RIVER MAGIC: EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCE AND THE EXTENDED

SERVICE ENCOUNTER
Eric J. Arnould and Linda L. Price

This article explores the provision of extraordinary hedonic experiences on commercial,

multiday river rafting trips in the Colorado River basin. White water river rafting provides a
dramatic illustration of some of the complex features of delivering an extraordinary
experience. Multiple quantitative and qualitative methods were employed over two years of
data collection to articulate the lived meaning of this experience from both the guides' and the
consumers' perspectives.

The rafting story begins by describing the pre-trip planning process. The story then moves to
the trip experience and post-trip descriptions and reflections. As the trip unfolds, it is evident
that the setting, guides, and other people on the trip are important in articulating the narrative
of the experience. The literature review describes characteristics of extraordinary experience,
speculating about why it evokes vague script expectations and complex evaluations of
satisfaction, discussing outstanding features of services that deliver extraordinary experience,
and elaborating on the role of the service provider in articulating this experience over an
extended temporal framework.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Extraordinary experience
"Extraordinary experience" entails a "sense of newness of perception and process" (Privette
1983; Abrahams 1986). Contrary to flow, extraordinary experience is triggered by unusual
events and is characterized by high levels of emotional intensity and experience. By contrast
with peak experience and peak performance (Celsi, Rose, and Leigh 1993), extraordinary
experience implies neither superior levels of effort nor an independent relational mode. In
fact, an important trigger for this experiential state is interpersonal interaction (Abrahams
1986).
Much of consumer research posits a model of choice and satisfaction based on defined
expectations and subsequent performance of a consumer alternative in terms of those
expectations (Fiebelkorn 1985; Oliver and DeSarbo 1988).

Expectations

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Consumers of extraordinary experience may desire intense emotional outcomes, for example,
joy or absorption, but not know what consumption alternatives produce them. Emotions being
subjective, fluctuate across individuals and social situations (Denzin 1983; Holbrook and
Hirschman 1982), which makes them challenging for consumers to predict. It is difficult to
predict one's own behaviour and others' responses from behaviour in ordinary contexts since
extraordinary experience emerges from the dynamic interaction of participants. Spontaneity
distinguishes extraordinary events from everyday routines and contributes to the perception
of the event as extraordinary. Perceived ineffability of extraordinary experiences makes
consumers unwilling to anticipate or rehearse them.

Performance
A prevailing view is that satisfaction can be described with a summary index of a product or
service's performance on various attributes. Popular movies depicting extraordinary
experience highlight unpleasant and life-threatening events. But in each case a triumphant
moment leads to emphatic positive re-evaluation of all the negatives that might otherwise
dominate evaluation of the experience. Satisfaction is also interpreted within the broader
narrative context of the consumer's life (Botterill 1987; Deighton 1992). Consumers use
extraordinary experiences to give agency and coherence to their stories about the self. Thus,
consumers of intense martial arts training may interpret physical injury or fear as contributing
positively to self-growth, efficacy, and authenticity (Donohue 1991). In summary, for
extraordinary experiences we speculate that expectations are likely to be vague. Moreover,
evaluation of the experience evolves within the context of the overall story.

Delivering Extraordinary Experience

Setting, process, and provider-client relationships as determinants of consumer satisfaction
play an important role in delivering extraordinary experience. Research from a variety of
disciplines and contexts, including research on the delivery of hedonic outcomes, suggests
services providing extraordinary experience must emphasize process elements that have
received less attention in marketing literature. Among these are affect, narrative, and ritual
understandings.

Affect
Service establishments must monitor and control the emotions employees convey
(Hochschild 1983; Peters and Austin 1985; Rafaeli and Sutton 1987). For example, Disney
World coaches prospective employees on how to look like they are having fun (Martin 1986;
Romm 1989); It is speculated that engineering affect is central to successful delivery of
extraordinary experiences. For the desired affective response, provider emotions must be

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perceived as authentic (Hochschild 1983; Rafaeli and Sutton 1987; Romm 1989)—
spontaneous responses to environment, activities, and social interaction (Abrahams 1986),
rather than directed process.

Narrative
Much of the hedonic satisfactions of vacation theme parks derives from performers'
successful condensations and expressions of the total park experience consistent with
consumers' unarticulated and vague cultural narratives (Durgee et al. 1991). Disney World
packages history, fantasy, and the future into conventional plots, conveying idealized
American cultural values (Johnson 1981; King 1981). In many of these contexts, customers
and providers have well-developed narrative expectations because of extensive experience in
such settings. As a dramaturgical perspective suggests, meaning emerges during the process
of interaction; communication of evolving expectations of outcomes plays a key role in
satisfactory experience (Grove & Fisk 1992).

Ritual
Because all experiences address the "ongoingness” of life as it is registered through the filter
of culture" (Abrahams 1986, p. 55), ritual aspects become noticeable even in enacting what
the individual participants define as authentic, unique, and extraordinary.
Certain service encounters have a feeling of a relationship rather than merely a transaction.
These transactions can be described as "boundary open," resembling a meeting between
friends. In boundary open transactions service providers are expected to be actively involved
and share their feelings. In less tangible services, process dimensions that communicate
responsiveness, empathy, and assurance become increasingly important influences on
customers' satisfaction. Extraordinary experience is likely to involve boundary open
transactions.

Provider-Customer Relationships in Delivering Extraordinary Experience

Service encounter research increasingly recognizes that service experience is inherently
interpretive, subjective, and affective (Czepiel et al. 1985; Klaus 1985; McCallum and
Harrison 1985; Parasuraman et al. 1988). Research suggests that service establishments may
orchestrate affective, narrative, and ritual content through the skills, engagement, emotions,
and dramatic sense of service providers.

DESCRIPTION OF RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Data collection techniques were combined, often within the same temporal frame and
physical setting, such as the participant observation, focus group, and surveys conducted in

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1990. Data were gathered from outfitters, guides, and participants. Data were also gathered
before, during, immediately after, and well after the experience. In the first research season
data was gathered from multiple customers of a single outfitter. In the second research
season, data was gathered from guides and customers of several different outfitters. In
general, exploratory research was conducted with small samples allowing to advance and
amend evolving interpretations.

FINDINGS
Certain experiential qualities and themes showed up consistently throughout the data
collection process. Experiential themes that developed over the course of the first season, and
were cross-validated between methods, were further refined and validated in the second
season. Although different methods, data, and analyses were used, a coherent story emerged
about the experience of river rafting. Rather than organize around the sequence or type of
data, findings are organized around the story to be told.

Pre-trip Planning Process

Prospective customers expressed minimal, varied, and veiled feelings and expectations about
the experience, the guides, other people, safety, comfort, emotions, and the setting. Included
are hints of the themes of pilgrimage, intensification and rediscovery of self, and communion
with nature and others.

Expectations of the Experience

Ambiguous and protected expectations of the experience are well illustrated in excerpts from
field notes recorded during the research. One possible explanation for the vagueness of
expressed expectations is that consumers may be motivated to imagine what their trip will be
like, but ill equipped with expertise to construct such images. Another possible explanation is
consumers' desire to preserve the spontaneous and unrehearsed characteristics of
extraordinary experience (Abrahams 1986).

Expectations of the Guides

Customers rarely anticipated the affective role of the guides in orchestrating their
experiences. Instead, customers hoped guides would be "friendly," "competent," "safe," and
"knowledgeable.

Expectations of Others

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Most inexperienced rafters have little sense of the importance of other rafters in constructing
a satisfactory, shared river experience. Instead, customers hoped other rafters would be
"friendly," "sharing," "considerate," and "sociable."
The most common response was "to have fun" or a close variant. The theme of fear was
much more pronounced in the second season's data, as illustrated in the following responses
to what clients wanted in comfort and safety. In addition to the theme of doing something
different, a related description revolved around doing "something I've always wanted to." The
combination of expressed expectations emphasizing newness and adventure evokes the theme
of pilgrimage, leaving the familiar and known behind. These comments may also suggest
why the narrative qualities of the experience, its story-like qualities, dominate in consumer
reports of satisfaction.

The Experience of River Rafting

Three main organising themes associated with satisfying raft trips emerged early in the
research: communion with nature, communitas or connecting to others, and extension and
renewal of self—link rafting to extraordinary experience. In part, these experiences are
guided by service providers; in part, they seem to be produced from unarticulated narrative
expectations that clients already "know" in some unspecified way.

Communion with Nature

Numerous examples from transcribed field notes illustrate an active role played by the guides
in providing cues to facilitate consumers' communion with nature. What is important is not so
much what guides know, but the feelings and values they embody and communicate to
customers.

Communitas
A second theme prevalent in all the collected data is an evolving feeling of communion with
friends family, and strangers. Feelings of linkage, of belonging, of group devotion to a
transcendent goal are facilitated by proximity forced by the narrow canyons, small camping
areas, boats, and teamwork associated with rafting itself. Guides impose rules and order on
the trip from the beginning that prefigure the development of community. Communitas
develops not only among the customers but between customers and the guides. In most of the
field note illustrations provided, the guides were fully integrated into the experience as
members of the team. People reported thinking of the guide, not in service provider terms, but
as a friend.

Personal Growth and Renewal of Self

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A third theme evidenced in the data is a rediscovered sense of self. Rafting provides a simple,
encapsulated world that offers participants "a sense of place and purpose, a rationale for
behaviour," and guides for action (Donohue 1991). Consistent with many clients' articulated
expectations, guides help clients acquire new skills. Demonstrating the use of safety
equipment, paddling techniques, methods of tying down equipment, encouraging the use of
the duckies and attempts to guide the paddle boats, cooking on a camp fire, and so on are
among the myriad ways in which guides use props to "provide new challenges" and "make
things fun." Clients also internalize the sense of danger and obstacles overcome, contributing
to a sense of personal intensification and renewal (Donohue 1991; Klausner 1968).

Links between Themes

Evident in both research seasons and across different research methods was the close linking
of the themes. The link with nature and the separation from "civilization" plays a role in the
creation of communitas: "We were removed from all those other peripheral things and so we
were able to focus on our friendship and concentrate on each other and our interaction with
each other was much better than we would've been able to do in another setting."
Quantitative analyses in the first season suggested that the three experiential themes are
highly correlated.

The Narrative of a Rafting Experience

It is important to have the entire narrative in order to understanding the experience, looking
across the pre-trip planning process to the culmination of the trip in a series of affectively
charged recollections from the clients.

Deviations from Expectations

In advance of the trip, it is difficult for clients to grasp the taken-for granted world of river
rafting enthusiasts and the romance they experience in their outdoor life. Similarly, outfitters
do not always anticipate the gap between the assumptions of clients and the realities of river
trips. In short, outcomes differ from expectations. Unanticipated realities are commonly
expressed in post-trip comments. For example, "I didn't expect to have wet feet for six days"
Guides and outfitters are frequently indifferent to aspects of the trip that subsequently
surprise clients. For example, a wealthy client and his family were disappointed to discover
that the water in the Green River was not, in fact, green, but rather a muddy brown, and that
the scenery was desert rather than lush forest. They demanded the outfitter arrange for
helicopter transport out of the wilderness area.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

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White water river rafting provides a dramatic illustration of complex features of delivering
"extraordinary experience." White water river rafting is viewed in individuals' narratives as
an unforgettable, affectively charged experience. Consistent with research on extraordinary
experiences, river rafting provides absorption and integration, personal control, joy and
valuing, a spontaneous letting-be of the process, and a newness of perception and process.
Dimensions of extraordinary experience manifest themselves in the themes of harmony with
nature, communitas, and personal growth and renewal. These experiential themes are
evidenced across all the data; they evolve and are woven together over the course of the trip.
Together, the three themes are significant in explaining overall satisfaction. Both qualitative
and quantitative results support the value of viewing the themes as an interactive gestalt
instead of trying to separate the contributions of the three themes.
In services ranging from fast food to birthing classes, providers could, and sometimes do,
stress one or more of these three themes. Although it may seem a stretch to promise a
renewed sense of self from stopping at McDonald's for breakfast, several award-winning
advertisements do just that. Incorporation of these themes in service provision may be both
unexpected and highly satisfying for consumers. Emotional outcomes associated with
extraordinary experience are embedded in relationships between customer and service
provider.
The research findings suggest that guides (service providers), partly at their own invitation,
are inducted into the community as friends and team players. The rite of intensification into
which the guide is bound by the experience of clients changes the nature of interaction in
fundamental ways, shifting it into a boundary open transaction between provider and
customer that transcends commercial interaction.

Satisfaction may have little to do with whether the experience unfolds as expected. The
important point is that people may be unable or unwilling to articulate the meanings they
really seek from many service encounters and especially service encounters that offer
something "extraordinary." Therefore, interpreting the unarticulated meanings that people
seek becomes more important to service provision than recording articulated expectations.
Mechanically linking managerial decisions to stated consumer expectations does not
necessarily lead to increased customer satisfaction. In summary, many of the reported
findings may have implications for a broad array of services and consumption activities.

More research is needed to explore the implications of exchanges that transcend commercial
interactions for behaviours such as tipping, repeat purchase, and service provider role stress.

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