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Service advisor : I really think that people would appreciate that sort of a thing [friendlinessand small talk]. That is what is expected of us that we should have the time to chat andmaybe talk about the car and things . . . Its nonsense, but it makes customers feel good Hey, he knows me!

Interviewer : Why dont you do that?

Service advisor : Well . . . sometimes I do it. But I dont have the energy . . . I did it whenworking for company X [where] people were extremely service-minded. The atmospheremade us do it.

It is apparent that the backstage interactions at company X had engenderedconstructive backstage learning, whereas the culture of the present company did notmotivate service personnel in the same way.

In summary, the ndings of the present study demonstrate that interaction andcooperation among frontline contact persons are essential to effective backstagelearning. However, it is also apparent that backstage learning is not alwaysconstructive; the study nds that non-constructive learning can also occur, and thatthis can have an adverse effect on service quality. Figure 2 illustrates the nalconceptual model for backstage learning.

3.4.4. Talk, stories and a shared social space in backstage learning. The study foundthat talking about customers was common among both salespersons and serviceadvisors. Chatting, joking, and telling stories backstage provided insights for staff members into various aspects of customer service. The following excerpt from aninterview describes this process:

Salesperson : Its good to tell stories to each other.

Interviewer : What do you mean good?

Figure 2.A framework of backstagelearning

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Salesperson : Well, lets say that it lightens up the atmosphere . . . And then you may get sometips on how something can be done . . . Nobody does things the same way. Somebody does itthat way and somebody does it another way. But you can get some good ideas.

Stories thus gave rise to constructive backstage learning. The stories werecharacterised by a rich description of situations and problems, through which othermembers of the group could learn. This was described in the eld notes:

I arrive at the company about 8 a.m. I have a cup of coffee with salesperson X and salespersonY. No customers yet. As I sit there one person after another drops by. The discussion is lively. . . Then a service advisor comes to fetch a cup of coffee and she shares her frustration withthe gang at the table. Shes come across a customer who isnt satised with anything. Shetells us about the incident . . . the customer has a special car and there had been some specialarrangements. This she explains to the guys at the table so that they know if theyencounter a similar situation.

The service advisors story continued to be discussed after she had left the room, and

this stimulated further discussion on similar events that the others had experienced. Itwas typical for stories such as this to become the subject of further discussion andcollective reection.

Backstage learning was also reinforced by the existence of shared social spaceswhere frontline contact persons could meet in an informal way. Both salespersons andservice advisors used the shared space for socialisation and getting things off theirchests. The backstage thus played a part in maintaining the well-being of frontlinecontact persons. A service advisor put it this way:

Having coffee gives your nerves a moment to relax . . . I couldnt make it without it... When [I]have some coffee and walk away from the counter, then I generally dont answer the phone.Then Im on a break, then I take a deep breath... I often work during coffee [in the sense] that Italk with colleagues . . . but I dont like to talk to customers . . . Thats not part of the coffeebreak!

3.4.5. Difcult situations and customers in backstage learning. Many stories aboutdifcult customers were related, often as a form of entertainment, among bothsalespersons and service advisors. In this way, experiences were shared and advice onhow to manage such customers was passed on. These difcult customers wereperceived as having misbehaved in the sense of breaking commonly held culturalcodes of behaviour.One of the salespersons declared that these difcult customers were the mostmemorable ones, and that they equated with trouble; this salesperson felt that itwas important to share this information with others working at the outlet. Indeed, therewere numerous survival stories told backstage of how a difcult customer had beenhandled. Such stories of difcult situations and customers enabled frontline contactpersons to enhance their understanding in both constructive and non-constructiveways. A service advisor described it this way in an interview:

Service advisor : I would like to say that there are no difcult customers they are justchallenging. But . . . they really do exist . . . I know them we all know them. So you knowthat you need to be prepared.

Interviewer : Interesting that everybody knows. How come?

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Service advisor : Well, you know . . . Over the years we have learned . . . We tell our colleaguesabout difcult customers. For sure!

Interviewer : Why?

Service advisor : Why? Because if you have encountered a difcult customer you know he isdifcult . . . You know how to prepare. Its bad when somebody gets to surprise you.

Interviewer : Know how to prepare?

Service advisor : Yes, so you can mentally prepare that . . . We do a thing on difcultcustomers Ive personally written a remark in the database about one customer: Check thecar before you service it [that is] before you touch the car you have to check it.

Within the community of service advisors there was a sense of solidarity a unitedfront against difcult customers. Even if a service advisor had no personal experienceof such customers, the ow of communication backstage effectively ensured thateverybody became aware of them.

3.4.6. Antagonism between sales and service personnel in backstage learning.Cooperation between sales and service personnel was valued by both groups, whorecognised the mutual benet to be gained from such cooperation across boundaries. Inthese circumstances, constructive backstage learning occurred and service quality wasenhanced. Nevertheless, some degree of antagonism existed between the two groups,which tended to inhibit backstage interactions, cooperation, and learning. One serviceadvisor put it this way:

There are salespersons [who], when its quiet, take care of their clients cars and bring them toservice. The salesperson then sees the customer as a customer of both sales and service. Weponder, discuss, and cooperate. This is good for us, for them [the salespersons], and thecustomers. [But] there are [also] salespersons that do not give a damn. They just sell cars anddo not want to cooperate. They arent interested.

The antagonism between the two groups arose from the different cognitive, cultural,and historical dimensions of the sales context and the service context (as describedabove). In particular, a major factor inuencing the context of sales was the fact thatsalespersons worked on a commission basis; they therefore needed to keep customerssatised and service quality high to survive in the business. One salesperson describedthe difculties in this way:

These [departments] always seem to be in conict with each other [and] the customer iscaught in the middle. The motive of the car salesperson for keeping the customer satised isthat he gets the next deal. But [service personnel] dont have as much at stake personally assalespersons . . . its . . . a collision between two different cultures with different payment

systems.To overcome this antagonism, the formation of social bonds between frontline contactpersons was crucial, as the following excerpt from an interview reveals:

It [learning across the boundary of sales and service] actually depends . . . on chemistry how well you know somebody. If a salesperson knows a service advisor well I mean . . . if you talk about other things than work they [service advisors] are very exible and helpful.And then the salesperson also helps the service advisor . . . [Its] all about personalrelationships . . . if youre just working at the same outlet and you dont know each other, the

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salesperson is in the same position as the customer. I have personal relationships thatfunction very well, and then there are those where nothing is working.

3.4.7. An illustrative example. During eldwork, the researcher observed thatsalesperson X and service advisor Y had frequent contact with each other. Given thatsalespersons and service advisors tended to have antagonistic relationships, thefrequent contact between X and Y was unusual. The following excerpts from the eldnotes illustrate the nature of the relationship.

Service advisor Y has arrived. He goes for a coffee and on his way he says Good morning tosalesperson X. Service advisor Y goes inside salesperson Xs booth. These two seem to bevery good friends they talk a lot with each other.

This informal, cooperative arrangement between salesperson X and service advisor Ybecame more apparent as the research continued:

Service advisor Y is serving a customer. The car needs to be xed and the customer isexplaining in great detail about the problem. Service advisor Y and the customer go to

salesperson X and they discuss the problem together. Afterwards, Y and X are talking aboutthe customer. They discuss what should be done. It is clear from the choice of words, looks,and pitch that they share a specic understanding of the customer. . . . Salesperson X evensays to me: You see we have a kind of shared understanding.

The extensive cooperation between X and Y was, in fact, unique in this research.During eldwork at different outlets and departments, there was no example of similarcooperation between salespersons and service advisors. Although cooperation and thesharing of knowledge about customers and customer service was an everydayoccurrence within groups of salespersons or service personnel, boundary crossing wasmuch more limited.

X and Y had been working together for a year at the same outlet and were working

with the same brands of cars. Neither was in a management position and their contactwas restricted to the workplace. In their interviews, service advisor Y mentionedsalesperson X by name several times, and vice versa:

Service advisor Y : Car sales thats an interesting game. I think its . . . fun. I have supported very much car sales with my own work. During the past ve years Ive probably initiatedmost of the deals that salesperson X has closed. When a [customer] comes to my counter Idirect him to sales, and on many occasions Ive demonstrated the car, as Im familiar with thetechnical issues. So thats why I say its an interesting game. But I dont know if I would liketo do it for a living.

Interviewer : But you do it for fun?

Service advisor Y : Yes, yes. When the customer comes here to the counter and I see thecustomers car, then at that stage its easy to motivate . . . the customer [to] buy a new car Your car will soon have to be serviced because youve driven so and so many kilometres . . .it will become more and more expensive to drive this car . . . now would be a good time tochange it.

Interviewer : How do customers react to this?

Service advisor Y : They become interested.

Interviewer : So you go away from the service counter?


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Service advisor Y : Yes. When Ive nished the service procedure and . . .we go through the billand . . . the customer pays with his card, I start doing some small talk; and then when thecustomer gets interested, . . . I take him by the arm and we go to the sales department.

Service advisor Y was then asked why such a degree of cooperation had arisen withsalesperson X.

Service advisor Y : Some say that they havent come here to make friends they just workhere. If you feel that way you should change jobs, I think. You dont need to be best friends . . .but I think its extremely important that were all friends.

Interviewer : So being friends helps you in your job?

Service advisor Y : Yes, a lot. You understand the other person better. A good example of thisis salesperson X. We have really become friends and weve talked about things to each otherthat nobody else here knows about. OK, sometimes we spend too much time talking so thatwork is partly neglected [laughing]. But it makes working . . . a lot more fun.

The above quotation implies that trust was an important ingredient in the friendshipbetween X and Y in that they could discuss things that were not discussed withothers. The interview continued as follows:

Interviewer : Do you share knowledge?

Service advisor Y : Yes.

Interviewer : About customers?

Service advisor Y : Yes. We talk and gossip about customers. I know exactly when salespersonX sells a car [because] he immediately tells me that the customer is like this and that . . . if salesperson X or I were not here, [the customers] wouldnt be here.

The implication of the last comment is that some customers had strong bonds to

salesperson X and/or service advisor Y, and that these customers depended oncooperation between the two employees. It is apparent that cooperation between X andY had resulted in constructive learning, and that they helped each other to acquirecustomers and maintain relationships with customers through the sharing of experiences. By sharing insights about how to handle customers they had thusfacilitated each others work and simultaneously provided benet to customers.

4. DiscussionThis study has explored the nature of indirect social learning that takes placebackstage among frontline contact persons. Whereas previous research has focused onfront-stage performances (and how the actors, audience, and service setting inuencesuch performances), the present study has emphasised backstage interactions andtheir effects on backstage learning.

The contribution of this study to service management research is twofold. First, asocial perspective on learning within a service setting has led to a tentative conceptualframework being developed; this framework has been subsequently explored (andmodied) as a result of an empirical study. Second, the drama metaphor of serviceexperiences has been extended by incorporating backstage interactions into theframework developed by Grove et al. (1992); in doing so, the physical, cognitive,communicative, cultural, and historical dimensions of context (Lave and Wenger, 1991;

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Lave, 1993; Wenger, 1998) have been introduced to represent an extended view of theservice setting as a service context.

A key nding of the study is that backstage learning is not always constructive that is, backstage learning does not always lead to positive results (such as improvedservice quality). The study nds that backstage learning can be non-constructive inthe sense that members of a community can learn to think and behave in ways that candiminish a service culture and, ultimately, service quality. This nding is inaccordance with the view of Gro nroos (2000), who noted that a strong culture might notalways be a positive culture. Both constructive and non-constructive backstagelearning were apparent in the service settings studied here. It was apparent thatcooperation, social bonds, everyday talk, storytelling, informal meetings (in sharedsocial spaces), and the handling of difcult situations were often linked to constructivebackstage learning; however, these phenomena were also observed, on occasions, toengender non-constructive backstage learning.

Previous research on service experiences as dramas (Baron et al., 1996; Goodwin,1996; Grove et al., 1992; Harris et al., 1995, 2003; Williams and Anderson, 2005) has notelaborated on the various dimensions of the service setting that inuence backstageinteractions and processes. In this paper, the service setting has been posited as acontext that encompasses cognitive, communicative, cultural, and historicaldimensions in addition to the obvious physical dimension. This contextconstitutes the background against which the service drama is played out. Moreover,the study has demonstrated that the context permeates both backstage interactionsand front-stage performances.

In accordance with Solomon et al. (1985), who contended that roles performed byfrontline contact persons are learned in social processes and that the desire to performa role well stems from being a member of a group, the present study has demonstratedthat role performances are formed by cultural and historical expectations. If the group

culture does not prioritise the provision of good service, the quality of the roleperformance is weakened. This was especially notable in the context of car service inthe present study, whereby certain norms, values, and conventions engenderednon-constructive backstage learning that had an adverse inuence on service quality.

Finally, the study has shown that membership of a community provides frontlinecontact persons with support and encouragement. This nding is in accordance withthe studies of Geiger and Turley (2005) and Korczynski (2003). Feelings of kinship andsolidarity among frontline contact persons have been shown to be important inpromoting positive interactions, cooperation, and constructive backstage learning.

5. Managerial implicationsThis study shows that management should encourage the emergence of so-calledcommunities of practice(Lave and Wenger, 1991), in which frontline contact personscan discuss issues, solve problems, and support each other. Informal gatherings (suchas coffee breaks) facilitate the formation of social bonds among frontline contactpersons, the sharing of experiences, and constructive backstage learning; moreover,such gatherings simultaneously diminish the likelihood of conicts among frontlinecontact persons.

The ndings of the study suggest that a policy of apprenticeship should beencouraged in service organisations. The ndings with respect to backstage learning


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suggest that the fundamentals of customer service can be learnt through observing andassisting a more experienced co-worker. Through such active socialisation, anapprentice can grow in a positive service culture. This view is in accordance with thendings of Gronroos (2000), who has shown that service-oriented values and attitudesare more easily appropriated by newcomers in an organisation. However, it isimportant that management be aware of the potential for adverse inuences frombackstage learning; if the service culture of a community is weak, the learning of frontline contact persons (and, ultimately, service quality) will be compromised.

6. Limitations and future researchThe ndings of this study should be considered in light of the following limitations.First, although various methodologies have been used to ensure the quality of raw data(including member checks, peer debrieng, method-triangulation, andsource-triangulation) (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), it should be noted that the codingand interpretation of data have not been reviewed by anyone other than the author.

Second, although eldwork in ethnographic research is usually conducted over anextended (albeit undened) period of time, it is acknowledged that the present study isbased on rather limited data collected during a relatively short period of time. Third,the ndings of this study are derived from a single company, which limits the degree towhich the ndings can be generalised with condence.

With regard to avenues for future study, this study presents several possibilities.First, the proposed framework could be further developed by application in otherservice industries that involve intense personal backstage and front-stage interactions such as banks, insurance companies, and businesses involved in the hospitalityindustry. The development of the framework could be undertaken through surveys(preferably across multiple service settings) and/or semi-structured interviews. Inparticular, the link between backstage learning and the quality of service performancescould be examined in a more deliberate manner.

Second, more research is needed into the questions of:. what frontline contact persons learn front stage when interacting with

customers; and. how this is coloured by backstage learning.

In particular, it would be interesting to have more information on how socialisationinto a service culture affects employees perceptions and behaviour with respect tocustomers and customer service. It is apparent from this study that the link betweenbackstage and front-stage learning is an important relationship that is worthy of further investigation.

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Further readingWenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W.M. (2002), Cultivating Communities of Practice.

A Guide to Managing Knowledge , Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.

About the authorKarolina Wagar is Assistant Professor at the Department of Marketing at Hanken SwedishSchool of Economics and Business Administration in Vaasa, Finland. She is also associated withthe Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management, CERS, at Hanken. Her researchinterests include how service personnel learn about customers, the construction of professionalidentity among service personnel and service culture. Karolina Wa gar can be contacted atkarolina.wagar@hanken.


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