Introducing a sensemaking perspective to the service experience

Abstract

Purpose

Most recent service experience research considers customers as sensemakers and sensemaking as a focal process in experience construction. Despite this, the sensemaking theory engendered in organization studies has not been applied in the quest for an in-depth understanding of the service experience. This study introduces a sensemaking perspective to the service experience and develops a conceptualization of how customers construct their experiences cognitively through sensemaking.

Design/methodology/approach

The service experience literature is dominated by a focus on firms implementing service experiences for customers. This study, in contrast, investigates service experience and its formation from the customers' viewpoint: how service experiences are formed as a part of customers' everyday life and sensemaking processes instead of under service providers' control.

Findings

Service experience is characterized as a mental picture – a collage of meanings created by a customer through the sensemaking processes. A sensemaking framework that characterizes service experience formation and its four seminal dimensions, including the self-related, sociomaterial, retrospective and prospective sensemaking, is introduced.

Originality/value

This article contributes to the service literature by introducing a new theoretical lens through which the service experience concept can be investigated and reframed.

Citation

Kemppainen, T. and Uusitalo, O. (2022), "Introducing a sensemaking perspective to the service experience", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 283-301. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-02-2021-0030