continuation prelims

Question 1

where the customer is in physical proximity to and interacts with a human service provider.

Answer 1

MODE TECHNOLOGY-FREE SERVICE ENCOUNTER

Question 2

only the service provider has access to the technology to facilitate the delivery of face-to-face service

Answer 2

MODE TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED SERVICE ENCOUNTER

Question 3

both the customer and service providers have access to the same technology

Answer 3

MODE IS CALLED TECHNOLOGY-FACILITATED SERVICE ENCOUNTER

Question 4

the customer and human service provider are not
colocated physically and, thus, the service encounter
no longer is the traditional “face-to- face” contact

Answer 4

MODE TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED SERVICE ENCOUNTER

Question 5

the human service provider is replaced entirely with technology that allows the customer to self- serve (i.e., outsourcing the job to the customers).

Answer 5

MODE TECHNOLOGY-GENERATED SERVICE ENCOUNTER

Question 6

is a pattern of beliefs and expectations that is
shared by the organization’s members and produces
norms that powerfully shape the behavior of individuals or groups in organizations.

Answer 6

culture

Question 7

does not begin with delegation but by trusting the inherent power unconditionally within employees to evaluate choices and competently execute creative decisions.

Answer 7

empowerment

Question 8

it should have personality attributes that include flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity, an ability to monitor and change behavior based on situational cues, and empathy for customers.

Answer 8

Customer contact personnel

Question 9

Most training manuals and employee handbooks
for customer-contact personnel are devoted to explaining the technical skills that are needed to perform the jobs.

Answer 9

Training

Question 10

A failure in the service delivery system places a communication burden on the contact personnel. Service failures, however, provide a unique opportunity for contact personnel to demonstrate innovation and flexibility in their recovery.

Answer 10

Service Failure

Question 11

Every purchase is an event of some importance for the customer, whereas the same transaction usually is routine for the service provider.

true or false

Answer 11

true

Question 12

This customer wants to maximize the value obtained
for his or her expenditures of time, effort, and money

Answer 12

ECONOMIZING CUSTOMER

Question 13

This customer feels a moral obligation to patronize
socially responsible firms.

Answer 13

ETHICAL CUSTOMER

Question 14

This customer wants interpersonal gratification, such as recognition and conversation, from the service
experience.

Answer 14

PERSONALIZING CUSTOMER

Question 15

This customer has no interest in shopping for the service; convenience is the secret to attracting him or her. They are often are willing to pay extra for
personalized or hassle-free service, witness the success of Amazon Prime service.

Answer 15

CONVENIENCE CUSTOMER

Question 16

This results in superior service practices and procedures that are observable by customers and, further, seem to fit employee views of the appropriate style for dealing with customers.

Answer 16

Creating a customer service orientation

Question 17

The loyal customer values improved productivity and more personalized service. Both parties enjoy the satisfaction of a more human relationship.

true or false

Answer 17

true

Question 18

This also suggests a lesson for management. The way management relates to the contact personnel (or internal customers) is reflected in how the external customers are treated.

Answer 18

satisfaction duality

Question 19

This proposes a relationship that links profitability, customer loyalty, and service value to employee satisfaction, capability, and productivity.

Answer 19

service profit chain

Question 20

also can be aided by facility designs that allow customers to see both into and through the
space.

Answer 20

orientation

Question 21

The physical environment or ____ of the supporting facility influences both customer and employee behavior and should be designed with an image and feel that is congruent with the service concept.

Answer 21

servicescape

Question 22

is the average time between completions of successive
units.

Answer 22

cycle time

Question 23

is the operation that limits production, it is usually the slowest operation

Answer 23

bottleneck

Question 24

is a measure of output per unit of time when fully busy (i.e., activity is never idle). The unconstrained capacity of any operation is measured as 1/CT

Answer 24

capacity

Question 25

is a measure of how much actual output is achieved relative to the process capacity when fully busy.

Answer 25

capacity utilization

Question 26

is the time it takes to complete a process from time of arrival to time of exit. It is the sum of the critical path operation times plus the average time spent waiting.

Answer 26

THROUGHPUT TIME

Question 27

is a measure of the percentage of time that workers actually contribute value to a fully busy service organization.

Answer 27

DIRECT LABOR UTILIZATION

Question 28

The ability to perform the promised service both dependably and accurately.

Answer 28

reliability

Question 29

The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service.

Answer 29

responsiveness

Question 30

The knowledge and courtesy of employees as well as their ability to convey trust and confidence.

Answer 30

assurance

Question 31

The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials. The condition of the physical surroundings (e.g., cleanliness) is tangible evidence of the care and attention to detail that are exhibited by the service provider.

Answer 31

tangibles

Question 32

is the discrepancy between customer expectations and management perceptions of these expectations

Answer 32

market research gap

Question 33

results from management’s inability to formulate a service design that meets perceptions of customer expectations and translates these into workable service standards

Answer 33

design gap

Question 34

occurs because actual delivery of the service does not meet the service standards set by management.

Answer 34

conformance gap

Question 35

results when customer perceptions are at odds with the intended service delivery.

Answer 35

communication gap

Question 36

The multiple dimensions of service quality are captured in the _____ instrument, which is an effective tool for surveying customer satisfaction that is based on the service quality gap model.

Answer 36

SERVQUAL

Question 37

Customers are asked to record their level of agreement or disagreement with the statements using a ____-point Likert scale.

Answer 37

seven

Question 38

The ____ statements in the survey describe all aspects of the five dimensions of service quality.

Answer 38

22

Question 39

is an opportunity to evaluate the service experience from a customer’s perspective, because customers often become aware of cues the employees and managers might overlook.

Answer 39

walk-through audit (WtA)

Question 40

summarizes the progressive steps in quality development.

Answer 40

service quality ladder

Question 41

is shown as the first rung because organizations usually begin here with their first attempts to address quality problems (e.g., checking hotel rooms after cleaning).

Answer 41

inspection

Question 42

______is shown as the top rung because quality should be recognized as a basic customer requirement that must be incorporated into the design of the service delivery process.

Answer 42

Quality function deployment

Question 43

quality assurance during service delivery

Answer 43

statistical process control

Question 44

employee empowerment and responsibility for quality

Answer 44

quality training programs

Question 45

quantifying the cost of poor quality

Answer 45

cost of quality

Question 46

focus operations and marketing on a service performance measure

Answer 46

unconditional service guarantee

Question 47

design service process for robustness and foolproof operation

Answer 47

quality service by design

Question 48

define voice of the customer in operational terms

Answer 48

quality function deployment

Question 49

This inexpensive approach is easy to implement, but it can be haphazard.

Answer 49

CASE-BY-CASE APPROACH

Question 50

uses a protocol to handle customer complaints. This technique is more reliable than the case-by-case approach because it is a planned response based on identification of critical failure points and prior determination of appropriate recovery criteria

Answer 50

SYSTEMATIC-RESPONSE APPROACH

Question 51

adds another component to the systematic-response approach by attempting to intervene and fix service-process problems before they affect the customer.

Answer 51

EARLY INTERVENTION APPROACH

Question 52

An alternate approach capitalizes on the failure of a rival to win the competitor’s customer by providing a substitute service recovery. At times the rival firm may support this approach.

Answer 52

SUBSTITUTE SERVICE RECOVERY

Question 53

Focusing on satisfying customers’ needs should be paramount in workers’ minds. This requires an attitude of putting the customer first and a belief that this principle is the object of one’s work.

Answer 53

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Question 54

To encourage scientific thinking, objective data must be collected and presented to management for decision making. This approach requires formal data gathering and statistical analysis of the data by the quality improvement teams.

Answer 54

MANAGEMENT BY FACTS

Question 55

A companywide quality-improvement program assumes that all employees have a capacity for self-motivation and for creative thought. Employees are given support, and their ideas are solicited in an environment of mutual respect.

Answer 55

respect for people

Question 56

begins with the selection of the problem. Problems will appear as changes to important customer indicators, such as rate of defections or complaints.

Answer 56

Plan

Question 57

Implement the solution or process change perhaps on a trial basis. Monitor the implementation plan by collecting data on performance measures and noting progress against milestones.

Answer 57

Do

Question 58

Review and evaluate the result of the change. Check that the solution is having the intended effect and note any unforeseen consequences.

Answer 58

Check

Question 59

Reflect and act on learning from the experience. If successful, the process changes are standardized and communicated to all involved workers with training in new methods as needed

Answer 59

Act

Question 60

The measure of the quality of a firm's performance can be made by comparison with the performance of other companies which is a process known as

Answer 60

benchmarking

Question 61

W. Edwards Deming generally is credited with initiating the highly successful Japanese quality revolution. In Deming’s view, management was responsible for 85 percent of all quality problems and, therefore, had to provide the leadership in changing the systems and processes that created them. Management needed to refocus attention on meeting customer needs and on continuous improvement to stay ahead of the competition

Answer 61

DEMING’S 14-POINT PROGRAM

Question 62

series of quality management system standards has become a de facto requirement for doing business in many industries, despite the fact that it is a voluntary standard.

Answer 62

ISO 9001

Question 63

ISO (derived from the Greek word for “___”) is a series of quality standards defined by the International Organization for Standardization, which is a consortium of the world’s industrialized nations.

Answer 63

same

Question 64

is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company’s operational performance by identifying and eliminating defects to enhance customer satisfaction

Answer 64

SIX SIGMA

Question 65

is an extension of lean principles pioneered by the Toyota Production System (TPS) with as focus on waste elimination, continuous flow, and customer demand pull, and is referred to in manufacturing as Just-in-Time production. Its objective is a continuous rapid flow of value-adding activities to satisfy customer needs.

Answer 65

Lean Service

Question 66

is a tool central to Lean Service that maps out a process to uncover opportunities for improvement by using lean management concepts.

Answer 66

Value-stream mapping (VSM)

Question 67

Tools such as Service Blueprinting reveal potential sources for process improvement.

Answer 67

PROCESS FLOW IMPROVEMENTS

Question 68

Small continuous-improvement teams, formed with colleagues who meet on a weekly basis to identify local problems, evaluate solution alternatives, and implement solutions, can generate significant savings. Typical names given to such teams are Lean Team, Kaizen Team, or Quality Circle.

Answer 68

INTERNAL GROUPS FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS

Question 69

Services that are sensitive to cleanliness, such as restaurants and hospitals, can enhance customers’ perceptions of quality by achieving superior housekeeping

Answer 69

BETTER HOUSEKEEPING

Question 70

Food chains such as McDonald’s and hotel chains such as Marriott aim at consistency as a quality measure by standardizing the service delivery process across the chain. The subsequent predictability results in service offerings and resource efficiencies that make the firm much leaner

Answer 70

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN SERVICE DELIVERY

Question 71

Flexibility in resource usage gives a firm the ability to utilize a common resource for multiple operations. The challenge lies in quick changeovers between operations to avoid delay.

Answer 71

RESOURCE FLEXIBILITY

Question 72

A lean service firm can adopt a customer-driven demand pull- system. For example, the kitchens of some Wendy’s restaurants face the parking entry, so that the cooks can start processing fresh beef patties on the grill as cars enter the parking lot

Answer 72

PULL-SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

Question 73

Service firms can level resource utilization by managing supply and demand appropriately.

Answer 73

LINE BALANCING

Question 74

Flexibility in resource usage gives a fLean implementations in services typically lead to better space management.

Answer 74

LAYOUT IMPROVEMENTS

Question 75

Muda is a Japanese term for wastes of different types.

Answer 75

LOOKING FOR MUDAS IN SERVICES

Question 76

A service firm vendor could be a supplier of human resources with the necessary skills to perform a particular operation.

Answer 76

SUPERIOR VENDOR MANAGEMENT