4.1 Explain the four core purposes of a well-designed service environment
(servicescape)
Role of service environments:
1. Shape customers' experience and shape their behaviour:
Message-creating medium: use symbolic cues to communicate with the
intended audience about the distinctive nature of the service and the
quality of the experience e.g. Curtis Hotel, Choice Hotels, Kingfisher Bay
Resort
Attention-creating medium: use noise, smell, colour etc. to make it
sound out from competition and attract target audience e.g. Aladdin
Casino, ICEHOTEL
Effect-creating medium: use colours, sounds, spatial design etc. to
create or heighten an appetite for certain goods/services/experiences
and to enhance the customer experience e.g. Louis Vuitton store,
Disneyland
2. Signal quality and position, differentiate and strengthen the brand
Uses the service environment to portray the desired image
e.g. The Pets Hotel, Rainforest café
3. Core component of the value proposition - help to shape feelings and
reactions
e.g. fine-dining restaurant, Movie World, Las Vegas
4. Facilitate the service encounter and enhance both service quality and
productivity
e.g. public vs private hospitals, childcare centres use toy outlines on walls
and floors to show where toys should be placed after use, food courts
strategically locate tray-return stands and notices on walls, seats on an
aircraft, Lululemon, Disneyland China
4.2 Demonstrate an understanding of theories from environmental psychology
that help us to understand customer as well as employee responses to service
environments
Theory behind consumers' responses to service environments:
1. The Mehrabian-Russell Stimulus-Response Model
2. Russell's Model of Affect
, The Mehrabian-Russell Stimulus-Response Model:
Conscious and unconscious perception and interpretation of the
environment influences how people feel
Feelings, as opposed to perceptions and thoughts, drive responses
(approach or avoid) to the environment
Feelings in turn will drive our responses to that environment
e.g. We may dislike being in a crowded department store with lots of other
people, find ourselves unable to get what we want quickly and thus seek to
avoid that environment
We are deterred by the unpleasant feeling of crowding, lack of perceived
control
Russell's Model of Affect:
Emotional responses are described along 2 dimensions: pleasure and
arousal
Pleasure - direct, subjective response based on how much we like or do
not like the environment
Arousal - how stimulated we feel. Highly arousing environments are
complex, include motion or change and have novel or surprising
elements
(servicescape)
Role of service environments:
1. Shape customers' experience and shape their behaviour:
Message-creating medium: use symbolic cues to communicate with the
intended audience about the distinctive nature of the service and the
quality of the experience e.g. Curtis Hotel, Choice Hotels, Kingfisher Bay
Resort
Attention-creating medium: use noise, smell, colour etc. to make it
sound out from competition and attract target audience e.g. Aladdin
Casino, ICEHOTEL
Effect-creating medium: use colours, sounds, spatial design etc. to
create or heighten an appetite for certain goods/services/experiences
and to enhance the customer experience e.g. Louis Vuitton store,
Disneyland
2. Signal quality and position, differentiate and strengthen the brand
Uses the service environment to portray the desired image
e.g. The Pets Hotel, Rainforest café
3. Core component of the value proposition - help to shape feelings and
reactions
e.g. fine-dining restaurant, Movie World, Las Vegas
4. Facilitate the service encounter and enhance both service quality and
productivity
e.g. public vs private hospitals, childcare centres use toy outlines on walls
and floors to show where toys should be placed after use, food courts
strategically locate tray-return stands and notices on walls, seats on an
aircraft, Lululemon, Disneyland China
4.2 Demonstrate an understanding of theories from environmental psychology
that help us to understand customer as well as employee responses to service
environments
Theory behind consumers' responses to service environments:
1. The Mehrabian-Russell Stimulus-Response Model
2. Russell's Model of Affect
, The Mehrabian-Russell Stimulus-Response Model:
Conscious and unconscious perception and interpretation of the
environment influences how people feel
Feelings, as opposed to perceptions and thoughts, drive responses
(approach or avoid) to the environment
Feelings in turn will drive our responses to that environment
e.g. We may dislike being in a crowded department store with lots of other
people, find ourselves unable to get what we want quickly and thus seek to
avoid that environment
We are deterred by the unpleasant feeling of crowding, lack of perceived
control
Russell's Model of Affect:
Emotional responses are described along 2 dimensions: pleasure and
arousal
Pleasure - direct, subjective response based on how much we like or do
not like the environment
Arousal - how stimulated we feel. Highly arousing environments are
complex, include motion or change and have novel or surprising
elements
