The document discusses three frameworks for understanding the customer's service experience: 1) The Services Marketing Mix framework adds three new Ps - Participants, Physical Evidence, and Process - to the traditional 4 Ps. 2) The Servuction Framework views service delivery as a system with visible (environment, personnel, customers) and invisible (back-office) elements. 3) The Services Theater Framework views service as a performance with Actors (workers), a Setting (environment), and an Audience (customers), supported by backstage work.

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Chapter 2
Frameworks
for Managing
the Customer’s
Experience

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Objectives
1. To examine the key components of the service
experience
2. To describe three different frameworks that
capture the customer’s service experience:
– Services marketing mix
– Servuction framework
– Services theater framework
1. To provide an in-depth illustration of service as
theater
2. To discuss the emotional aspect of the service
experience

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Components of the
Service Experience
1. Service workers – Those who interact with
customers, and those who contribute to the
service delivery out of the customers' sight.
2. Service setting – The environment in which
the service is provided to the customer and
areas of the organization to which the
customer normally has little access.

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Components of the
Service Experience (cont’d)
3. Service customers – The persons receiving the
service (e.g., the diner or the depositor) and
others who share the service setting with them.
3. Service process – The sequence of activities or
events necessary to deliver the service.

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Framing the Service Experience
• Service frameworks perform several important
functions:
– Aid comprehension of service experiences by
describing their components.
– Make communicating about diverse services much
easier since a framework may include components
that are applicable to them all.
– Identify issues that should be considered in the
design of the service delivery
– Specify relationships among the four components of
the service experience

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Framing the Service
Experience (cont’d)
• The Services Marketing Mix (Booms and
Bitner 1981)
• The Servuction Framework (Langeard et al.
1981)
• The Services Theater Framework (Grove and
Fisk 1983)

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The Services
Marketing Mix Framework
• Adds three new Ps to the four Ps of the
traditional marketing mix:
– Participants are all people, whether customers and
workers, who are involved in the service production.
– Physical evidence means the service environment
and other tangible aspects of the service that
facilitate or communicate the nature of the service.
– Process of service assembly refers to the
procedures and flow of activities that contribute to
the delivery of the service.
• It suggests that marketing a service involves
more considerations than marketing a good.

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The Servuction Framework
• The term is hybrid of service and production
• The service’s invisible organization and system
– Aspects contributing to the service production
beyond the customers’ view.
• The visible elements include:
– The inanimate environment (the physical setting in
which the service is performed)
– The contact personnel (the employees who directly
interact with the customer to provide the service)
– Customer A (the customer receiving the service)
and customer B (others who may be present in the
visible area) and their interaction.

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The Servuction Framework
(cont’d)
• The bundle of service benefits a customer
receives as a result of the interaction with the
contact personnel (e.g., their courtesy and
competence),the inanimate service environment
(e.g., its comfort and decor), and other
customers (e.g., their number and behavior)

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The Servuction Framework
(cont’d)

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The Services Theater Framework
• Actors (service workers) are those who work
together to create the service for an Audience
(customers).
• Setting (service environment) is where the
action or service performance unfolds
(frontstage) and is supported (backstage).
• Performance is the dynamic result of the
interaction of the actors, audience, and setting.

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The Services Theater
Framework (cont’d)
• The frontstage actions that service actors
perform for the customers often relies on
significant support from the backstage
personnel and equipment.
• Much of the planning and execution of the
service experience occurs backstage, away
from the audience’s inspection.

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The Services Theater
Framework (cont’d)

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Comparing Service
Experience Frameworks