The Dramaturgical View of Services Marketing

1. The Dramaturgical View of Services Marketing Chun-Ming Yang PhD Candidate, National Sun Yat-Sen University

2. Who am I? • Name: Chun-Ming Yang (楊俊明) • Affiliation: • Department of Business Management, National Sun Yat-Sen University • Specialty: • Service Marketing, Marketing Management, and Consumer Behavior • Teaching Experience: • Part-time Lecturer, Southern Taiwan University of Technology, 3.5 Years. • Research Interests: • Social interactions in consumption field, internal marketing, tourism marketing, and consumption emotions.

3. The Importance of Service Marketing • Service dominate the economy in most nations. We, as customers, consume service products everyday. • Most new jobs are generated by services. • More and more manufacturers now define themselves as service providers (e.g., IBM). • Service has unique characteristics which need new marketing knowledge and skills.

4. What are Services？ • The Historical Perspective: • Service as unproductive labor which didn’t contribute the wealth of nations. • The Ownership Perspective: • Service as benefits without ownership • Rented good services • Defined space and place rentals • Labor and expertise rentals • Shared physical environment • System and network: access and usage.

5. What are Services？ • The Dramaturgical Perspective: • Service as a kind of well-staged performance which comprises actors, audiences, pre-determined scripts, stage properties, and stage settings. • Elements of Service Theater • Front Stage and Backstage • Actors – Frontline Employees • Audience – Customers • Scripts – Procedures and Behaviors • Stage Setting and Stage Properties – Service Environment

6. Elements of Service Theater – Front Stage and Backstage • Service Encounter • A period of time during which the consumer directly interacts with a service. • The Line of Visibility in Service Encounter • Front Stage – The visible and interactive part • Backstage – Preparation, processing, and training. • Should backstage be hid from customers？ • It could be beneficial for service organizations to provide customers with backstage information.

7. Elements of Service Theater – Actors • Frontline Employee • For high-contact services, frontline employees have a tremendous impact on customers’ service experience. • Employees not only receive customers, they also deliver the service. • Interactions between individuals constitute our daily life. • Frontline employee’s behaviors, conversations, displayed emotions, dress, and physical appearance are all important. • It is critical for service organizations to recruit, train, and motivate their employees.

8. Elements of Service Theater – Audience • Customers • Customers interact with frontline employees (and service facilities) in service encounter. They have to express their needs, cooperate with service providers, obey the rules, and even produce service products for their selves. • Customer participation and Self-service technology. (e.g., gas station) • Other customers matter！ • Jaycustomers / dysfunctional customer behaviors. • Interactions between customers is an important but often overlooked part in service marketing.

9. Elements of Service Theater – Scripts • Role Theory and Script Theory • Role theory emphasizes the nature of individuals as social actors who learn behaviors appropriate to the positions they occupy in society. • Script theory discusses about an individual’s cognitive knowledge about sequential procedures and events. • Both frontline employees and customers have their own scripts and expectations. • The fitness between frontline employee’s and customer’s scripts influences experience satisfaction.

10. Elements of Service Theater – Stage Setting and Properties • Physical Evidences of Service Environment • Servicescape: scent, music, decoration style, materials, colors, lighting, seats arrangement, space size, cleanliness, frontline employee’s uniforms, certificates…… • Why physical evidences matter? • Environmental psychology: Human beings are affected by the environment unconsciously. • Servicescape implies social norms. • All these elements in servicescape serve as heuristic cues and symbolize the service quality.

11. Characteristics of Service Product • Intangible elements usually dominate value creation. • Services are difficult to visualize and understand. • High Perceived Risk • Simultaneous production and consumption. • Customers may be involved in co-production. • People may be a part of service experience. • Mass production is difficult. • Service failure recovery system. • Most service products cannot be inventoried • Yield management will be critical. • Difficult to balance demand and supply.

12. Characteristics of Service Product • Service quality fluctuate significantly • Difficult to maintain customer satisfaction. • The importance of standardization (e.g., SOP), on-site control, and technology. • Customization is a possible alternative. • The Time Factor • Waiting is a common but frustrating thing. • How to reduce customer’s anxiety during waiting? • Nonphysical Distribution Channels. • Internet and voice telecommunication could be distribution channels (e.g., FAQ)

13. Important Topics in Service Marketing • Internal Marketing（Actors） • Blueprinting（Scripts） • Physical Environment (Stage settings） • Customer Relationship Management and Relationship Marketing（Audience ） • Service Encounter (Actors and Audience) • Corporate Image Management • Yield Management • Waiting Time Perception and Management • Service Quality • Service Failure and Service Recovery

14. Thank you for your listening!Q & A