services marketing ch. 2 customer gap – Flashcards

the difference between customer expectations and perceptions

standards or reference points that customers bring into the service experience - what they believe should happen.

subjective assessments of actual service experiences.

These gaps need to be closed to close the important customer gap. They occur within the organization that provides the service. 1. listening gap 2. service design and standards gap 3. service performance gap 4. communication gap

difference between customer expectations of service and company understanding of those expectations.

- Inadequate customer research orientation (insufficient customer research, not focused on service quality, not utilizing market research) - Lack of upward communication (not enough interaction bet. management/customers, employees/managers, too many layers bet. contact personnel/ top management) - insufficient relationship focus (lack market segmentation, focus on transaction not relation, focus on new customer over relationship customer) - Inadequate service recovery (don't listen to complaints, don't make amends when things go wrong, no recovery mechanism during failures)

Difference bet. company understanding of customer expectations and the development of customer-driven service designs and standards.

1. Poor service design (unsystematic, vague) 2. Absence of customer driven standards (lack of customer-driven service standards, no service quality goals) 3. Inappropriate physical evidence and servicescape (dont have tangibles in line w/ customer expectations, design doesn't meet customer/employee needs)

physical setting where service is delivered

everything from business cards, internet presence, equipment, facilities used to deliver service

discrepancy bet. the development of customer-driven service standards and actual service performance by company emyployees

operations standards set to correspond to customer expectations and priorities rather than to company concerns like productivity/efficiency

1. deficiencies in human resource policies (ineffective recruitment, role conflict, bad employee job fit, lack of teamwork, empowerment) 2. Failure to match supply/demand (over rely on price to smooth demand, inappropriate customer mix) 3. Customers not fulfilling roles (customers lack knowledge of roles/responsibilities, customers neg. impact each other) 4. problems w/ service intermediaries (channel conflict over objectives/performance and costs/rewards. Hard to control quality/consistency, tension bet. power or control)

retailers, franchisees, agents, brokers,

difference bet. service delivery and service providers external communications. - discrepancy bet. actual and promised services

1. lack of integrated services marketing communications (view each external communication as independent, absence of strong internal marketing program) 2. Ineffective management of customer expectations (not educating customers) 3. over-promising (in advertising, personal selling, physical evidence cues) 4. inadequate horizontal communications (bet. sales/ operations, adv. and operations, different policies across units) 5. Inappropriate pricing ( high prices raise customer expectations)