week 8 Flashcards
what is the role of the service environment
- Engineering customers’ experience and shape their behavior
• Message-creating medium: Use symbolic cues to communicate with the intended audiences about the distinctive nature of the service and the quality of the experience
• Attention-creating medium: Use noise smell, colour, etc to make it stand out from the competition and attract the target audience
• Effect-creating medium: Use of colours, sounds, spatial design, etc, to create or heighten an appetite for certain goods/services/experiences and to enhance the customer experience - Convey the planned image of the firm and supports its positioning and differentiation strategy
- Act as part of the value proposition – help to shape feelings and reactions e.g. Disneyland, Las Vegas casino
- Facilitate the service encounter and enhance both service quality and productivity, e.g. public hospitals, Starbucks, childcare centres, food courts, seats on aircrafts
2 theories behind consumers responses to service environments
- The mehrabian -Russell stimulus response model
2. Russell’s model of affect
The mehrabian -Russell stimulus response model:
o Conscious and unconscious perception and interpretation of the environment influences how people feel
o Feelings, as opposed to perceptions and thoughts, drive responses (approach or avoid) to the environment
*see diagram
explain russell’s model of affect
o Pleasure is a subjective response based on how much we like or do not like the environment
o Arousal Refers to how stimulated we feel highly arousing environment are complex (times square), include motion or change and have novel or surprising elements
*see diagram
firms should know which feelings and emotions they are targeting
explain affect and cognitive processes
o Affect can be caused by perceptions and cognitive processes of any degree of complexity
o The more complex a cognitive process becomes the more powerful is it’s potential impact on affect e.g. caravan park with poorly maintained facilities, unsatisfactory meal
o If an environment is unpleasant it will not increase arousal levels
o Majority of service encounters are routine with little cognitive processing
behaviour and affects
o Arousal acts as an amplifier of the basic effect of pleasure on behavior e.g. loud music would increase stress levels when you are in a rush, but faced with a long queue at the supermarket
o When customers have strong affective expectations it is important that those environment is designed to match those expectations, e.g. romantic dinner, luxury cruise, night club
environment and emotio
o Being in a particular place can make a person feel happy, light hearted, relaxed, etc., whereas being in another place may make that person feel sad, depressed, and gloomy
o Colours, music, décor and other elements of the atmosphere can have an unexplainable and sometimes subconscious effect on the moods of people in the place, e.g., noises or smells in a dental office can elicit feelings of fear and anxiety
o The basic emotional responses to environments can be used to begin predicting the expected behaviours of consumers and staff who find themselves in a particular type of place
environment and psychology
o Noise that is too loud may cause physical discomfort
o The temperature of a room may cause people to shiver or perspire
o The air quality may make it difficult to breathe
o The glare of lighting may decrease ability to see and may cause physical pain
o The hard seats in a fast-food restaurant cause most people to leave within a predictable period of time
The effect of ambient conditions Pertain to out five senses: o Music o Scent o Colour
Music:
o Younger people respond differently from older people to the same music
o Fast-tempo and high-volume music increases arousal levels
o People adjust their pace to the tempo of music, e.g., shoppers walk slower and restaurant patrons stay longer when slow music is played
o Relaxing music lowers stress levels in hospital waiting rooms
o Pleasant music may enhance perceptions of service personnel
o Music used to deter gangs, e.g., London underground
Colour:
Hue: the pigment of colour, e.g., red, blue. Classified into warm (e.g., orange) and cold (e.g., blue) colours
• warm colours encourage fast decision making and impulse purchases (low-involvement products), they are also arousing and lead to elated moods
• cool colours favoured when we need time to make high-involvement decisions
Value: degree of lightness or darkness
Chroma: intensity, saturation or brilliance – vivid versus dull
Colour and culture
spatial layout and functionality
o Spatial layout refers to the floor plan, size and shape of furnishings, counters and machinery and equipment, and the ways in which they are arranged
o Functionality refers to the ability of those items to facilitate the performance of service transactions
o Service environments need to fulfill a purpose!
staff are also part of the service environment
• Aesthetic labour”
• Use of uniforms:
o identifies the organization’s personnel
o implies a coherent group structure
o facilitates perceptions of consistent performance
o provides a tangible symbol of an employee’s change in status
o assists in controlling deviant members
tools to guide service scape design
o Keen observation
o Feedback and ideas from frontline staff and customers
o Photo audit
o Field experiments, i.e., manipulate certain variables in the environment (e.g., music, scent, absence or presence of a waiting area) and measure/observe the effects
o Blueprinting or flowcharting – document design elements and tangible cues as the customer moves through each step of the delivery process
“Customers of service firms respond to the three dimensions of their physical surroundings (i.e., environmental dimensions) cognitively, emotionally and physiologically. Those responses are what influence their behaviour in the environment.” Explain this statement using a service of your choice.
Use the ONE example throughout.
Define the servicescape.
The three environmental dimensions (ambient conditions, layout and functionality, and signs, symbols and artefacts) should be described in some detail.
Mention that we evaluate the environment “holistically”, although we may pay particular attention to a particularly good or bad aspect of the environment.
The three dimensions of the physical environment influence the internal customer responses. Internal customer responses are categorised into the following:
Cognitive responses: quality perceptions and beliefs, categorisation, symbolic meaning;
Emotional responses: feelings and moods; and
Physiological responses: pain, comfort, movement, physical fit.
The influence of the three environmental dimensions on customers internal responses is “moderated” by their particular likes/dislikes, expectations, mood, the particular situation they find themselves in, etc. This is one of the many reasons why services are perceived to be “variable” in nature.
Describe the resulting customer approach and avoid behaviours listed in the model. Mention that some environments should be designed to encourage social interactions between customers and employees, e.g., a cruise line, education.
do lecture and multi
:) squashi
Compare and contrast the strategic and functional roles of the servicescape within a service organisatio
strategic:
Identify the personality of the organisation
Signal quality (physical cues)
create a competitive advantage over competitors
enhance core and supplementary service
retain customers for longer (more inclined to stay)
Functional:
facilities the service encounter
Productivity is maximised e.g. most seats in cinema as possible
clear inflation and signage conveyed to customers
enable rapid ingress and egress
provide sufficient waiting space and facilities for customers e.g. toilets, atm, parking
