Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Customer Behavior in
Service Encounters
A Framework for Developing Effective
Service Marketing Strategies
§
Prepurchase Stage: Service Encounter Stage:
Search, evaluation of Role in high-contact vs.
alternatives, decision low-contact delivery
Post-Encounter Stage:
Evaluation against
expectations, future
intentions
How Differences among Services
Affect Customer Behavior
Differences among Services Affect
Customer Behavior
People Processing
§ Customers must:
Ø Physically enter the service
factory
Ø Co-operate actively with the
service operation
Possession Processing
§Customers are less physically
involved compared to people
processing services
§Involvement is limited
§Production and consumption
are separable
Ø
Ø
Mental Stimulus Processing
Information Processing
§Information is the most
intangible form of service
output
§But may be transformed into
enduring forms of service
output
§Line between information
processing and mental
stimulus processing may be
blurred.
Ø
Ø
Customer Decision Making:
Three-Stage Model of Service
Consumption
The Purchase Process for Services
Prepurchase Stage
Service Encounter
Stage
Post-Encounter Stage
Prepurchase Stage
Prepurchase Stage: Overview
Figure 2.4
Prudential Financial’s advertising
stimulates thinking about retirement needs
Easy Difficult
to evaluate to evaluate*
§ Functional—unsatisfactory performance
outcomes
§ Financial—monetary loss, unexpected
extra costs
§ Temporal—wasted time, delays leading
to problems
§ Physical—personal injury, damage to
possessions
§ Psychological—fears and negative
emotions
§ Social—how others may think and react
§ Sensory—unwanted impact on any of five
senses
How Might Consumers Handle
Perceived Risk?
Situational Factors
Source: Adapted from Valarie A. Zeithaml, Leonard A. Berry, and A. Parasuraman, “The Nature and Determinants of Customer
Expectations of Service,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 21, no. 1 (1993): pp 1–12.
Components of Customer Expectations
§ Zone of Tolerance:
Ø Range within which customers are willing
to accept variations in service delivery
Service Encounter Stage
Service Encounter Stage: Overview
Post-Encounter Stage
Service Encounters Range from
High-Contact to Low-Contact (Fig 2.9)
Figure 2.9
Levels of Customer Contact
with Service Organizations
Distinctions between High-Contact
and Low-Contact Services
§ High-Contact Services
Ø Customers visit service facility and remain throughout service
delivery
Ø Active contact between customers and service personnel
Ø Includes most people-processing services
§ Low-Contact Services
Ø Little or no physical contact with service personnel
Ø Contact usually at arm’s length through electronic or physical
distribution channels
Ø New technologies (e.g. the Web) help reduce contact levels
Mail Advertising
Market Research
Surveys
The
Technical Self Billing/Statements
Core Service Customer
Equipment Random Exposure
to Facilities/Vehicles
Phone,
Fax, Web- Word of Mouth
site, etc.
Front Stage
Backstage (visible)
(invisible)
Theater as a Metaphor for
Service Delivery
William Shakespeare
As You Like It
Theatrical Metaphor:
An Integrative Perspective
Prepurchase Stage
§Evaluation of service
performance
Service Encounter §Future intentions
Stage
Post-Encounter Stage
Customer Satisfaction Is Central to
the Marketing Concept
§ Satisfaction defined as attitude-like judgment following a service
purchase or series of service interactions
§ Customers have expectations prior to consumption, observe service
performance, compare it to expectations
§ Satisfaction judgments are based on this comparison
Ø Positive disconfirmation if better than expected
Ø Confirmation if same as expected
Ø Negative disconfirmation if worse than expected
Ø
Summary of Chapter 2:
Customer Behavior in Service Encounters (2)
Prepurchase stage