Managing Customer Expectations in marketing

Managing Customer Expectations in marketing:-

Customers form service expectations from many sources, such as past experiences, word of mouth, and advertising. In general, customers compare the perceived service with the expected service.67 If the perceived service falls below the expected service, customers are disappointed. Successful companies add benefits to their offering that not only satisfy customers but surprise and delight them. Delighting customers is a matter of exceeding expectations.68 The service-quality model in Figure 13.6 highlights the main requirements for delivering high service quality.69 It identifies five gaps that cause unsuccessful delivery: 1. Gap between consumer expectation and management perception—Management does not always correctly perceive what customers want. Hospital administrators may think patients want better food, but patients may be more concerned with nurse responsiveness. 2. Gap between management perception and service-quality specification—Management might correctly perceive customers’ wants but not set a performance standard. Hospital administrators may tell the nurses to give “fast” service without specifying it in minutes. 3. Gap between service-quality specifications and service delivery—Employees might be poorly trained, or incapable of or unwilling to meet the standard; they may be held to conflicting standards, such as taking time to listen to customers and serving them fast. 4. Gap between service delivery and external communications—Consumer expectations are affected by statements made by company representatives and ads. If a hospital brochure shows a beautiful room but the patient finds it to be cheap and tacky looking, external communications have distorted the customer’s expectations. CONSUMER MARKETER Word-of-mouth communications Personal needs Past experience Expected service Perceived service Service delivery (including preand post-contacts) External communications to consumers Translation of perceptions into service-quality specifications Management perceptions of consumer expectations |Fig. 13.6| Service-Quality Model Sources: A. Parasuraman, Valarie A. Zeithaml, and Leonard L. Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing (Fall 1985), Reprinted with permission of the American Marketing Association. The model is more fully discussed or elaborated in Valarie Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner, and Dwayne D. Gremler, Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm, Gap between perceived service and expected service—This gap occurs when the consumer misperceives the service quality. The physician may keep visiting the patient to show care, but the patient may interpret this as an indication that something really is wrong. Based on this service-quality model, researchers identified five determinants of service quality, in this order of importance:

1. Reliability—The ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
2. Responsiveness—Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
3. Assurance—The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
4. Empathy—The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers.
5. Tangibles—The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials. Based on these five factors, the researchers developed the item SERVQUAL scale. They also note there is a zone of tolerance, or a range where a service dimension would be deemed satisfactory, anchored by the minimum level consumers are willing to accept and the level they believe can and should be delivered. The service-quality model highlights some of the gaps that cause unsuccessful service delivery. Subsequent research has extended the model. One dynamic process model of service quality was based on the premise that customer perceptions and expectations of service quality change over time, but at any one point they are a function of prior expectations about what will and what should happen during the service encounter, as well as the actual service delivered during the last contact. Tests of the dynamic process model reveal that the two different types of expectations have opposite effects on perceptions of service quality.

1. Increasing customer expectations of what the firm will deliver can lead to improved perceptions of overall service quality.
2. Decreasing customer expectations of what the firm should deliver can also lead to improved perceptions of overall service quality.


SERVQUAL Attributes Reliability Empathy • Providing service as promised • Giving customers individual attention • Dependability in handling customers’ service problems • Employees who deal with customers in a caring fashion • Performing services right the first time • Having the customer’s best interests at heart • Providing services at the promised time • Employees who understand the needs of their customers • Maintaining error-free records • Convenient business hours • Employees who have the knowledge to answer customer questions Responsiveness Tangibles • Keeping customer informed as to when services will be performed • Modern equipment • Prompt service to customers • Visually appealing facilities • Willingness to help customers • Employees who have a neat, professional appearance • Readiness to respond to customers’ requests • Visually appealing materials associated with the service Assurance • Employees who instill confidence in customers • Making customers feel safe in their transactions • Employees who are consistently courteous Source: A. Parasuraman, Valarie A. Zeithaml, and Leonard L. Berry, “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research,” Journal of Marketing (Fall 1985), Reprinted by permission of the American Marketing Association. DESIGNING AND MANAGING SERVICES | Much work has validated the role of expectations in consumers’ interpretations and evaluations of the service encounter and the relationship they adopt with a firm over time.Consumers are often forward-looking with respect to their decision to keep or switch from a service relationship. Any marketing activity that affects current or expected future usage can help to solidify a service relationship. With continuously provided services, such as public utilities, health care, financial and computing services, insurance, and other professional, membership, or subscription services, customers have been observed to mentally calculate their payment equity—the perceived economic benefits in relationship to the economic costs. In other words, customers ask themselves, “Am I using this service enough, given what I pay for it?” Long-term service relationships can have a dark side. An ad agency client may feel that over time the agency is losing objectivity, becoming stale in its thinking, or beginning to take advantage of the relationship.

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