Will improving customer service result in higher stock prices for the companies providing the better service? "when a company's satisfaction score has improved over the prior year's results and is above the national average (currently ), studies show its shares have a good chance of outperforming the broad stock market in the long run." the following satisfaction scores of three companies for the 4th quarters of two previous years were obtained from the american customer satisfaction index. assume that the scores are based on a poll of customers from each company. because the polling has been done for several years, the standard deviation can be assumed to equal points in each case.

For example, the upper right cell shows that if expresso advertises and beantown doesn't advertise, expresso will make a profit of $15 million, and beantown will make a profit of $2 million. assume this is a simultaneous game and that expresso and beantown are both profit-maximizing firms. if expresso decides to advertise, it will earn a profit of $ million if beantown advertises and a profit of $ million if beantown does not advertise. if expresso decides not to advertise, it will earn a profit of $ million if beantown advertises and a profit of $ million if beantown does not advertise. if beantown advertises, expresso makes a higher profit if it chooses . if beantown doesn't advertise, expresso makes a higher profit if it chooses . suppose that both firms start off not advertising. if the firms act independently, what strategies will they end up choosing? expresso will choose to advertise and beantown will choose not to advertise. expresso will choose not to advertise and beantown will choose to advertise. both firms will choose to advertise. both firms will choose not to advertise.