Showing posts with label Service Marketing. Show all posts

Service customers are often able to accurately evaluate the technical skills of the service personnel for complex services, T or F

Answer: False

The case of Zappos and how this relates to customer defined standards

Efficient fulfillment processes such as static shelves, carousels, and the Kiva system allow orders to be shipped and delivered in a timely manner

• Process incoming merchandise within 24 hours
• Every product has a unique license plate number (LPN) to keep track of its history
• Team members can "put away" over 100 items per hour.
• "Pickers" retrieve products from shelves once orders are received.

Five principles of service design thinking?

1) User centered: everything should be experienced from the customer's point of view. This means that we need a certain amount of customer participation to be able to understand what our customers actually want and keep the service running.

2) Co-creative: We should include stakeholders in the service design process.

3)Sequencing; We should visualise the service as a sequence of interrelated actions. We have to consider the service timeline when we design a service, because rhythm really affects the mood of the customer. We should prototype services and test their impact on customers.

4)Evidencing; We should visualise intangible services in terms of physical artefacts. This means that we need to make customers aware of of the intangible service.

5) Holistic; We should consider the whole environment of the service. We need to remember that even though a service is intangible.

Difference between and importance of both hard standards and measures and soft standards and measures?

Hard standards and measure

• Things that can be counted, timed, or observed through audits (time, numbers of events)
Soft Standards and Measures

• Opinion-based measures that cannot be observed and must be collected by talking to customers (perceptions, beliefs)

Four steps in the Job-centric service innovation model?

STEP ONE:

• Determine what job or jobs customers are trying to get done by using current services and support
• Scan customer-firm touch points for insights on why current services are hired
• Ask the right questions of customers
• Deeply probe to reveal what customers are trying to achieve

STEP TWO:

• Determine whether the jobs for which customers are hiring current services are part of a larger process
• Determine if the jobs for which current services are hired are part of a more encompassing job process.
• Identify beginning and end points of the job customers are trying to get done
• Break down the customer job into a series of steps through job mapping

STEP THREE:

• Determine what opportunities exist to help customers get these jobs done better
• Capture customer outcomes at each step in the entire customer job
• Ensure outcomes are forward-looking measures of success from a customer perspective
• Determine which customer outcomes are important but poorly satisfied.

STEP FOUR:

• Invest time, talent and resources in value creation that will be most meaningful to customers and most differentiated from competitors
• Focus firm time, talent, and resources on unmet customer needs
• Consider innovations both in how services are delivered and what services are delivered
• Transform the customer's role from the buyer to a more active contributor in the value creation process
• Harness customer competence to provide symbiotic benefits to both organizations

What are the benefits for various users of service blueprinting?

o Provides an overview so employees can view service as an integrated whole-- reinforces a customer-orientation.
o Identifies fail points (& needs for recovery strategy development)
o Illuminates the customer's role and demonstrates where the customer experiences quality, contributing to informed service design.
o Promotes a conscious decision on what customers should see and which employees will be in contact with customers.
o Illuminates the elements and connections that constitute the service, which stimulates strategic discussions.
o Provides a basis for identifying and assessing cost, revenue and capital invested in each element of the service.
o Constitutes a rational basis for both external and internal marketing.

What are the stages in building a service blueprint?

Step 1: identify the process to the blueprinted
Step 2: Identify the customer or customer segment
Step 3: Map the process from the customer's point of view
Step 4: Map contact employee actions, onstage and back-stage, and/or technology actions
Step 5: Link contact activities to needed support functions
Step 6: Add evidence of service at each customer action step

What are service blueprint components?

o Customer Actions: the steps, choices, activities and interactions that the customer performs in the process of purchasing, consuming and evaluating the service.

• line of interaction: direct interactions between the customer and the organization.

o "Onstage" Contact Employee Actions: the steps and activities that the contact employee performs that are visible to the customer.

• line of visibility: Separates all service activities that are visible to the customer from those that are not visible.

o "Backstage" Contact Employee Actions: Those contact employee actions that occur behind the scenes to support the onstage activities.

• Line of internal interaction: Separates contact employee activities from those of service support processes and people.

o Support Processes: Covers the internal services, steps and interactions that take place to support the contact employees in delivering the service.

What is a Service Blueprint?

A service blueprint is a picture or map that visually displays the service system:

• the process of service delivery,
• the roles of customers and employees, and
• the visible elements of the

o A tool for simultaneously depicting the service process, the points of customer contact, and the evidence of service from the customer's point of view.

What are some benefits of relationship marketing for firms and customers?

Benefits for Customers:

• Receipt of greater value
Confidence benefits:
• trust, confidence in provider, reduced anxiety

Social benefits:

• familiarity, social support, personal relationships
Special treatment benefits:
• special deals, price breaks

Economic benefits:

• increased revenues, reduced marketing and administrative costs, regular revenue stream
Customer behavior benefits:
• strong word-of-mouth endorsements, customer voluntary performance, social benefits to other customers, mentors to other customers

Human resource management benefits:

• easier jobs for employees, social benefits for employees, employee retention

What is customer loyalty?

Shows Behavioral Commitment

• Buys from only one supplier, even though other options exist
• Increasingly buys more and more from a particular supplier
• Provides constructive feedback/suggestions

Exhibits Psychological Commitment

• Wouldn't consider terminating the relationship--psychological commitment
• Has a positive attitude about the supplier
• Says good things about the supplier

How does a product-focused strategy interfere with putting customers first?

o Using product profitability to drive product decisions can lead to a profitable product death spiral in which more and more products become unprofitable
o Because profitability comes from customers, not products, product decisions should be based on assortment of products a customer buys
o Keeping some unprofitable products may be necessary to retain some profitable customers
o Product-focused strategy can lead to predictable and disastrous results.

How do customers often see Customer Relationship Management?

o The company is in control
o Makes business better for the company
o Tracks customers by transaction
o Treats customers as segments
o Forces customers to do what you believe they'll want
o Customers feel stalked
o Organized around products and services

What is relational intelligence and how can firms improve it?

o The ability to learn, understand and comprehend knowledge as it relates to interpersonal dynamics. Increase self-awareness by developing new frameworks for relating to others.

What is retention equity?

o Customers' tendency to stick with the brand, above and beyond objective and subjective assessments of the brand
o Focuses on the "experienced" relationship between the customer and the firm, based upon the actions taken by the firm and by the customer to establish, build and maintain a high-quality relationship.

What is relationship marketing?

The philosophy of doing business, a strategic orientation, that focuses on keeping and improving relationships with current customers rather than acquiring new customers. Less expensive to keep current customers than to attract new ones.