Executive summary of "Reexamining the place of servicescape in marketing: a service-dominant logic perspective

Citation

(2014), "Executive summary of "Reexamining the place of servicescape in marketing: a service-dominant logic perspective", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-06-2014-0218

Executive summary of "Reexamining the place of servicescape in marketing: a service-dominant logic perspective"

Article Type: Executive summary and implications for managers and executives From: Journal of Services Marketing, Volume 28, Issue 5

This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives a rapid appreciation of the content of the article. Those with a particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the research undertaken and its results to get the full benefit of the material present.

The concept of the "servicescape" has been with us for > 30 years. An organization’s servicescape typically includes interior design (layout, equipment and decor) and the exterior physical environment, emphasizing signage, parking and landscape attributes. There is also evidence of behavioral effects due to color and light, background music and even odors.

The ability of the physical environment to influence customer behavior and contribute to the development of brand image is apparent for traditional service businesses such as banks, retail stores and restaurants. However, a servicescape not only influences customer perceptions of service functions and service quality but, more subtly, also influences the meanings a customer draws from the many intangible, contextual and symbolic elements of a service.

But is the servicescape concept still adequate in the contemporary service environment? The exponential growth of the Internet and social media is shifting the place for business more and more to a virtual market space, making interactions between customer and supplier firm complex in new ways. Meanwhile, the physical store concept has evolved during the past decades to accommodate retro-traditional marketplaces (for example, farmers’ markets) on the one hand, and mega clusters of competing retail stores, professional chambers and hair care shops along with the micro-placement of product assortments on the other hand.

There is no reason why servicescape concepts cannot be adapted to digital media to support customer interaction, dialogue and pay attention to the likely symbolic meanings derived from Web site design. Many of the sensory attributes of the servicescape model relating to physical places hold up metaphorically when describing digital virtual spaces for customer–supplier interactions and the creation of value. This allows words and pictures that specifically identify physical objects to be chosen to metaphorically refer to a particular servicescape aspect which is the same or similar on some point of comparison. (Take, for example, a Web-based store’s "shopping cart".)

In "Reexamining the place of servicescape in marketing: a service-dominant logic perspective", Elin Nilsson and David Ballantyne examine the linkages between servicescape and service-dominant (S-D) logic, concluding that servicescape has not been recognized by S-D logic scholars as a critical aspect of customers’ value-in-use assessment. Furthermore, servicescape is revealed as a context for service containing social dimensions critical to the co-creation of the service experience.

S-D logic understands value as a judgment by service beneficiaries who, with various resource integrators, apply knowledge and skillfulness (operant resources) to the task of changing or adapting "static" materials (operand resources) for customer use. Clearly, a servicescape is an operand resource in this sense. Furthermore, customers become part of the resource integration through their purposeful presence in any interactive service setting, such as a conventional retail setting or in a Web-based "virtual" service. One hallmark of S-D logic thinking is doing things with the customer instead of doing things for or to the customer. The relationship between customer, firm and other beneficiaries is fundamental in S-D logic, as they create the customer experience together, directly or indirectly.

According to S-D logic, customers determine their own value. Value in this sense is an appreciative judgment. A provider firm cannot uniquely create customer value but it can, of course, make value propositions which comprise promises or benefits a customer might value, conveyed through advertising or other modes of engagement. A provider firm will attempt to make its value propositions unambiguous but customers must arrive at their own interpreted meanings. These customer-derived meanings impact on customer expectations. A knowledgeable provider firm will always aim to achieve harmony of meanings between the products on offer, service quality and the meaning drawn from the servicescape and its sensory characteristics.

A poor servicescape design will unintentionally contribute to lowering customer expectations, while positive servicescape atmospherics can enhance customer expectations. For example, mood carried by music can give customers vastly different expectations of the service. The servicescape and its physical functionality, its constructed ambience and symbolic projections become part of the meanings customers associate with any value proposition, thus influencing their service expectations.

The authors maintain that in various new guises, servicescape is poised to challenge our notions of how customers and service providers engage in creating value propositions, sales and service. For example, value propositions can be two-sided or multi-sided, where the service setting used for final negotiations may influence the outcomes. In sales and service, there is a need for service design input to connect customer interactive episodes across various aspects of the retail journey. And as value is determined in use, the key design questions should be these: What is the user engaged in doing? How can we facilitate that?

At a time of fast evolving "apps" emerging in the digital service-space, servicescapes are poised to take on more process-like characteristics in the new digital era, to support the continuity of customer engagement, and the determinations of their value in use.

To read the full article enter 10.1108/JSM-01-2013-0005 into your search engine.

(A précis of the article "Reexamining the place of servicescape in marketing: a service-dominant logic perspective". Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)