2. Introduction
Paper this week:
Can Customers Detect Script Usage in
Service Encounters? An Experimental Video Analysis
Journal: Journal of Service Research
5-year Impact factor: 4.138
Year: 2012, May
Cited times: 46
Author:
Liana Victorino, Rohit Verma, Bryan L. Bonner, Don G. Wardell
Key words:
service scripts, service encounter, service design, video experiment
3. Before we start…
Service Script
‘Never say ‘Hello’ to a guest; always opt for a more formal
greeting like ‘Good Morning.’
4. Research Background
Past researches on scripts:
• Organizational Behavior: job designs
• Operation: SOPs
• Marketing: structured expectations
Only one empirical study that investigated service scripts
(Schau, Dellande, and Gilly 2007)
• They observed that on-script encounters resulted in fewer
negative outcomes overall but were less frequently associated
with positive gestures or comments by customers when
compared to the deviated encounters
5. Research Background
Service scripts usually imply the necessary requirements of
emotional labor
Emotional Labor:
• Surface acting
• Deep acting
Groth, Hennig-Thurau, and Walsh (2009):
• customer detection accuracy can act as a moderator that
strengthens the relationship between the emotional labor
strategy and customer outcomes
• as a customer’s detection ability becomes more accurate, it
enhanced the influence of the emotional labor strategy, such as
increasing the positive benefits of deep acting
Script level
(service provider)
and
Script Detection
(customer)
7. Methodology
Video Experiment
Prior to the video experiment:
• Interviews with employees (N= 9) and managers (N =
8) from different industries
• Gather examples of script rules to apply within
experimental vignettes
Pilot study:
• Graduate students
• First round: to test the written scenarios
(n=14)
• Second round: scenario testing
(N=71 for standardized and N=59 for customized)
8. Methodology
Video development
• Based on the written scenarios
• Hire professional crews to film and edit the clips
• Used a hotel’s lobby as the scene
• Over the shoulder focused
• Four clip types
• Impromptu
• Relaxation of script
• Moderately scripted
• Predominantly scripted.
9. Sample:
• Online questionnaire
• 456 respondents (of 1,000 requests)
• 70% have service experience in the case hotel within
1 year
Manipulation:
• Scenario: hotel
• Customized service(concierge )or standardized
service(Hotel chek-in)
• Three levels of scripting levels(predominantly
scripted to a relaxed approach)
Methodology
12. ANOVA(Analysis of Variance)
• RQ2
• 3X2 design
Data Analyses & Results
process
script
level predominant moderate relaxed
standardized
Each cell contain more than 45 replies
customized
15. Conclusion
1. Script level could be reliably perceived by
customers
2. Types of process (standardized or
customized)moderate customer’s
perception accuracy
3. Customers’ Backgrounds don’t matter
