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Reading 2/2:
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Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
1. Customer experience is the internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company. Direct contact generally occurs in the course of purchase.use, and service and is usually initiated by the customer. Indirect contact most often involves unplanned encounters with representations of a company's products, services, or brands and takes the form of word-of-mouth recommendations or criticisms, advertising, news reports, reviews, and so forth. Such an encounter could occur when Google's whimsical holiday logos pop up on the site's home page at the inception of a search, or it could be the distinctive "potato, potato" sound of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle's exhaust system. It might just be an email from one customer to another.
2. The secret to a good experience isn't the multiplicity of features on offer. Microsoft Windows, which is rich in features, may provide what a corporate IT director considers a positive experience, but many home users prefer Apple's Macintosh operating system, which offers fewer features and configuration options. A customer's experience with an Apple device begins well before the purchaser turns it on-in the case of the iPod, perhaps with the dancing silhouettes in the TV advertisements. The origami-like (and recyclable) packaging enfolds the iPod as though it were a Fabergé egg made for a czar. Even Windows users appreciate the device's intuitive, Mac-like feel and find that downloading tracks from iTunes is easier than buying a CD on Amazon. Every Apple product is designed with the OVERARCHING purpose of making the time one spends with Apple an enjoyable experience.3. A successful brand shapes customers' experiences by embedding the fundamental value proposition in their offerings every feature. For BMW, "the Ultimate Driving Machine" is much
more than a slogan; it informs the company's manufacturing and design choices. In 2000, Mercedes-Benz introduced a system that automatically controls the distance between a Mercedes
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and the car in front. BMW would not consider developing such a feature unless it amplified rather than diminished the driving experience.4. Service quality and scope matter, too, but mostly when the core offering is itself a service. For example, the tracking and shipping support FedEx provides on the internet and by phone is as important to customers as its fundamental value proposition-on-time delivery.
5. In their concern with logistics-how something is provided, not just what is provided-business-to-business companies take after consumer-service companies. For both, the goal is to provide a positive experience to the end user. The business partner or supplier of a B2B company helps the latter do that first by understanding where in its direct customers' value chain the B2B can make a meaningful contribution, and then when and how. A business's "experience," one might say, is its manner of functioning, and a B2B company helps its business customers serve their customers by solving their business problems, just as an effective business-to-consumer company fulfills the personal needs of its customers.
1) According to the text, what is customer experience primarily defined as?
A.the negative attitude customers have about a company B. the efficiency of a company's service and product delivery
. the number of product features offered by a company C
D.the customers' reaction from their interaction with a company
2) Which is NOT an example of a customer's indirect contact with a company?
A. reading the comments of other users about a product B. visiting a retail store and trying some product samples
C. being suggested by an acquaintance to try a product D. seeing a product on a large billboard outside a building
3) Why does the writer mention Google's holiday logos in the first paragraph?
. to present the necessity of unplanned encounters A
. to give an example of indirect contact B
C. to provide a specific case of direct contact D. to illustrate an interesting way of advertising
