Service encounter

The critical point in services is the service encounter. The service encounter is the interaction between the service organization, the service provider, and the customer. It is the familiar scene in the pharmacy where the patient drops off and picks up the prescription, as well as being counseled. This interaction has been termed the moment of truth in services (Norman, 1984, pp. 8—9). The rise and fall of huge corporations, as well as individual employees bonuses, can hinge on management of this brief interaction. 

Service is a full-contact sport. It is people interacting with people in what has been termed a moment of truth. Because what happens in that moment of truth cannot be scripted or controlled, the secret to a successful service encounter is an employee empowered to meet the idiosyncratic needs of the consumer. Empowering employees to deliver superior service requires that the organization share with front-line employees... 

Quicker responses to customer needs during the service encounter... 

Customers evaluate services and the service encounter on five broad dimensions. The five dimensions are... 

Customers evaluate the services they receive continuously. There is a constant assessment of expectations versus perception. An organization that cannot consistently deliver a level of service where customer expectations exceed perceptions simply will disappear. Since the customer will evaluate the service encounter... 

The last marketing-mix variable is productivity and quality. One issue here is creating efficiency in pharmacy service activities. This means that monitoring and feedback of service encounters should be performed. Then pharmacists can be trained to be efficient in the time spent with patients when providing services. Time benchmarks can be established for various service offerings. Nonpharmacist personnel should be used where appropriate, such as in scheduling appointments and billing payers. 

Debrief pharmacists on service encounters and overall process Adjust service process as needed... 

Once service delivery has begun, the control process goes into action. A goal is to make the performance monitoring, evaluation, and feedback activities routine. Intensive monitoring of the quality of initial service encounters provides important feedback on problems that need to be addressed. 

It is likely that tourists recall these multiple brief and routine encounters in a generalised or aggregated way, such as forming an overall impression of friendliness and service quality (Kandampully et al, 2001). It is only when critical incidents (such as stressful or very rewarding brief encounters) take place that powerful memories are created and the service encounters become a noteworthy part of the tourists recall (Lee-Ross, 2001). 

It is worth noting that the present interest in tourist behaviour rather than in the behaviour of service personnel can be developed in several ways. Chapter 6 will consider tourist satisfaction and will highlight the contribution of service personnel to this satisfaction. Additionally, there is an opportunity to view the tourist-service encounter as a chance to better understand how tourists behave. This interest may be in the realm of how requests are phrased, the time and attention given to interaction with providers and the empathy (or lack of it) for the role of the guide, courier, waiter or attendant. 

Bitner, M.J. (1990) Evaluating service encounters The effect of physical surroundings and employee responses. Journal of Marketing 54,69-82. 

Chadee, D. and Mattson, J. (1996) Measuring customer satisfaction with tourist service encounters. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 4 (4), 97-107. 

Lee-Ross, D. (2001) Understanding the role of the service encounter in tourism, hospitality and leisure services. In J. Kandampully, C. Mok and B. Sparks (eds) Service Quality Management in Hospitality, Tourism, and Leisure (pp. 85-95). London Haworth Press. 

Satisfaction also has been viewed as a pleasurable response to a service encounter. This type of conceptua-... 

Most process gate valves are specified with an Outside Screw and Yoke because of the corrosive and high temperature service encountered in process streams. For noncorrosive service, the thread can be inside the valve body, screwing into the body like nonrising stem gate valves and small globe, angle, Y and needle valves. 

In Section 2, we will explore the nature of services. In Section 3, we wUl discuss the service encounter, which is at the heart of the majority of service organizations. During the service encounter, service quality is rendered to the customer in the interplay among customer, customer-contact service employee, and service organization. In Section 4, we will focus on defining service quality and discuss the conceptual model of service quality, a framework for the management of service quality. In Section 6, we will describe a measurement instrument, SERVQUAL, that has been derived from this model. In Section 7, we will present a critical review of the conceptual model of service quality and the SERVQUAL instrument. 

The evaluation of the service encounter can be approached from several perspectives (Bateson 1985 Czepiel et al. 1985) (1) an organizational perspective, (2) a customer perspective, and (3) a customer-contact service employee perspective. The service oiganization is mainly interested in the performance of the customer-contact service employee because this perspective allows the service organization to attain its objectives. It is therefore essential for the service organization to identify organizational factors that affect the performance of service employees. The customer is mainly... 

Figure I The Service Encounter. (Partly based on the SERVUCTION system model developed by Langeard et al. 1981)...

This classification of standards is closely related to the following third characteristic suggested by Oliver (1993), who contends that service quality does not require experience with service or service provider. Customer satisfaction, on the other hand, is an experiential construct. Customer satisfaction can only be evaluated by actually experiencing the service encounter (Anderson and Fornell 1994 lacobucci et al. 1994). Anderson and Fornell (1994) suggest that in general, customer satisfaction is influenced by price, whereas service quality is viewed as independent from price. Price or costs incurred are often modeled using value value is thus operationalized as the ratio of perceived quality relative to price (cf. Zeithaml 1988). 

Bateson, J. E. G. (1985), Perceived Control and the Service Encounter, in The Service Encounter Managing Employee/Customer Interaction in the Service Businesses, J. A. Czepiel, M. R. Solomon and C. F. Surprenemt, Eds., Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, pp. 67—82. 

Bitner, M. J. (1990), Evaluating Service Encounters The Effects of Physical Surroundings and Employee Responses, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, January, pp. 71—84. 

Another group of methods uses the assessment of service encounters or moments of truth (i.e., the contact between customers and the service provider) for measuring service quality. An example of those methods is the critical incident technique (Bitner et al. 1990). This method uses structured interviews to gather information about customers experiences that have roused either very negative or very positive emotions. From those interviews, the most relevant problem areas are determined. This type of method allows the customer to describe the service encounter from his or her point of view instead of assessing it by predefined criteria. The method normally leads to the most significant causes of service failures. 

Bitner, M. J., Booms, B. H., and Tetreault, M. S. (1990), The Service Encounter Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, January, pp. 71-84. Bowers, M. R. (1986), New Product Development in Service Industries, Texas A M University, College Station, TX. 

Satisfaction measures look at the extent to which customers are satisfied with the service they have received. Customer satisfaction must be measured for each area of customer contact that affects the customer s decision to buy. In order to get a full understanding of the benefits and costs of service quality, customer satisfaction surveys should ask how satisfied customers are with a service encounter, what problems were experienced, whether assistance to answer a question or solve a problem was sought and where the customer sought advice, how many people the customer told about the experience, costs incurred by both servers and customers to prevent and correct poor service, and whether the customer intends to purchase the product or service again. 

Baldrige criteria for, 1963 and iCoUaboration tools, 968 measurement system for, 657 and price of product, 668 and queueing models, 1629 and service encounter, 624-625 and service quality, 640 service quality vs., 628-629 and site selection, 1468-1469 wheel of success, 652 Customer service, 651-663 applications of, 654, 655 audit of, 662, 663 and complaint management, 658 and customer satisfaction, 651-654 department, customer service, 657-660 call centers in, 658 and centralization, 657 complaint management by, 658 hiring/training/retaining employees for, 659... 

Service-based economy, 623 Service blueprinting, 641, 642 Service delivery systems, 1961-1963 Service differentiators, 1957 Service encounters, 624-625, 628, 641 Service engineering, 635-636 Service factory, 559 Service industries networks in, 253-254... 

---