SERVICES MARKETING

Consumer Expectations & Perceptions

Customer Expectations
The customer when buys a product or service has expectations
about;
Reliability of performance
Quality
These expectations can be low or high at different scales of rating
that a customer will use depending upon the choices / affordability
available.
Levels of Expectations
The levels of expectations could be;
a. The desired level the customer expects from the provider,
depending upon what he has learnt from various sources and
the price of the service
b. Adequate level the level of service the customer will accept
The desired and the adequate levels of expectations of service will
vary for different categories of service that he is looking forward to.
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Zone of Tolerance
Services are heterogeneous and the performance may therefore
vary across providers or the same provider
The customers by nature therefore recognise this and willingly
accept certain variations. This variation is known as the Zone of
Tolerance
However different customers possess different zones of tolerance
Every customer may not be having knowledge or the competing
services available and therefore among the customers the
tolerance zones may vary
Zone of tolerance will also vary with the Service Dimensions In
the case of eating out, one customer may be looking for quality of
food, but does not mind delay in service while someone in a hurry
may get annoyed due to delayed service
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Factors influencing Expectations of Service
Sources of Desired Service Expectations the sources could
be;
o Personal Needs in categories like physical, social,
psychological and functional.
Adopt a Strategy to educate customers as to how your
services help them
o Enduring Service Intensifiers (Derived Service
Expectations) when the expectations are driven by
another person or group of persons e.g. the Marketing
Manager of a company arranging lunch to be joined by the
customers, CEO and other senior executives. He has to
therefore see that the place, menu etc. are as per the
liking or expected liking of the people joining the lunch
Use MR to determine expectations/profile information
for designing services
Focus on advertising and marketing strategies
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Sources of Adequate Service Expectations
o Transitory Service Intensifiers emergency situations in
which a particular service is needed when queue gets
long for the customers or a breakdown of car happens, all
what you need is to get the vehicle going
Increase service delivery persons, and if you
understand by experience, provide more strength of
service people
o Perceived Service Alternatives if service provider is not
available, you have to get the service from the available
one and be satisfied as adequate service level
Be aware of what the customers want or what
competition is capable of
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
o Self Perceived Service Role when you are in knowledge
of the service, you will or will not take the quality of service
e.g. if you are a good cook, probably you can find ten faults
in the food
Educate customers that their participation can only
improve results
o Situational Factors In a riot torn city when the number of
injured are many, whatever medical service you get at that
time of emergency, you accept that as adequate
Assure customers about services recovery regardless
of situational factors
o Predicted Service is the service levels that the customers
believe are likely to receive. Some people expect the
service levels to be higher while some expect lower and
accordingly adequate level is influenced
Explain customers so that future encounters are not
estimated wrong
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Sources of DESIRED and PREDICTED Service Expectations
o Explicit Service promises are the non personal statements
made by the organisations in print, advertisements or any
other form and are personal when made by the sales persons
Make only realistic promises to customers
Get as fair information as possible before releasing
advertisements or printing leaflets
Formalise promises and get feedback from the
employees, s to how many times failure occurs on
promises
o Implicit Service promises are the ones that lead to
inferences what the service would be like. These may be due
to higher / lower prices or impressive tangibles
Service tangibles should reflect type and level of service
Price premiums being charged from the customers must
be justified by higher levels of performances
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
o Word-of-mouth communication these may be personal or
non-personal references by friends, customers or others
Simulate the word of mouth by using testimonials from
the customers/ from opinion leaders
o Past Experiences the previous exposures to service may
influence the expectations which may be below or above the
expected levels
Use MR or feedback from the employees on the past
experiences of the customers
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Customer Perceptions

In Service Marketing, Perception can be defined as Customers
Judgment about the service experience pertaining to value of the
service delivery, quality and customer satisfaction
Perceptions change over a period of time, from person to person,
from one culture to another etc

Service Encounters are the most important factors
Perceptions primarily are influenced by service encounters i.e. a
person going to bank and encounters (meets) various people of
different levels and based on his experience, perceptions are
formed
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Types of Service encounters
There are three types of service encounters;
Remote encounters are the ones where direct human contact
is not involved
e.g. ATM machines, voice mail service, online dealings

Phone encounters customer service centres for getting
information, feedback, complaints booking etc

Face to face encounters in hotels with the staff at various
places, restaurants, banks, stores etc

Evaluation of Service Encounters result in either satisfaction or
dissatisfaction and influence their perceptions
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
While the customers encounter with the service provider, certain
factors influence the customers, causing satisfaction or
dissatisfaction. Following are some of the factors;
Recovery is the situation when failure occurs and then how well
the service provider responded to the situation
e.g. Flight delay, delay in serving food, wrong service of dishes,
wrong booking of the room in hotel
the service provider must listen to the customers patiently,
analyse the problem at hand, if the mistake is clearly of the
company, accept and explain the reason, apologize and assure
customers to correct the mistake. If the problem is big enough,
offer additional benefits to satisfy them. This will reinforce
confidence in the customers
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Adaptability is the ability to deal with the special request or
needs of his customers
e.g. request of overdraft in a bank, special diet to patients on a
flight
Not all the time you have to say thats company policy. You
need to be flexible and as far as possible accept feasible
requests. Thats why one of the important aspect is empowering
the employee to settle any disputable situation
Spontaneity voluntary action of employees while delivering the
service to customers as required on the spot
e.g. in case of delay in flight, announcing snacks/coffee to the
passengers, certain restaurants offer additional drinks while the
waiting is long for the already booked tables
The employee should listen, show empathy and again it is
empowering the employees to take certain flexible approach to
the situations before it flares up into a dispute
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
Coping is the process of how employees manage Problem
Customer effectively
here the customers are themselves the problem and the
employees need to pacify agitated and disturbed customers
In such situations listen to them, try to accommodate, give
explanations to satisfy and still if the customer does not
understand, let go off

Service Evidence
Since the services are intangibles, the providers must manage
even the minute tangible clues associated with the service. The
evidence may be of three types;
1. Service personnel the ability of the person to be
friendly and enthusiastic will make the service tangible
SERVICES MARKETING
Consumer Expectations & Perceptions
2. Process of service delivery is the process of service
delivery and the flow of operations
placing order at fast food and then waiting for the token
number to be called for delivery
3. Physical Environment the ambience offered by the
service provider
Going to a place for meals where the ambience is good
(peaceful or crowded or loud music)