A national cleaning service sent several crews to New Jersey and New York after Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The crews were trained to deal with mud, mildew, and all the problems of making a flooded home or building inhabitable again. The print and media ads that the cleaning service ran stated that the company had a patented system that would remove all unpleasant odors from flooded structures and leave a clean smell. Its sales reps who contacted owners of apartment complexes and shopping centers promised that the crews could come into an average size of apartment complex and have it looking and smelling like new in two weeks. Several people who rent apartments in the complexes that the service cleaned have commented unfavorably on the sweet smelling air freshener the company used to mask

Question

the smell and noted the moldy odor was still perceptible. Also, the time required to clean a complex was more like four weeks instead of the two as promised. Which provider gap does this example describe? List various strategies that can be used to narrow and possibly eliminate this provider gap.

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

This is an example of provider gap 4-there is a discrepancy between what is promised and what is delivered. In this example, there seems to have been ineffective management of customer expectations-the company promised two weeks on average. The two-week time frame apparently is correct when there is only one complex to clean, not several structures. The cleaning service should have made it clear that two weeks was not enough time given the situation. Also, it should have had examples of what it defined as a "clean smell." Customers should have been adequately educated. Furthermore, the company over-promised, which widened this gap. From the ads and the personal selling, the tenants expected their apartments to smell like they did before the flood-that didn't happen. Students may note that the gap could have been the sole result of inadequate horizontal communications. The marketing and sales department believed they were communicating what would happen and received no communications from the cleaning crews telling them differently.