Discussion Questions

1. Using your own personal examples, discuss the general importance of customers in the
successful creation and delivery of service experiences.

The general importance of customers in the successful creation and delivery of service
experience is for the employees to take what the customer has to say into consideration and if
you cannot use their ideas, you give a good reason why.

2. Why might customer actions and attitudes cause the service performance gap to occur? Use
your own examples to illustrate your understanding.

Every customer is different with their own morals and values. It depends on how a customer
approach an employee about issues and problems. If customer approach an employee and state
his issue and give the employee time to correct this issue.

3. Describe a time when your satisfaction in a particular situation was increased because of

something another customer did. Could (or does) the organization do anything to ensure that
this experience happens routinely? What does it do? Should it try to make this situation a
routine occurrence?

Before I departed the military, I use to take all my soldiers/employees out to eat and a plaque
with the rest of the platoon that the individual work with, when they get ready to PCS/ leave the
military. The unit I was in never had anything like that for the lower enlisted soldiers, so I took it
upon myself to show them how much we appreciate them and all their hard work and this
process is still going on within the unit, which will bring up the soldiers morale.

I know this is not exactly what you are talking about but this is all that I can think of.

4. Discuss the customer’s role as a productive resource for the firm. Describe a time when you
played this role. What did you do and how did you feel? Did the firm help you perform your
role effectively? If so, how?

The customer is a potential participant in, not merely recipients of, service delivery.  The
customers have considerable discretion regarding the effort put forth and the range of actions
towards which their hard work is applied during service delivery. There was a time I went to
auto zone to borrow their test machine to see if my battery or alternator was going out on my
car. Instead of just showing me how to operate the machine they came out and did the work for
me. They actually talk me through all the steps that they were performing while I watched on.