The Servicescape

What would be the first thing which grasps your attention and lure you into its store? If you walk pass Selfridges, Harrods, Liberty or Harvey Nichols- my favourite one, you would see how important the first impression of service design is. Speaking clearly with regards to this matter, service design or servicescape is known for the physical evidence and experiential surrounding provided by the brand. The practical service design should be able to create an atmosphere through the use of emotional state that enhances as well as trigger customers' buying decision in store.


Baker’s framework suggests the combination of physical evidence consists of three main dimensions which are social, design and ambient dimensions. The social dimension covers all people in the same environment including sales person as well as other shoppers. The design dimension refers to physical appearance and nature environment. The ambient dimension covers temperature, air quality, noise, music, space, layout, equipment, furnishings, signs, symbols & artifacts, signage, personal artifacts and style of decor.


Sullivan and Adcock (2007) state that the experience of shopping at the store influence the buying decision more than quality and price level of product ranges; therefore, it is advisable for retailers to carefully pay attention to any experiential elements which affect its clienteles’ perceived store shopping experience (PSSE).




Mehrabian Russell (MR) stimulus response model indicates customers’ behavior influential factors by store stimulus. Each shopper generates a certain mood state which reflects individual buying decision; buy or not buy.
“The basic premise of the model is that a shopper’s perceptions of, and behavior within, a retail environment are the result of emotional states created by that environment” (p.135 Sullivan and Adcock,2007).


Sullivan and Adcock (2007) specify that MR model is divided into three fundamentals which are environmental stimuli, emotional states and behavior. In the beginning stage, the customers process store stimuli which are prevalence into three dimensions as discussed earlier; social, design and ambient dimension. Each shopper processes, analyzes and perceives store stimuli in a unique individual way. In this stage, mood state is development through store experiencing which vary into two variables: pleasure and arousal. Pleasure refers to when a customer feels good about the environment while arousal refers to when a customer is being motivated to buy a product. Finally, the third stage is the behavior; either approach or avoidance, bases on an individual mood state according to the earlier stage.


Service Culture

“The Contributions we willingly make to out organizations create a collective strength that individuals working toward selfish ends cannot achieve alone. It is the collection of individual efforts that, when added together, create a true customer serice culture and make life and work more fun” (p.3 Martinez and Hobbi,1967).

What makes the brand so powerful lays on the service culture a particular brand offers to its clienteles.  A culture is a basic set of shared values, attitudes, beliefs and norms among a group of people. A Corporate culture is a subset of culture which shared values and beliefs are believed to be solid when it is being applied by people within the same organization. Therefore, human resource strategy should be planned clearly within the organization. As a result, an appropriate training system should be able to acknowledge its employee regarding their companies’ cultures in order to convince and conform all employees in the same direction. The training programs must improve human resource by means of enhancing employee competency, soft skills and know-how in order to perform in effective and efficient manners that reflect the holistic image of the brand.

The service culture should indicate an excellent customer service; for instance, positive attitude, well-manners, attentive, consistency, flexibility, sincerity, good communication and quick response to customers (Martinez and Hobbi, 1967).

In the rapidly changing and competitive world, the brand should distinguish themselves from their competitors. Since the unique selling point in Luxury market reaches some difficulties in addition to the product differentiation where many brands copy each other, I believe customer service with well-trained staffs could survive the company for longer. Customer service cannot be imitate because it is at the heart of employee who are trained, not that anyone could imitate by observation.

“Customer-loving person who relates comfortable to a wide variety of people and empathizes easily is the natural seed of service culture” (Bassett, 1992). However, employees have to be motivated to perform under proper circumstances as well i.e. rewards including empowerment, commission, praise, and etc.

Servicescape Observation

I have also done servicescape through the observation at Mulberry, Bond Street branch. 

I will define the store elements into 7 categories as following;

• Street: It is located in Luxury brand shopping arcade- Bond   Street. There are four lanes in front of the store where one  lane could be park for a short drop-off for taxi. Hence, its clients will be convenient traveling to this store. Moreover, there is NO bus stop that might forbid its clients to see.
• Entrance: The door was open and it was too welcoming because actually luxury brands should filter its customers through their effort and confidence of opening the door. There is no focus point because of the clutter of product rages and the circular shoes area which is located in the middle of the store. According to the threshold, I could see the staff at the door but they were talking to each other over my head. Besides, the distance of the first product I could reach is only 1 metre from the entrance.
• Environment: The use of decoration made from wood that is considered to get along well with its brand DNA.The use of warm colour which match with season.
• Browsing: There is NO natural flow but depending on customers preferences because Bags are located on the right hand side while clothes are located on the left hand side. However, the first counter which is filled with bags are the bit on left hand side in front of the entrance so the customers do not need to turn left or right but just head straight when entering the store. Hidden area of classic goods which should change from solid wall to transparent one so that customers know what is inside. Hidden idea of shoes section which should be located either on left or right, not in the middle as present.
• Display: Lighting is not too bright and makes customers feel warm. Wide ranges of product sizes, colours and styles. The shelves are too high for customer to grasp the product as wel as some shelves are too low and very near the floor so that the customers will not pay much attention to those products. Too many changing rooms makes the store looks not exclusive and no curtain or proper partition so customers might lose privacy. The price tags are inside the bags and very difficult to find as well as a very small transparent sticker of price on the shoes.
• Staff Contact: NO eye contact except the manage, NO greeting upon arrival, and NO help offered
• Selling Situation: The staff did not really find out what I wanted and the worst is that I was actually trying to buy the product.

Recommendations

• The door should be closed at all time and a doorman should help customer opening the door once see that they try to get in. 
•  Well trained staffs: pay attention on customers and greeting
• Move the shoes area in either way
• Should be a focus point and possible for customers to see through the shop until at the back of the store
• Proper partition for changing rooms and decrease it to three rooms must be enough
• Instant cleaning after serving coffee or tea
• Provide more seating spaces for awaiting couple.A

Bibliographies:

Sullivan, M. and Adcock, D. (2007).  Retail Marketing (3^rd edn), London: Thomson Learning.

Swartz, A. T. and Iacobucci, D.  (ed.)(2000). Handbook of Services Markering & Management, London: Sage Publications.

Jang, S.C. and Namkung Y. (2008). ‘Perceived quality, emotions, and behavior intention: Application of an extended Mehrabian- Russell model to restaurants’ Journal of Business Research, 62 (4) pp.451-460. 

SciVerse Collection[online]. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ (Accessed 8 March 2011).

Martinez, M. and Hobbi, B. (1967). Building A Customer Service Culture; the seven service elements of customer success, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing Inc.

Bassett, G. (1992). Operations Management For Service Industries: competing in the service era Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.