30 April – 27 May
Facilitator: Assistant Professor Jörg Pareigis
This module focuses on the physical environment which impacts customers as well as staff of service providers, also called servicescapes or experience rooms. Besides the traditional servicescape model, this module introduces some recent conceptualizations on the interactions between customers and the physical environment, such as resource integration, and the active role of customers within servicescapes. Learning resources in the module, include (but is not limited to) two scientific articles, one dissertation, webinars, and short videos.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Participants will after the module be able to:
– understand different theories used by researchers to explore the role of the service environment for the customer experience
– describe the limitations that arise, when using only conventional theories on the service environment
– understand the advantages of a reframed approach to the role of the service environment for the customer experience
– discuss customer experiences with service environments from different theoretical approaches
– relate theories on the interaction between customer and service environment to a practical organizational setting
Video
Physical Evidence and the Servicescape, Brian Wilson
This video provides an overview of the importance and roles of the physical environment in services and explains the servicescape model. The video also highlights some strategic guidelines for the servicescape design.
Resource integration, Maria Åkesson
The video lays the foundation for a different perspective on servicescapes with a focus on what is happening within them in interactions between customers and the servicescape. From this perspective, the servicescape is a bundle of resources and the customer a resource integrator. The video introduces the concept of resource integration.
Customer experiences of resource integration: Reframing servicescapes, Jörg Pareigis
The video explains how customer experiences of resource integration are shaped, from different types of customer knowledge over practices, to a holistic evaluation.
ACTIVITIES FOR ALL LEARNERS
Individual study
Watch the video resources and read the course literature (see below). You may also conduct your own search for literature with for example Google Scholar and share resources you find useful via Twitter using hashtag #uce72.
http://scholar.google.se/
Tips on how to find articles and other literature
Reflective blog posts
This course is very much about reflection as well as learning through writing and commenting. This work is done on personal blogs. In your blog posts you should reflect upon the content of this module and refer to the videos and the literature, or other literature related to the topic.
Post your texts in your connected blog . All posts will be shown on the course front page. Each week of the module will have a certain blogging activity. For details see below.
Comment on other blogposts
Each week we want you to read and comment on at least three posts by other participants.
Webinars & Tweetchat
Due to several public holidays, we will meet only twice for a webinar in Adobe Connect and will run another Tweetchat. See each week for times and details.
Link to webinar: sunet.zoom.us/my/uce72/
WEEKLY BREAKDOWN
Week 1
Blog about your expectations of the module and in what way it will be of benefit to you (and/or to your organisation/business).
Read and comment on at least three posts by other participants.
Webinar: Friday, 4 May 12.00 – 13.00 CEST (check your timezone) – (watch the recording here)
We meet as always in: sunet.zoom.us/my/uce72/.
Week 2
In your blog post for week 2 reflect upon one or two videos presented above and reflect on how the presented concepts relate to your organisation.
Read and comment on at least three posts by other participants.
There will be no live event this week.
Week 3
Blog: Identify a situation of interaction between customer and servicescape, which is NOT from your organization. Apply the concepts or models you have encountered during the module. Illustrate with photos, videos, instructions, texts, etc.
Read and comment on at least three posts by other participants.
Tweetchat: Friday, 18 May 12.00 – 13.00 CEST (check your timezone) – (reread all tweets here)
More information about the Tweetchat.
Week 4
Blog: Reflect upon how you could improve the work of your business/organization regarding customer satisfaction/experience with the help of the concepts or models highlighted in module 5.
Read and comment on at least three posts by other participants.
Webinar: Thursday, 24 May 12.00 – 13.00 CEST (check your timezone) – (watch the recording here)
We meet as always in: sunet.zoom.us/my/uce72/.
FOR PARTICIPANTS OF THE CREDIT BEARING COURSE
Assignment: ”Analysis of customer’s experience rooms in own company/organization”
In your individual assignment you should develop knowledge of the module theme, linked to your professional context. In this written assignment you should analyse different aspects of customers’ experience rooms of your organization. Build your analysis on relevant theories and/or models from the literature provided in the module. You are free to also use and reflect on other theories, models, concepts taken from other literature if they are shown to be fruitful and relevant for your analysis. Besides analysing the current contexts for customers’ interaction with the physical environment, you should make some conclusions regarding how the company can develop the prerequisites for effective and value creating interactions from a customer perspective. You can write in English or in Swedish. Results of your learning efforts should be described in a short module report (see below).
Make relevant limitations in your assignment and explain different premises of your analysis (e.g. how you prioritize between breadth and deep in your analysis and what customer interaction/servicescape/experience room aspect you want to focus on). Please, use headlines to structure the content.
As an examination of this module a written report should be handed in consisting of maximum 3 pages written text (i.e. approx. 1 000 words, excluding front page, content list, references, appendixes etc). Hopefully, you can build on your blog posts for the module and the comments you received from others in this work. Strive for a good written structure in the text and an interesting argumentation. Use references (course literature, books, media, etc.) to back up your arguments where appropriate. As a complement, you may upload short film clips, pictures, or other sources of information as complementary information.
The maximum points for the assignment is 20, which means that 12 points are needed for a pass (G) and 16 points for a pass with distinction (VG).
Examination criteria
1 Reflections and depth of analysis.
2 Findings, solutions, recommendations.
3 Theory use, contextual explanations and issues.
4 Structure and argumentation in the text.
5 Use of space (pages), creativity, and visualization.
Deadline: Monday, 28 May 2018 08.00 CEST
You can hand in your report here. In order to do this you need to login with your Student-ID.
LITERATURE
Bitner, M.J. (1992), “Servicescapes: The impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56 No. 2, pp. 57-71.
Otterbring, T., Pareigis, J., Wästlund, E., Makrygiannis, A. & Lindström, A. (2018) “The relationship between office type and job satisfaction: Testing a multiple mediation model through ease of interaction and well-being”, Scand J Work Environ Health, online first.
Pareigis, J. (2012) “Customer experiences of resource integration : Reframing servicescapes using scripts and practices”, Doctoral dissertation, Karlstad University.
OTHER LITERATURE OF INTEREST
Edvardsson, B., Enquist, B., & Johnston, R. (2005). Cocreating customer value through hyperreality in the prepurchase service experience. Journal of service research, 8(2), 149-161.
Rosenbaum, M. S., & Massiah, C. (2011). An expanded servicescape perspective. Journal of Service Management, 22(4), 471-490.
Tombs, A., & McColl-Kennedy, J. R. (2003). Social-servicescape conceptual model. Marketing Theory, 3(4), 447-475.