Customer Encounters Research Articles

Engaging customers in service creation: a theater perspective

PurposeA theater/drama perspective is used to gain insights into the participatory nature of service creation and to assess the relative importance of service elements across service scenarios.Design/methodology/approachDrama production principles are applied to situations where customers co‐create the service offering. Using a theater arts model, elements in service settings can be delineated into director, lead actor, set designer, scriptwriter, supporting cast member, and/or traditional audience roles. To understand the relative importance of the service provider, the customer, and other service encounter elements, three variations of a service setting (educational services) in which the consumer's participatory role moves from passive to proactive are compared.FindingsAs the service context became more participatory‐based, service provider roles significantly decreased in importance rankings while customer roles significantly increased, supporting the paper's hypotheses. The ranking of other service setting elements followed a similar pattern with greater importance being placed on elements as they became more central to the participatory experience.Research limitations/implicationsThe model is tested in only one service setting and the procedure for assigning theater roles to a service setting needs further refinement.Originality/valueBy merging theories from theater and services literature, a means of assessing the relative importance of service components across service scenarios is illustrated. Principles in theater arts provide the tactical detail needed to fit service creation elements into analogous roles in a drama setting. The model provides insights on the importance of service creation elements when transitioning from a spectator‐based to a participatory‐based service environment.

Service value networks: Value, performance and strategy for the services industry

Services may be investigated from many perspectives. They encapsulate over 65% of global business, yet many gaps in the services knowledge base exist — particularly from areas including information technology, operational, customer targeting, and services provision. This research investigates an emerging and truly disruptive business scenario — the service value network, from a marketing, an operations and services approach. The service value network is defined as the flexible, dynamic, delivery of a service, or product, by a business’s coordinated value chains (supply chains and demand chains working in harmony), such that a value-adding, specific, service solution is effectively, and efficiently, delivered to the individual customer. The ‘physical and virtual service value network customer — business encounter model’ is developed. Impediments to the development of a service value networks are investigated. Eight key areas related to website customer encounters are offered as investigation areas. The customer ‘touch-points’ across the virtual service encounter offers a raft of new research possibilities and possible new pathways to competitive advantage. Approaches to measure service network encounter effectors are explained. Current and future areas of business research are described. This paper frames the research agenda for service value networks.

Personal Selling in Retail Settings: How Does the Internet and Related Technologies Enable and Limit Successful Selling?

Despite the proliferation of Internet usage both by retailers and by retail customers, little is know about the impact of the Internet on the retail salesperson's ability to add value to customer encounters. This article identifies and discusses Internet-related factors that potentially enable and/or limit the salesperson's successful execution of the personal selling process and also considers the effects of limitations of Internet retailing on achievement of desired retailer performance. Research questions are identified as a foundation for future work in the area.

An empirical assessment of the influence of customer emotions and contact employee performance on encounter and relationship satisfaction

Our study examines the effect of customer emotions and contact employee performance in creating encounter and relationship satisfaction. It investigates the performance of the contact employee from an interactive perspective by specifying the employee performance into employee-specific and interaction-induced behaviors, using a multilevel approach. Our results reveal a significant influence of positive emotions on both types of satisfaction and no significant impact of negative emotions. Furthermore, our study identifies that not all of the employee behaviors that influence encounter satisfaction also influence relationship satisfaction. Additionally, results of the study demonstrate that specifying employee performance into employee-specific and interaction-induced behaviors allows a better understanding of customer encounter and relationship satisfaction.

Thanking Behavior in Service Provider–Customer Encounters: The Effects of Age, Gender, and Race

Thanking Behavior in Service Provider–Customer Encounters: The Effects of Age, Gender, and Race

Design and the Customer Encounter: Looking for the Right Experience(s)

Design Management Journal (Former Series)Volume 10, Issue 2 p. 6-9 Design and the Customer Encounter: Looking for the Right Experience(s) Thomas Walton Ph.D., Thomas Walton Ph.D.Search for more papers by this author Thomas Walton Ph.D., Thomas Walton Ph.D.Search for more papers by this author First published: 10 June 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1948-7169.1999.tb00246.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume10, Issue2Spring 1999Pages 6-9 RelatedInformation

Testing Design with Customer Encounters

KNOWING THAT CONSUMERS are swayed by emotions, Tore Kristensen and Jonas Sverdrup‐Jensen have initiated research on the empathic dimensions of graphic design. Thus far, their work shows that while design elements can elicit specific reactions—including great admiration—even the most impressive graphics are no substitute for credibility and quality. In the final analysis, their hope is to discover how the emotional response to graphics can be exploited to reinforce more‐rational assessments of a product or service.

Integrating the Product + Brand Experience

FROM BRAND VISION to product delivery and use, there are many points of contact in an effective customer encounter. Monty Montague urges managers to weave these into a unified and coherent experience. Given the number of decision makers involved in the process, this is easier said than done. Amplifying his points with examples, Montague suggests approaches for achieving this integration with an emphasis on the contributions design makes to a sensually rich, but holistic, experience.

How to Hit Your Left Thumb: Designing a Better Hammer

HAMMERS ARE HAMMERS. What more can be said? Plenty, as John Grieves makes clear in this fascinating case study. His is a tale about designing the best hammer possible, about thoughtfully gathering all kinds of detailed user data to make subtle refinements to an age‐old tool—changing how it works, how it feels, and how it looks. Notably, the outcome of this intimate customer encounter is a product that commands a premium price at the same time that it attracts a larger share of the market.

The relationship between waiting in a service queue and evaluations of service quality: A field theory perspective

Both empirical evidence and logic suggest that there is a strong negative correlation between waiting time and a customer's evaluation of the quality of a service. The evaluation of service, in turn, is related strongly to customers' loyalty and other important outcomes. A conceptual model, based on field theory, is developed. The model integrates key variables derived from recent studies of consumer waiting behavior. Also incorporated are relevant constructs from the extant services literature, including the roles of the disconfirmation of consumers' wait time expectations, prior service encounters, and the quality of the customer's encounter with the contact employee. Finally, data from actual consumers in a natural queueing context are used to test the theoretical framework. Analysis of the data, with the use of multiple regression, demonstrates a strong pattern of support for the field-theory-based hypotheses, confirming the important role of queue wait management in customer evaluations of service quality. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Service Problem Deployment: Transformation of Problem Information into Problem Prevention Activities

States that customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of total quality management efforts in the service sector and that an essential prerequisite in achieving this goal is the detection and prevention of problems which the customer encounters in the service consumption process. Proposes that an instrument is needed which will enable management to gather customer problem information comprehensively and use it as a tool for quality control, planning and service innovation. Presents Service Problem Deployment as a tool which provides a framework for the fulfilment of this task. Defines Service Problem Deployment as a planning and communication system for cross‐functional teams applying a specific set of matrices principally known from the Quality Function Deployment approach. Posits that, as a result of Service Problem Deployment, you can expect the entire service planning and delivery process to be geared consistently to the needs of customers and the goals of problem prevention and customer satisfaction.

Emotional Responses to a Professional Service Encounter

Considers the interaction between customer and provider in professional service encounters, where extended person‐to‐person discussions frequently take place. Describes an experiment in which subjects read and reacted to stories describing such encounters, which included three service variables – competency, outcome and courtesy. Reports on the emotional responses of the subjects, finding that courtesy was responsible for most of the variation in response. Discusses the managerial implications resulting from the study, notably the importance of courtesy in professional service encounters.