NCSA Understanding Customer Behavior 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A customer who repeatedly purchases the same brand regardless of competitors' promotions is demonstrating which type of loyalty?
- Situational loyalty
- Spurious loyalty
- True loyalty (Correct answer)
- Inertia-based purchasing
Correct answer: True loyalty
True loyalty reflects both a high relative attitude toward a brand and repeated patronage behavior, even when alternatives are available.
Question 2: Which psychological concept explains why customers who receive a free sample are more likely to make a purchase?
- Anchoring bias
- Reciprocity principle (Correct answer)
- Social proof
- Scarcity effect
Correct answer: Reciprocity principle
The reciprocity principle states that people feel obligated to return a favor, making free samples a powerful driver of purchase behavior.
Question 3: A customer complains loudly in a store but does not contact the company directly. This behavior is best classified as:
- Voice response
- Exit response
- Third-party response (Correct answer)
- Loyalty response
Correct answer: Third-party response
Third-party response involves complaining to other people or public forums rather than directly to the company.
Question 4: What term describes the gap between what a customer expects and what they actually experience?
- Value variance
- Expectation disconfirmation (Correct answer)
- Service gap
- Perception drift
Correct answer: Expectation disconfirmation
Expectation disconfirmation theory holds that satisfaction results from the comparison between expectations and actual performance.
Question 5: A customer who switches providers after a single bad experience is most likely driven by:
- Low switching costs and unmet expectations (Correct answer)
- High brand equity
- Price sensitivity alone
- Social influence from peers
Correct answer: Low switching costs and unmet expectations
Customers with low switching costs and unmet expectations are most vulnerable to defection after a negative service encounter.
Question 6: Which customer segment is most likely to spread negative word-of-mouth after a poor service experience?
- Passive customers
- Promoters
- Detractors (Correct answer)
- Satisfied but indifferent customers
Correct answer: Detractors
Detractors, scoring 0–6 on the Net Promoter Scale, are unhappy customers who are most likely to share negative experiences with others.
Question 7: When a customer exaggerates a problem to gain a larger resolution, this is an example of:
- Customer delight seeking
- Opportunistic complaint behavior (Correct answer)
- Voice escalation
- Advocacy reversal
Correct answer: Opportunistic complaint behavior
Opportunistic complaint behavior occurs when customers exploit the complaint process to receive compensation beyond what the situation warrants.
NCSA Understanding Customer Behavior 2
A customer who repeatedly purchases the same brand regardless of competitors' promotions is demonstrating which type of loyalty?