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Serviceencounteranddelivery1.pptxService Encounter and
Service Delivery
Marketing Services 3
Service encounter
A period of time during which a consumer directly interacts with a service
(Shostack, 1985)
Personal exchanges between customer and service employees/other customers (face-to-face)
OR
impersonal interactions with technology, equipment, and physical surroundings
Moments of truth
How consumers evaluate an encounter is critical to the overall evaluation of the purchase and potential re-purchase
Every encounter is an opportunity for the customer to evaluate the service provider:
‘a moment of truth’ (Normann, 1984)
Encounters will be evaluated on the basis of people, physical evidence, process
Critical incidents
Specific interactions between customers and service firm employees that are especially satisfying or especially dissatisfying.
Not all service incidents are classified as critical, only those that customers find memorable because they are particularly satisfying or dissatisfying
(Bitner et al., 1990)
Servuction model
Customer
Other customers
Contact personnel
Inanimate environment
Operations infrastructure
(Langeard et al.,1981)
Back- stage/office
Front- stage/office
Servuction system
Factory metaphor to describe the service process: emphasises process, system, structure, inputs, speed and efficiency.
Recognises that several factors contribute to the bundle of benefits received by customer.
Customers regarded as co-producers with a role to play in the production of the service. A resource that can increase the speed and efficiency of production.
Model shows visible and invisible elements in the service production system, and how they interact and affect the customer experience
Theatre model
Setting
Actors
Audience
(Grove and Fisk, 1992)
Theatre model
Setting (stage and props): service facilities and physical environment. Affects behaviour of customers/employees and defines the service experience
Auditioning: hiring appropriate employees
Actors: employees whose attitudes, behaviour, appearance influence perceptions.
Rehearsal: Training
Audience: customers, with cognitive and emotional responses to the experience. Other customers (members of audience) affect experience
Performance: employees and customers each with a role and ‘script’ (sequence of behaviours) to follow
Back-stage production team: support staff who make a crucial contribution to service planning, production and delivery. Usually out-of-bounds to audience
Managing encounters: People
Employees trained and empowered to meet expectations, respond to special requests, and resolve service failure
Customers ‘educated’ to perform role
Customer segments compatible
Managing encounters: Technology
Migrate customers from face-to-face to computer-mediated encounters or technology-based self service (TBSS)
Customer’s own ‘labour’ replaces that of service provider
BUT
has implications for service quality and value perceptions
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Managing encounters: Technology
Sources of satisfaction
Perceived time/money saving
Ability to solve a problem immediately
More control over process (customization)
Greater reliability than human interaction
Sources of dissatisfaction
Technology failure
Process failure
Customer-driven failure
Insufficient value from resource application
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Pleasure/displeasure in encounters
Critical incident technique
When did the incident happen?
What did the employee do?
What happened that made you feel satisfied/dissatisfied?
What should have been done differently?
Sources of satisfaction/dissatisfaction
Recovery: employee response to service failure
Adaptability: employee response to requests
Spontaneity: unprompted employee actions
Coping: employee response to problem customers
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Customer experience
A customer’s ‘journey’ with a firm over time during the purchase cycle and across multiple touch points
(Lemon and Verhoef, 2016)
Extends across pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase
Analysis and measurement requires:
Customer journey analysis (from customer perspective)
Multi-channel perspective
Customer experience elements
Cognitive
(goal attainment)
Social
(employees and other customers)
Emotional
(level of delight, joy, excitement, etc)
Sensory
(physical environment)
(Keiningham et al., 2017)
Service process
The service process describes the method and sequence of links of the service system
Process will be designed around contact personnel, back-stage personnel, customers, and technology
Tug of war between marketing effectiveness and operational efficiencies
Service process has key influence on customer evaluations of service quality
Difficult to achieve perfection
Customization and lack of standardization
Variability of the demand cycle
Variability of service demand
Customer and contact personnel mood
Involvement of customer in service process
Blueprinting
A graphical approach to depict a ‘map’ of the service ‘system’ showing:
All of the steps, tasks, choices, and support processes required to make, provide, and consume a service
Those responsible for each task
Sequencing and relationship of tasks or steps
Timing of tasks or steps
Physical evidence at each point of interaction
Seek multiple perspectives: operations, marketing, HR, employees, and customers
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A multi-purpose tool
Marketing
Obtain customer feedback at concept and service development stage
Identify competitive advantage
Analyse appropriateness of physical evidence at each point of customer contact
Human Resources
Analyse staff roles and identify recruitment/training requirements
Show employees how their roles fit within the total service delivered to the customer
Operations
Identify potential operational fail points and improvements
Analyse the effectiveness and efficiency of the process
Making services available
| Factors to consider | |
| Purchase frequency | Competitor activity |
| Customer location | Cost of provision |
| Willingness to travel | Staff commitment |
| Channel preferences | Positioning |
Making services available
Direct Sales
Build relationships with customers, retain profit, maintain quality
Intermediaries (e.g. franchising)
Improve accessibility and after-sales service, share costs/risks, but loss of quality control, and reduced profit
Internet (disintermediation!)
Accessibility, convenience, choice, information,
competitive pricing
References
Bitner, M., Booms, B., and Tetreault, M. (1990) The service encounter: diagnosing favourable and unfavourable incidents. Journal of Marketing. 54 (January), 71-84.
Grove, S. and Fisk, R. (1992) The service experience as theatre. Advances in Consumer Research. 19 (1), 455-461.
Keiningham, T., Ball, J., Benoit, S., et al. (2017) The interplay of customer experience and commitment. Journal of Services Marketing. 31 (2), 148-160.
Langeard, E., Bateson, J., Lovelock, C. and Eiglier, P. (1981) Marketing of Services. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Sciences Institute.
Lemon, K. and Verhoef, P. (2016) Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing. 80 (Nov), 69-96.
Normann, R. (1984) Service Management. New York: Wiley.
Shostack, G.L. (1985) Planning the service encounter. In Czepiel, J., Solomon, M. and Surprenant, C. eds. (1985) The Service Encounter. Lexington: Lexington Books, 243-254.
