SHORT-ANSWER ESSAYS



SHORT-ANSWER ESSAYS

Chapter 4: The Consumer Decision Process In Services Marketing

1. Explain the relevance of search, experience, and credence attributes as they apply to services? Explain.

ANS:

• Search attributes--attributes that can be determined prior to purchase.

• Experience attributes--attributes that can be evaluated only during and after the production process.

• Credence attributes--attributes that cannot be evaluated confidently even immediately after receipt of the good or service.

• Due to intangibility, services possess few search attributes and are primarily characterized by experience and credence attributes.

2. Discuss the special considerations about services during the prepurchase stage of the consumer decision process.

ANS:

• As compared to goods, consumers of services during the prepurchase stage of the decision process perceive higher levels of risk to be associated with the purchase;

• tend to be more brand loyal;

• rely more on personal sources of information;

• tend to have fewer alternatives to consider; and

• often include self-provision as a viable alternative.

3. Discuss the special considerations about services during the consumption stage of the consumer decision process.

ANS:

• No service can be produced or used with either the consumer or the service firm absent.

• Due to the extended service delivery process, many believe that the consumer's postchoice evaluation occurs during and after, rather than just after, the use of services.

• From a marketer’s point of view, this provides the opportunity to directly influence that evaluation.

• Due to the client-company interface, the service provider is able to catch problems and change evaluations in a way that the manufacturer of a packaged good never could.

4. Discuss the special considerations about services during the postchoice stage of the consumer decision process.

ANS:

• The postpurchase evaluation of services is a complex process.

• The evaluation process begins soon after the customer makes the choice of the service firm he or she will be using and continues throughout the consumption and postchoice stages.

• The evaluation is influenced by the unavoidable interaction of a substantial number of social, psychological, and situational variables.

• Service satisfaction relies not only on the technical quality of the service and the four elements of the Servuction system--contact personnel, inanimate environment, other customers, and internal organization systems--but also on the synchronization of these elements in the service production/consumption process.

5. Describe models that attempt to explain the consumer's postpurchase evaluation.

ANS:

• Models which assist in our understanding of the consumer's postpurchase evaluation process include the expectancy disconfirmation model, the perceived-control perspective and the script perspective.

• In short, the expectancy disconfirmation model defines satisfaction as meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

• The perceived-control perspective proposes that during the service experience, the higher the level of control over the situation perceived by consumers, the stronger will be their satisfaction with the service.

• The script perspective proposes that in a service encounter customers perform roles, and their satisfaction is a function of "role congruence" -- whether or not the actual behaviors by customers and staff are consistent with the expected roles.

6. Explain why consumers of services tend to be more brand loyal.

ANS:

• Consumers are more brand loyal of services for the following reasons:

o Repeat purchases from the same provider reduces the amount of perceived risk associated with the purchase.

o Brand loyalty may also be higher due to the limited number of alternative choices available; and

o Consumers of services may be more brand loyal in the attempt to avoid switching costs.

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