Servicescape and Physical Evidence

Physical Evidence and Servicescape

• Physical evidence encompasses the environment where a service is delivered and customers interact. Tangible goods facilitate service communication.
• Facility exterior includes design, signage, parking, and landscaping.
• Facility interior encompasses design, equipment, signage, layout, air quality, and temperature.
• Other tangibles include business cards, stationary, billing statements, reports, employee attire, and uniforms.

Roles of Servicescape

• Package: Servicescape conveys the experience of an intangible service through a visual metaphor; manages customer expectations. (e.g., Chinese restaurant decor).
• Facilitator: Aids in service delivery. (e.g., airport directional signs, waiting areas).
• Socializer: Communicates expected customer and employee roles. (e.g., trash cans in fast-food restaurants).
• Differentiator: Distinguishes a firm from its competition and reflects its target market. (e.g., Motel 6 vs. Ritz-Carlton).

Bitner's Servicescape Framework

• Describes the relationship between the physical environment and customers/users in service organizations.
• Includes factors such as ambient conditions (temperature, noise, odors), space/function (layout, equipment, decor).
• Considers cognitive factors (beliefs, categorization, symbolic meaning), emotional responses, and physiological responses.
• Examines holistic and internal responses from both employees and customers.
• Considers customers' individual behavior, responses and interaction with employees.
• Highlights the impact of all factors on customer interaction and perceptions.

Employees' Roles in Service Delivery

• Boundary-spanners: Employees bridging the gap between the organization and the customer.
• Conflict: Person/role conflict (e.g., "Customer is always right") and inter-client conflict (two-boss situations), quality/productivity tradeoffs, emotional labor.
• Emotional labor: Emotional labor occurs when there is a gap between how front-line staff feel inside and the emotions management expects them to portray to customers. This can involve genuine emotion, surface acting, or deep acting.
• Strategies for closing this gap—importance of hiring the right people (competency and inclination/attitude) and creating right conditions for optimal performance (consideration, communication, personality).

Customer Roles in Service Delivery

• Customers are "partial employees."
• Customers contribute time, effort, resources to production; influencing productivity.
• Customers' contributions affect quality and satisfaction (internal and external).
• Customers contribute to, or detract from, quality of service; they play a significant role.

Managing Demand and Capacity

• Capacity constraints: Time, labor, equipment, facilities.
• Demand strategies to match capacity: Adjust capacity to match demand.
• Goal of reducing demand, e.g., offering incentives or varying service levels based on demand and time.
• Goal of increasing demand, e.g., advertising, varying services offered, or pricing strategies.

Managing Waiting Times

• Factors affecting perception of waiting times: Subjective and objective components (cognitive and affective).
• Strategies to manage waiting times: Employ logical operational procedures (e.g., queuing system modifications), enhance perception.

Integrated Services Marketing Communications (ISMC)

• Aligns all internal and external communications to present a unified customer experience.
• Emphasizes service brand strength, providing customers with an understandable and visual view of intangible services.
• Aims to reduce customer perception of monetary, social, or safety risks associated with purchasing service.
• Approaches for managing customer expectations, education, and internal marketing communications.

Cross-Functional Teams & Customer Focus

• Strategies for creating cross-functional teams to develop new services and/or engage in service improvements.
• Essential to maintain a constant focus on customers throughout all functions of an organization.