The 'servicescape' has become a little-discussed marketing topic in the digital age; yet has quite a considerable influence on customers if you are a service business with a physical location. First, the servicescape forms a perception in the mind of customers. Then, it contributes to their service experience. The servicescape is the physical environment where a service transaction takes place. It facilitates the customers’ experience, but it also influences their first impressions before they even enter the store or interact with a staff member. This first impression helps customers ease any discomfort of the unknown, and then guides their perception and expectations of the service. The design and fit-out of a service help facilitate two main goals: first to be as efficient as possible to maximise how productive staff are at their job, and ensuring the customer has the experience they want. Ineffective designs can be frustrating to staff and customers alike. The design of the servicescape can also illustrate to customers where they can and cannot go. In services such as restaurants or cafés, the servicescape design helps both customers and employees socialise, to help facilitate a pleasurable experience with friends, family or business clients.

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WHAT IS THE SERVICESCAPE?
The servicescape is the physical environment where a service transaction takes place. It facilitates the
customers’ experience, but it also influences the first impression of a customer before they enter or even
interact with a staff member. This first impression helps customers ease any discomfort of the unknown, then
guiding their perception and expectations of the service provider.
Bitner (1992) introduced the term servicescape to define the context for a service encounter. It is the physical
setting where customers consume a service and/or product and the company and customer interacts with each
other. Businesses can (and should) modify their servicescape to match customer expectations and influence
their perceptions. The perception of customers will engage them to act in a certain way.

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Exterior
• Landscape
• Exterior design
• Surrounding environment
• Parking
• Signage
Interior
• Music
• Layout
• Equipment
• Air quality temperature
• Interior design
Others
• Virtual servicescape
• Web pages
• Employee uniforms
• Stationary
• Business cards
CHARACTERISTICS OF A SERVICESCAPE
The physical aspects of the service environment are organisationally controllable, objective and measurable.
This includes the exterior and the interior of the “brick and mortar” physical environment and the ambience of
the service encounter, such as background music and cleanliness, the overall design and furnishings, and the
staff’s competence and presentation. The physical components of a servicescape include:

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AMBIENCE
The ambience of a business can be the deciding factor of whether or not a customer comes back. Especially in
a café, bar or restaurant. The customer wants to feel as relaxed and as comfortable as possible. Ambience used
to be something too often overlooked by services, but as we have moved into a service-based economy, it is an
expectation from customers to have a certain level of ambience. The ambience affects our senses and influence
our experience.
“Ambient conditions represent background environmental stimuli, or atmospherics that affect human
sensations. These stimuli comprise visual (e.g. lighting, colours, brightness, shapes, aesthetic cleanliness,
olfactory (scent, air quality, fragrance) ambient (e.g. temperature) and auditory (e.g. music, noises)
elements.” (Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2011)

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SPATIAL LAYOUT AND FUNCTIONALITY
The physical attributes of a store should be the starting point for businesses as they can observe and measure
how effectively the layout and functionality enhance employee and customer activity. It is objective and
controllable.
Spatial layout refers to the arrangement of furnishings and equipment, their design and what they look like,
and the general spatial relationship between these objects in the store. Consider the comfort, layout, and
accessibility of your service as this can influence consumer approach or avoidance decision-making.
Functionality is the extent to which the business can facilitate the service and provide customer support. This
will be dependent on how much help the customers require.

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SIGNS, SYMBOLS, AND ARTEFACTS
The signage of a business is the first and most obvious place to communicate with customers at your place of
business. A big sign in the exterior of the building to communicate your brand to people driving past and
signage in the interior of your store. As well as your branding, signs can communicate how to behave in store
such as where the toilets are, where to pay, where in-store certain items are.
Symbols and artefacts contribute to the vibe and atmosphere of a servicescape. Examples of this are the
artwork on the wall, and décor design – is it themed or inspired by another culture? People usually interpret
these similarly, as the store design will have a certain symbolic meaning and purpose. However, an individual’s
ethnicity, for example, can be a moderator for how they perceive a servicescape dependent on how authentic it
is to their expectation.

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BRAND IMAGE AND DIFFERENTIATION
The servicescape for a business is much like the packaging for a product or a website. It conveys a certain
expectation to customers, and they perceive it in their unique way. It will attract some people and others will
not like it. One person will feel comfortable in a place and not so much in another.
Such Hell’s Pizza here in New Zealand. The took a slice of the pizza market away from Pizza Hut and Dominoes
with their unique branding. Your servicescape helps differentiate your brand from the next. For example,
McDonald's versus Burger King. The food is remarkably similar, but the restaurants are vastly different and
there is no way you would confuse the two. The unique ‘Golden Arches’ at McDonald's as you drive in the first
dead giveaway, then there’s Ronald McDonald and the playgrounds…

8. Daniel Hopper
Marketing Specialist - BYB MARKETING
#50WEEKSOFMARKETING
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