Experiential Services: My two cents to understanding them

sb10069519ag-001I’ve been so busy with my MSc. graduation project that I left this blog completely unattended. Today, I decided that it was time to do something about that, and what better way than to post something related to the project itself.

My project is titled “Developing a tool to assess emotions elicited by services”, and as such I figured that the first step on the road was to do a bit of research and try to find out what exactly was meant by services, and more especifically experiential services.

But what the hell are experiential services??? well, here are my two cents to try and understand this concept better.

First of all, a little background info:

A shift towards an “experience” economy

For centuries, the agrarian economy was based on Commodities (products grown, or extracted from the land), but in the wake of the industrial revolution Goods (manufactured or processed products) became the predominant economic offering. Yet in time these too were commoditized, meaning that people would not care anymore who manufactured them but care more about price.

progression_of_economic_valueIn order to differentiate themselves, businesses turned their heads towards services where goods would be delivered on demand, transforming the industrial economy into a service based economy. But in the last 2 decades and with a strong influence from the enhanced communication networks, services too have become commoditized.

In an effort to differentiate from the competition, in the last few years we have started to see a shift towards an economy where experience is becoming the new predominant economic offering where experiential services play the central role (Pine, 2004).

Experiential services are defined as services where the focus is on the experience of the customer when interacting with the organization, rather than just the functional benefits following from the products and services delivered (Voss & Zomerdijk, 2007). This means that the customer experience has become the key feature in the delivery of said services.

Using mainly the work by Voss and Zomerdijk (Voss & Zomerdijk, 2007) and taking some influence from other sources (Grove, Fisk, & Bitner, 1992) and my own input, I developed the following graphical model of experiential services in an effort to better understand the features and components that make up a service and which can have an influence on the user experience.
This model uses the metaphor of a theatrical performance to describe a service, and as such it borrows a lot of theatrical terminology.

experiential_service_graphical_model

Service Layers:

Main character: The customer

The customer can be seen as the main character of this performance, and as the key player, the whole services revolves around him, and how he experiences everything surrounding him and happening around him.

Stage: The physical environment

The setting in which the service is delivered, could be thought of as the stage in which our performance will take place. This includes everything within the physical environment with which the user can interact, such as the products involved, the furniture, the decoration, the lighting arrangement, the sounds, etc. and as such, it deals with sensory design stimulating all five senses.
This physical environment is considered to play a key role in the perception and behavior of customers during a service.

Supporting Actors: The service employees

The staff members with which the customer directly interacts during the service delivery can be described as the supporting actors. This interaction between the client and the staff are considered, together with the physical environment, to be the most important factors influencing customer experience in services.

Audience: Fellow customers

Other customers enjoying the service at the same time as you do can be considered the audience of the service performance. They are not directly controlled by the service provider, but they can still play a decisive role in the customer experience as for example noisy fellow customers can negatively affect your experience in a restaurant, but socializing with other customers can make your experience more enjoyable in for example a cruise boat.

Backstage: The back office support

The stage, actors and audience all play a role at the front stage of the service, yet there are still many things going on backstage in order to allow the performance to take place but which remain invisible. These are the back office employees, who although they do not come in direct interaction with the client, they are vital to the service delivery process and thus they are indirectly linked to the customer experience. Administration and maintenance staff members are among these backstage personnel.

Service delivery process:

Scenes: Service actions

The service scenes can be seen as those separate actions performed to deliver the service, and they define the setting, the actors and the actions that must take place at a particular time. Think for example of checking into a hotel which has a defined setting (the lobby), actors (the customer, the receptionist and possibly other fellow customers), and actions to be performed (the check-in process).

Touchpoints: The points of client-service interaction

Service touchpoints can be defined as those points where the client interacts in any form with one of the service layers (Stage, Actors, Audience or Backstage). These points are important as they represent that on which customers base themselves to evaluate a service.

Service script: The service delivery process

The service delivery process is the collection of all these set of actions or events that take place in order to deliver the service and we could think of it as the script of the service performance.

Service phases:

The service could further be divided into 3 distinct phases in time, which can be identified as the preparation, the service delivery time and the memento.

Preparation

The preparation is every action that takes place before the actual service is delivered, both by the customer and by the service provider. An example of this can be the selection of a hotel and reservation of a room when you are going on vacation, or the booking process for an airplane ticket.

Service Delivery Time

A service has a defined starting and an ending time in which the service itself is performed as planned by the service provider at the proper setting and with the selected actors. For example, in a hotel you could think of it as the time span between your arrival to the hotel and the moment you leave.

Memento

The memento is the post-performance of the service, and can include service related issues such as for example the billing process, or any memories of the service that the customer takes with him and which influence his future behaviour (such as coming back, or recommending the service to others).

…That’s about it!

I hope this helps people to get a better understanding of what an experiential service is (or at least how I interpret what some of the experts have said)

REFERENCES:

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