单项选择题

A guest at the Holiday Inn on Union Square in San Francisco is attempting to turn on the radio in his room. Not matter which button he pushes, the radio will not play. Finally, the guest reports a defective (有毛病的) radio. A hotel employee soon arrives at the guest’s room with a new radio, a box of chocolates, and flowers. As for the radio already in the room, the employee turns it on without difficulty and quickly reassures the guest that the radio is tricky to operate. The employee shows the guest how to work the radio and pleasantly exits the room, leaving the radios, the chocolates and the flowers.
An elderly woman is in her favorite food store, Ukrop’s Super Market of Richmond, Virginia. She picks up a large pineapple from the display case, holds it for several moments, and then returns it with obvious reluctance. Ukrop’s president, James Ukrop, witnesses this scene and asks the customer if she would like to buy half of the pineapple, indicating that the store would be glad to cut it in half. The customer accepts and states how she looks forward to visiting Ukrop’s because the staff is so friendly and makes her feel so welcome.
Night after night, in Aurora, Colorado, police officers answer calls for break ins of cars parked outside a local dance hall. One officer notes that the burglaries usually involve purses of female customers who say they lock their handbags in their cars, fearing the bags would be stolen from unattended tables during dances. The officer then persuades the dance hall owner to install lockers and the burglary calls drop from dozens each month to two in four months.
These three stories emphasize our central argument, that is, the essence of services marketing is service. Service quality is the foundation of services marketing, for the core product being marketed is a performance. The performance is the product; the performance is what customers buy. A strong service concept gives companies the opportunity to compete for customers; a strong performance of the service concept builds competitiveness by earning customers’ confidence and reinforcing branding, advertising, selling, and pricing. The radio in the guest’s room at the Holiday Inn does not work because ______