, it is often difficult for customers to determine how a service meets their expectations, which marketers call

Accepted Answer

Service quality refers to customers' overall evaluation of a service based on their perception of the service's ability to meet their needs and expectations. Because services are intangible, customers often have difficulty determining how a service will meet their expectations, making service quality a crucial factor in the success of a service-based business.

Quiz 13: Services: the Intangible Product