CHAPTER 10: Physical Evidence and the Servicescape

10.1. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

1. What Is Physical Evidence?
- Physical evidence (tangible cues): to evaluate the service before its purchase and to
assess their satisfaction with the service during and after the experience.
- Physical Evidence important for closing Gap 2.

General elements of physical evidence include all aspects of an organization's

physical facility (servicescape) and other forms of tangible communications.
- Elements of the physical servicescape that affect customers include both exterior
attributes (such as signage, parking, and the landscape) and interior attributes (such
as design, layout, equipment, and decor).

2. How Does Physical Evidence Affect the Customer Experience?

- Physical evidence will influence the flow of the experience, the meaning customers
attach to it, satisfaction, emotional connections with the company delivering the
experience.
- Clue management; the process of clearly identifying and managing all the various
clues that customers use to form their impressions and feelings about the company.
(Physical evidence or mechanic clues include in this set).

TYPES OF SERVICESCAPES

1. Servicescape Usage
- Differ in terms of whom the servicescape will affect.
Self-service environment:
- Rhe customer performs most of the activities and few if any employees are involved.
For example: ATM, check-in kiosk,..
- Plan focus exclusively on marketing goals such as attracting the right market
segment -> making the facility pleasing and easy to use -> creating the desired
service experience for the customer.
Remote service:
- Little or no customer involvement with the servicescape.
 For example: telecommunications, financial consultants, editorial
- The facility can be set up to keep employees motivated and to facilitate productivity,
teamwork, operational efficiency.
Interpersonal services:
- Both the customer and the employee are present and active in the servicescape.
Example: hotels, restaurants, hospitals
- Servicescape must be designed to attract, satisfy, and facilitate the activities of both
customers and employees.
-

2. Servicescape Complexity
- Lean servicescape:
+ simple, with few elements, few spaces, and few pieces of equipment (e.g:
kiosk).
+ no interaction among employees and customers.
- Elaborate servicescape:
+ complicated, with many elements and many forms such as hospital with its
many floors and rooms, sophisticated equipment,..
+ the full range of marketing and organizational can be approached through
careful management of the servicescape.

STRATEGIC ROLES OF THE SERVICESCAPE

1. Package
- The servicescape is the outward appearance of the organization -> critical in forming
initial impressions or setting up customer expectations
- Creating expectations for new customers and for newly established service
organizations trying to build a particular image.
- Extends to the appearance of contact personnel through their uniforms or dress and
other elements.
- A lot of brands spend time and money to design their brand, providing their
customers with strong visual metaphors and “service packaging” that conveys the
brand positioning.
 Example: Starbucks is creating unique environments for its 23,000 stores so that
they don’t all have the look and feel of a store straight out of Seattle => every store
feel not like a “mass produced” replica, but rather like a local coffee shop.

2. Facilitator
- A well-designed, functional facility can make the service a pleasure to experience
from both the customer’s point of view and the employee’s. >< Poor and inefficient
design may frustrate both customers and employees.

3. Socializer
- Design of servicescape helps convey expected roles, behaviors, and relationships.
Example: a new employee would understand her position through noting her office
assignment, the quality of her office furnishings, and her location.
- Suggest to customers what their role is relative to employees, what parts of the
servicescape they are welcome in and which are for employees only.
Example: Starbucks locations have comfortable lounge chairs, tables, and Wi-Fi set
up to encourage customers to interact and to stay longer -> Be the place where
customers think of spending time when not at work or at home.

4. Differentiator
- The signage, colors used in decor and displays, and type of music wafting from a
store signal the intended market segment.
- For example: PetSmart is a hotel that offers overnight caree for pets, and is designed
very differently from typical kennels or veterinary facilities with a lobby area, colorful
play areas, and comfortable sleeping rooms.
- Differentiate one area of a service organization from another: Bigger rooms with more
physical amenities cost more.

FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING SERVICESCAPE

EFFECTS ON BEHAVIOR

1. The Underlying Framework

- stimulus–organism–response theory:
+ multidimensional environment is the stimulus
+ consumers and employees are the organisms
+ behaviors directed at the environment are the responses.
=> servicescape will affect customers and employees -> behave and respond in different
ways depending on their internal reactions to the servicescape.

For example:
- cookie cart parked outside the student union on campus with colorful and playful in
design, and an aroma of baking cookies wafts from it (multidimensional
environment - stimulus)’
- a hungry student attracted by that fun design and the delicious smell -> feel happy,
relaxed, and hungry at the same time. (organisms)
- attracted to the cart and decide to buy a cookie because you have another class to
attend before lunch (behaviours)
 2. Behaviors in the Servicescape
- Human behavior is influenced by the physical setting in which it occurs.
For example: remodeling a restaurant positively increased customer perceptions,
store image, and the amount of money customers spent in the restaurant. (but in the
short-term only, for the long-term, the remodeled restaurant became the new frame of
reference for customers)

3. Individual Behaviors
- Individuals react to places with two gen- eral, and opposite, forms of behavior:
approach and avoidance.
- Approach: include all positive behaviors that might be directed at a particular place,
such as a desire to stay, explore, work, and affiliate. - are influenced by perceptions
of the environment.
- Avoidance: reflect the opposite— a desire not to stay, to explore, to work, or to
affiliate.
- The ability of employees to do their jobs effectively is also influenced by the
servicescape (comfortable temperature and air quality all contribute to an employee’s
comfort and job satisfaction).

4. Social Interactions
- All social interaction is affected by the physical container in which it occurs.
- The “physical container” can affect the nature of social interaction in terms of the
duration of interaction and the actual progression of events.
- Recurring social behavior patterns are associated with particular physical settings
and that when people encounter typical settings, their social behaviors can be
predicted

Internal Responses to the Servicescape

- Dimensions of physical surroundings cognitively, emotionally, and
physiologically, and those responses are what influence behaviors in the
environment.
- They are clearly interdependent: a person’s beliefs about a place, a cognitive
response, may well influence the person’s emotional response, and vice versa.
For example, patients who go into a dentist’s office designed to calm and soothe their
anxieties (emotional responses) may believe as a result that the dentist is caring and
competent (cognitive responses).

1. Environment and Cognition

- The perceived servicescape can have an effect on people’s beliefs about a
place/people, product found in the place.
Example: store atmospheres were found to alter beliefs about a product (perfume)
sold in the store/ office that were more organized and professional were viewed more
positively than were those whose.
- Overall perception of the servicescape enables the consumer or employee to
categorize the firm mentally.
2. Environment and Emotion
- The colors, decor, music, and other elements of the atmosphere can have an
unexplainable effect on the moods of people in the place.
 For example: certain environmental stimuli (noises, smells) common in a
dental office can bring on immediate feelings of fear and anxiety.
- Any environment, whether natural or engineered, will elicit emotions that can be
captured by two basic dimensions:
+ (1) pleasure/ displeasure
+ (2) degree of arousal (amount of stimulation or excitement).

3. Environment and Physiology

- All physical responses may directly influence whether people stay in and enjoy a
particular environment.
Example: The hard seats historically found in a fast-food res- taurant cause most
people to leave within a predictable period of time.
- Human factors research systematically applies relevant information about human
capabilities and limitations to the design of items and procedures that people use.
- Service organizations and others are responding by adopting “universal design
standards and principles,” -> designing all products, buildings, and spaces to be
usable by all people to the greatest extent possible.

4. Variations in Individual Responses

- Personality differences as well as temporary conditions such as moods or the
purpose -> variations in how people respond to the servicescape.
- Personality trait that has been shown to affect how people respond to environments
is arousal seeking.
Example: an arousal avoider in a loud, bright dance club with flashing lights might
show strong dislike for the environment, whereas an arousal seeker would be very
happy.
- The particular purpose for being in a servicescape can also affect a person’s
response to it
Example: a day-surgery hospital patient will likely be less sensitive and demanding
of the hospital environment than would a patient who is spending two weeks in the
hospital.
- Cultural differences also influence preferences for environmental features and
responses to servicescape design.
Example: a strong cultural preference for the color red in China, whereas Westerners
would not share this attraction.

Environmental Dimensions of the Servicescape

1. Ambient Conditions
- Include background characteristics of the environment such as temperature, lighting,
noise, music, scent, and color -> affect how people feel, think, and respond to a
service establishment.
Example: When there is music, shoppers tend to perceive that they spend less time
shopping and in line than when there is no music.

2. Spatial Layout and Functionality

- Spatial layout: the ways in which machinery, equipment, and furnishings are
arranged; the size and shape of those items; and the spatial relationships among
them.
 - Functionality: the ability of the same items to facilitate the accomplishment of
customer and employee goals.
- Particularly important for customers in self-service environments, where they must
perform the service on their own.

3. Signs, Symbols, and Artifacts

- Signs displayed on the exterior and interior of a structure are examples of explicit
communicators.
+ labels (name of company, name of department, and so on)
+ directional purposes (entrances, exits)
+ rules of behavior (no smoking, children must be accompanied by an adult)
- Symbols and artifacts may communicate less directly than signs, giving implicit
cues to users -> communicate symbolic meaning and create an overall aesthetic.
- Important in forming first impressions and for communicating service concepts.
Example: study of dentists’ offices found that consumers use the environment,
in particular its style of decoration and level of quality, as a cue to the
competence and manner of the service provider

GUIDELINES FOR PHYSICAL EVIDENCE STRATEGY

Recognize the Strategic Impact of Physical Evidence

- Physical evidence can play a prominent role in determining service quality
expectations and perceptions.
- Physical evidence strategymust be linked clearly to the organization’s overall goals
and vision.
- The basic service concept must be defined, the target markets (both internal and
external) identified, and the firm’s broad vision of its future known.

Blueprint the Physical Evidence of Service

- People, processes, and physical evidence can all be seen in the blueprint.
- The actions involved in service delivery are visible, as are the complexity of the
process, the points of human interaction that provide evidence opportunities, and the
tangible representations present at each step.

Clarify Strategic Roles of the Servicescape

- Have to consider the needs of both the consumers and the service providers and
could impact marketing, organizational behavior, and consumer satisfaction goals.
- Clarifying the roles played by the servicescape will aid in identifying opportunities and
deciding who needs to be consulted in making facility design decisions.

Assess and Identify Physical Evidence Opportunities

- A strategy might then be developed to provide more evidence of service to show
customers exactly what they are paying for. -> developed ways to communicate and
provide evidence of the service for customers.
- The evidence provided is sending messages that do not enhance the firm’s image or
goals or that do not match customer expectations -> the pricing or the facility design
would need to be changed.
Update and Modernize the Evidence
- An element of fashion is involved, and over time different colors, designs, and styles
may come to communicate different messages -> understand this concept when it
comes to advertising strategy.

Work Cross-Functionally
- Physical evidence decisions are made over time and by various functions within the
organization.
Example: decisions regarding employee uniforms may be made by the human
resources area.
- A multifunction team approach to physical evidence strategy is often necessary,
particularly for making decisions about the servicescape.