Journal Fever #9

AncientSpecies

Leimens

Pharaoh Ray

Lovely dinner boxes

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

Before we start…

Service Script

‘Never say ‘Hello’ to a guest; always opt for a more formal

greeting like ‘Good Morning.’

Research BackgroundPast 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

Research BackgroundService 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)

Research Questions

MethodologyVideo 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)

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.

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

Sample Characteristics

Data Analyses & Results

PCA(Principle component analysis)• To RQ1• Service script presence as the dependent variable

Data Analyses & Results

ANOVA(Analysis of Variance)

• RQ2

• 3X2 design

Data Analyses & Results

processscript level predominant moderate relaxed

standardized

Each cell contain more than 45 repliescustomized

ANOVA(Analysis of Variance)

Data Analyses & Results

ANOVA(Analysis of Variance)• personal bias testing

Data Analyses & Results

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

Welcome to the world!