Question: How can a firm make it easy

> What marketing and management challenges are raised by the use of intermediaries in a service setting?

> What are the approaches firms can take to create new services?

> How can positioning maps help managers better understand and respond to competitive dynamics?

> How can firms identify the factors that affect demand for their services?

> Why is periodic service process redesign necessary? What are the typical symptoms that indicate a service process is not working well?

> What is revenue management? How does it work? Which types of service operations benefit most from good revenue management systems, and why?

> Why should service marketers be concerned with new developments in mobile communications?

> What is meant by “distributing services?” How can an experience or something intangible be distributed?

> How can brands be used to tier service products?

> What are the six questions for developing an effective positioning strategy?

> What actions can firms take to adjust capacity to match demand more closely?

> How can consumer perceptions and emotions be considered in the design of service processes?

> What are some challenges in service communications? How can they be overcome?

> Why can’t we compare competitor prices dollar-for-dollar in a service context?

> What risks and opportunities does a retail service firm face when it adds electronic channels of delivery (a) paralleling a channel involving physical stores or (b) replacing the physical stores with a combined internet and call center channel? Give exam

> How can service firms build brand equity?

> Why should service firms focus their efforts? Describe the basic focus strategies, and give examples of how these work.

> Why is capacity management particularly important for service firms?

> Explain what is meant by the core product and supplementary services.

> Why is it important to develop service standards and targets?

> What can you learn from the Services Marketing Communications Funnel?

> What is the role of non-monetary costs in a business model, and how do they relate to the consumer’s value perceptions?

> What are the key factors driving the place and time decisions of service distribution?

> How is branding used in services marketing? What is the distinction between a corporate brand such as Marriott and the names of its various inn and hotel chains?

> What is the distinction between important and determinant attributes in consumer purchase decisions?

> What is meant by productive capacity in services?

> How can fail-safe methods be used to reduce service failures?

> In what ways do the objectives of services communications differ substantially from those of goods marketing? Describe four common educational and promotional objectives in service settings, and provide a specific example for each of the objectives you l

> How can a service firm compute its unit costs for pricing purposes? How does predicted and actual capacity utilization affect unit costs and profitability?

> How are the four levels of service performance defined? Based on your own service experiences, provide an example of a company for each category.

> What are the different options for service delivery? What factors do service firms need to take into account when using each of these options?

> What is the difference between enhancing and facilitating supplementary services? Give several examples of each type by referring to services you have used recently.

> Why are both soft and hard measures of service quality needed?

> Identify the gaps that can occur in service quality and the steps that service marketers can take to prevent them.

> Explain the relationships between service quality, productivity, and profitability.

> How can customer choice between services in their consideration set be modeled?

> How do concepts such as TQM, ISO 9000, Six Sigma and the Malcolm Baldrige and EFQM approaches relate to managing and improving service quality and productivity?

> How can you integrate all the tools in a nine-step approach to improve the quality and productivity of customer service processes?

> Why is productivity more difficult to measure in service than in manufacturing firms?

> What are the key customer feedback collection tools? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these tools?

> What are the main objectives of an effective customer feedback system?

> What are the main tools service firms can use to analyze and address service quality problems?

> In what ways can you, as a consumer, help to improve productivity for at least three service organizations that you patronize? Which distinctive characteristics of each service make some of these actions possible?

> How do customers typically respond to service failures?

> What are the different types of jay customers? How can a service firm deal with such customers?

> Under what conditions is it not suitable to introduce a service guarantee?

> Describe the building blocks for managing capacity and demand.

> How should service guarantees be designed? What are the benefits of service guarantees over and above a good complaint handling and service recovery system?

> How generous should compensations related to service recovery be?

> What is the service recovery paradox? Under what conditions is this paradox most likely to hold? Why is it best to deliver the service as planned, even if the paradox does hold in a specific context?

> Why would a firm prefer its unhappy customers to come forward and complain?

> Why don’t many more unhappy customers complain? What do customers expect the firm to do once they have filed a complaint?

> Why should a service recovery strategy be proactive, planned, trained, and empowered?

> How generous should compensation be? Review the following incident and comment. Then evaluate the available options, comment on each, select the one you recommend, and defend your decision. “The shrimp cocktail was half frozen. The waitress apologized a

> What would be an appropriate service recovery policy for a wrongly bounced check for (a) Your local savings bank, (b) A major national bank, and (c) A private bank for high net-worth individuals? Please explain your rationale and also compute the eco

> Why is targeting the ‘right customers’ so important for successful customer relationship management?

> What are the typical design elements of a service blueprint?

> Why is customer loyalty an important driver of profitability for service firms?

> Identify some key measures that can be used to create customer bonds and encourage long-term relationships with customers.

> What is tiering of services? Explain why it is used. What are its implications for firms and their customers?

> How can a firm build a foundation for loyalty?

> How do the various strategies described in the Wheel of Loyalty relate to one another?

> What is the role of churn management in an effective loyalty strategy, and what tools can be used to understand and reduce customer churn?

> Why benefits are related to the core service (e.g., customization, transaction convenience, and service priority) generally more effective in building loyalty than rewards that are unrelated to the core service (e.g., air miles)?

> What is the role of CRM in delivering a customer relationship strategy?

> Why are loyalty programs often important for a customer loyalty strategy?

> List five ways in which investment in hiring and selection, training, and ongoing motivation of employees will have a positive impact on customer satisfaction for organizations such as (a) A restaurant, (b) An airline, (c) A hospital, and (d) A consult

> What are the three broad target audiences of service communications?

> What are the key barriers for firms to break the Cycle of Failure and move into the Cycle of Success? How should an organization trapped in the Cycle of Mediocrity proceed?

> What is emotional labor? Explain the ways in which it may cause stress for employees in specific jobs. Illustrate with suitable examples.

> Why are service personnel so important for service firms?

> What is the relationship among organizational culture, climate for service, and leadership?

> How can a service firm build a strong service culture that emphasizes service excellence and productivity?

> Identify the factors needed to make service teams successful in (a) An airline, (b) A restaurant, and (c) A customer contact center. What are the factors that favor a strategy of employee empowerment?

> What can a service firm do to become a preferred employer and receive a large number of applications from the best potential candidates in the labor market?

> Describe the key components of the Service Talent Cycle.

> What are the key types of training service firms should conduct?

> How can a firm select the best suited candidates from a large number of applicants?

> How can the pricing tripod approach to service pricing be useful in setting a good pricing point for a particular service?

> Why is role modeling a desirable quality in service leaders?

> How can front-line employees be effectively motivated to deliver service excellence?

> Identify the factors needed to make service teams successful in (a) An airline, (b) A restaurant, and (c) A customer contact center.

> Which issues do you see as most likely to create boundary-spanning problems for employees in a customer-contact center at a major internet service provider? Select four issues and indicate how you would mediate between operations and marketing to create

> An airline runs a recruiting advertisement for cabin crew that shows a picture of a small boy sitting in an airline seat and clutching a teddy bear. The headline reads: “His mom told him not to talk to strangers. So what’s he having for lunch?” Describe

> What is the relationship or link between Russell’s Model of Affect and the services cape model?

> Describe how the Mehrabian-Russell Stimulus- Response Model and Russell’s Model of Affect explain consumer responses to a service environment.

> What are the four main purposes service environments fulfill?

> What tools are available for aiding our understanding of customer responses and for guiding the design and improvement of service environments?

> What are the implications of the fact that service environments are perceived holistically?

> Why is it important to consider the distribution of core and supplementary services both separately and jointly?

> What are the roles of signs, symbols, and artifacts?

> Explain the dimensions of ambient conditions and the ways in which each can influence customer responses to the service environment.

> Why do different customers and service staff respond very differently to the same service environment?

> Select a bad and a good waiting experience, and contrast the two situations with respect to the service environment and the other people waiting.

> Visit a self-service environment and analyze how the design dimensions guide you through the service process. Which elements do you find most effective, and which seem least effective? How can the environment be improved to make the “way-finding”

> Visit a service environment, and have a detailed look around. Experience the environment, and try to understand how the various design elements shape what you feel and how you behave in that setting.

> Explain how flexible capacity can be created in each of the following situations: (a) A local library, (b) An office-cleaning service, (c) A technical support help desk, (d) An Interflora franchise.

> Identify one website that is exceptionally user friendly and another that is not. What are the factors that make for a satisfying user experience in the first instance and a frustrating one in the second? Specify recommendations for improvements in the s

> Discuss the significance of search, experience, and credence attributes for the communications strategy of a service provider. Assume that the objective of the communications strategy is to attract new customers.

> Explain the Flower of Service concept and identify each of its petals. What insights does this concept provide for service marketers?