Question: Why is periodic service process redesign necessary?

> What are “moments of truth”?

> What are the backstage elements of a. A car repair facility, b. An airline, c. A university, and d. A consulting firm? Under what circumstances would it be appropriate or even desirable to allow customers to see some of these backstage elements, and

> What are the five powerful forces transforming the service landscape, and what impact do they have on the service economy?

> What are the main reasons for the growing share 0f the service sector in all major economies of the world?

> What are the implications of the service–profit chain for service management?

> Why do the marketing, operations, human resource management, and IT functions need to be closely coordinated in service organizations?

> “The 4 Ps are all a marketing manager needs to create a marketing strategy for a service business.” Prepare a response that argues against this, and support it with examples.

> What is so special about services marketing that it needs a special approach?

> What is the difference between ideal capacity and maximum capacity? Provide examples of a situation where (a) The two might be the same and (b) The two are different.

> Describe the four broad “processing” categories of services, and provide examples for each.

> Explain how the concepts in Chapter 1 are relevant to the marketing of a religious institution, or a non-profit organization such as World Wildlife Fund.

> Why would growth in business services help individual firms and entire economies become more productive?

> Give examples of how Internet and telecommunications technologies (e.g., mobile commerce [M-Commerce] and apps) have changed some of the services you use.

> Visit the websites of the following national statistical bureaus: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (www. bea.gov); Eurostat (ec.europa.eu/eurostat); and the espective websites for your country if they are not covered here. In each instance, obtain data o

> How can you measure service quality?

> What are the five dimensions of service quality?

> What are the potential ways to implement IMC?

> How can service firms use residual service capacity after all strategies of matching supply and demand have been exhausted?

> How can companies use corporate design to differentiate themselves?

> How does blueprinting help us to better understand the service process from the perspectives of the key actors (i.e., customers and the employees from different service departments and functional areas) in a serviced process?

> What are the benefits of having an effective reservations system?

> How can you test whether an SST has the potential to be successful, and what can a firm do to increase its chances of customer adoption?

> What factors do service companies need to understand in order to choose a distribution strategy for going international that still allows it to control its intellectual property and sources of value creation?

> How can firms make waiting more pleasant for their customers?

> Explain what factors make customers like and dislike self-service technologies (SSTs).

> Why is word of mouth important for the marketing of services? How can a service firm that is the quality leader in its industry induce and manage word of mouth?

> What are the six key decisions managers need to make when designing an effective pricing schedule?

> What are the key drivers for the increasing globalization of services?

> What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of queues for an organization serving large numbers of customers? For which type of service might each of the queuing types be more suitable?

> Why does the customer’s role as a co-creator need to be designed into service processes?

> What are the 5 Ws along which the Integrated Service Communications Model is structured?

> Why is permission-based marketing gaining so much focus in service firms’ communications strategies?

> How can we charge different prices to different segments without customers feeling cheated? How can we even charge the same customer different prices at different times, contexts, and/or occasions and at the same time be seen as fair?

> Why do new services often fail? What are the factors associated with the successful development of new services?

> How can marketing mix elements be used to reshape demand patterns?

> What efforts are typically involved in service process redesign?

> What are the different forms of online marketing? Which do you think would be the most effective online-marketing strategies for a. An online broker and b. A new high-end club in Los Angeles?

> Why are ethical concerns important issues when designing service pricing and revenue management strategies? What are potential consumer responses to service pricing or policies that are perceived as unfair?

> Why is franchising a popular way to expand distribution of an effective service concept? What are some disadvantages of franchising, and how can they be mitigated?

> Describe what is meant by positioning strategy. How do the market, customer, internal, and competitive analyses relate to positioning strategy?

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

> Why is the pricing of services more difficult than the pricing of goods?

> What are the four key objectives of service process redesign?

> What roles do personal selling, advertising, and public relations play in a. Attracting new customers to visit a service outlet and b. Retaining existing customers?

> Explain the difference between physical and nonphysical rate fences using suitable examples.

> 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?

> 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?

> How can a firm make it easy for dissatisfied customers to complain?

> 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