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Service backstage visibility and the corresponding perceived values in the process of service delivery
Australasian Marketing Journal 20 (2012) 275–281
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Service backstage visibility and the corresponding perceived values in the process of service delivery Yu-Ying Huang 1 8F.-8, No.4, Ln. 609, Sec. 5, Chongxin Rd., Sanchong Dist., New Taipei City 241, Taiwan, ROC
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Article history: Received 2 August 2011 Revised 29 December 2011 Accepted 25 May 2012 Available online 6 July 2012 Keywords: Dramaturgical theory Perceived value Backstage visibility
a b s t r a c t Increasingly service providers show customers some activities originally in the backstage but few are known about the phenomenon from theoretical viewpoints. The purpose of this study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of positive backstage visibility and the corresponding perceived values. The CIT method was applied to analyze 387 service experiences in Greater China (including Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan). The categorization of backstage visibility was classified by two dimensions (complexity and attractiveness), and the corresponding perceived values for backstage visibility for each category of backstage visibility was discussed. The main findings of this study include that (1) the visualized backstage could become a differentiated strategy or tangible clue for services, and (2) the contents of dramaturgy theory should be adjusted to be suitable in the business practices today. Ó 2012 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In the service sector, service delivery is usually described with ‘‘people-oriented’’ terms such as ‘‘performance’’ or ‘‘dramaturgy’’ (Glushko and Tabas, 2009). Like a theatrical play, service is an experience occurring in the frontstage of the service facility and the frontstage and the backstage are separated by the ‘‘line of visibility’’. Customers are not allowed to view the backstage, which is a factory-like environment. The visible components of service operations are those relating to actors (or service personnel) and to stage sets (or physical facilities, equipments, and other tangibles) (Grove and Fisk, 1992). To provide different service experiences, increasingly service providers show customers some activities originally in the backstage. Service organizations can differentiate themselves by increasing or decreasing the frontstage components of the stage setting (Fisk et al., 2000). This emerging trend is called ‘‘backstage visibility’’ that means some parts of the backstage activities, which originally should not be viewed by the audience, are displayed to customers or transferred into the frontstage. The purpose of this study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of positive backstage visibility in the service sector and the corresponding perceived values. There are three important reasons of discussing backstage visibility. First how customer perceive backstage visibility is still much to learn. There is few understanding on how the backstage components of the service setting impact
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E-mail address: [email protected] Academic Research Section, Future Career Professional Publisher.
on customers’ perception towards the service provider since most of the current research focuses on the frontstage of the service theater. Second, it is worth to examine the effect of backstage visibility from the customer perspective rather than a managerial perspective (such as some research on service blueprinting). Customers have few chances to observe the backstage activities and hence, may experience information asymmetry problems (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007). Backstage visibility may be helpful to gain customers’ attention, enhance their experience and reduce their perceived risk. Third, the question that services with what characteristics are suitable to show the backstage is worth to discuss for both theory and practice. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical bases derived from past literature. Section 3 describes the collecting process of the critical service experiences that involve backstage visibility. In Section 4, this study develops a typology of backstage visibility and uses this typology to discuss the corresponding customers’ perceived values after experiencing backstage visibility. Finally, the reasons that service providers enable their customers to see the backstage area/activities are discussed and the service characteristics that are suitable to perform backstage visibility are discussed. 2. Literature review 2.1. Dramaturgical theory The concept using the drama metaphor to express service encounter and service delivery is usually known as the dramaturgical theory. The drama metaphor is the basis for a distinct model
1441-3582/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2012.05.016
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of human interaction while examining face-to-face interactions among individuals (Grove and Fisk, 1992). Using a four-component (i.e., actors, audience, setting, and performance) framework in the dramaturgical theory, the whole service processes is separated into two parts: front-stage processes that involve direct interaction with customers and back-stage processes that have little consumer contact (Grove et al., 1998; Moisio and Arnould, 2005; Williams and Anderson, 2005). In other words, front-stage service processes are devised to meet customers’ approval, while back-stage service processes are normally not open to customers’ inspection. In most service processes, it is necessary to keep the two stages separate so as to avoid imperiling the performance presentation (Grove and Fisk, 1992). Customers, for example, are not normally allowed to view back-stage processes of restaurants (kitchen area), auto repair (the garage itself), hospitals (doctors and staff lounges), and so on. 2.2. Backstage visibility Since managing consumer experiences has become the foundations of competitive strategies, some service providers are beginning to adjust the arrangement of the spatial layout and display the backstage to customers or move some backstage activities into the frontstage. In the past, for example, bartenders simply mixed what customers order at bars; recently, more and more pubs are practicing ‘‘freestyle mixing.’’ In Teppanyaki and spinning-sushi restaurants, chefs prepare and cook foods directly in front of the customers rather than in the kitchens. Increasingly, movie studios sell additional tidbits, which are not shown in the movies, to DVD buyers. These tidbits beyond the movie exhibit some fractions of the filming process, the background of the film, or interviews with the cast and filmmakers. Another example is Krispy Kreme doughnuts, like McDonald, provides a service rather than a product. Through a large glass window, customers can watch Krispy Kreme doughnuts being made. They can see the doughnuts are cooked for exactly 115 s in 365-degree vegetable shortening and then passed through a waterfall of sugar glazing before they trundle along the conveyer to be served (Serwer, 2003). In the above examples, customers are allowed access to the back region of the service. These examples demonstrate the fact that the backstage visibility has blanked out the separation between the front and back regions. Why backstage visibility is worth discussing? The first reason may be to reduce perceived risk. Based on the information economics, customers are often received incomplete information presentation. While customers are not able to view the backstage process, they may perceive that the service providers are possibly hiding relevant information and the problem of information asymmetry arises (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007). Customers are confronted with the risk that service providers may misrepresent themselves by making false quality claims (Eisenhardt, 1989). As to the second reason, backstage visibility is helpful to raise customers’ perceived values of a service experience. While customers see some operations or activities originally in the backstage, it may satisfy their curiosity about how the service is performed and even may raise customers’ trust in the service provision. For giving customers’ different consumption experiences, showing the backstage is a useful strategy to increase interaction between customers and service providers, or let customers feel novel. 2.3. Perceived value Perceived value, which is regarded as a ‘‘consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product (or service) based on perceptions of what is received and what is given’’ (Zeithaml, 1988), is usually used to explain why customers choose to buy or not (or to use or not) a specific product/service and why customers choose
one product/service provider over another (Sheth et al., 1991a,b). In the literature, perceived value is usually described with the utilitarian perspective based on the utility theory or with the behavioral perspective based on the social exchange theory (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011). As to the operationalization of perceived value, both uni-dimensional and multi-dimensional methods have been used to measure this construct, but the unidimensional method have been criticized for lacking validity (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011). Now, perceived value is demonstrated as a multidimensional concept (see Kantamneni and Coulson, 1996; Sánchez et al., 2007; Sinha and DeSarbo, 1998; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001; Woodruff, 1997). Considering different dimensions of perceived value, there is a fairly general consensus in the identification of functional factor (including quality and price) and affective factors (including feelings and social impact) (Sánchez et al., 2007). Other dimensions such as emotional, epistemic, conditional, sensory, personal, and commercial are also identified (see Kantamneni and Coulson, 1996; Sánchez et al., 2006; Sheth et al., 1991a,b; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001). It is evidenced that functional, emotional and social values appear to be relatively popular in the most recent research (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011).
2.4. The relationship between backstage visibility and perceived value The multidimensional perspective of perceived value corresponds with the experiential view (Sánchez et al., 2007), which is the core issue of backstage visibility. Perceived value of service is a combined assessment of customers’ perception of benefits and sacrifices for a variety of perceived value dimensions (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011). Positive responses to backstage visibility will result in customers’ satisfaction with the service delivery. For example, while customers experience backstage visibility, they think the service provider is confident at showing their honesty which in turn mitigates the level of the customer’s perceived risk (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007). While customers experiencing backstage visibility, two dimensions can be used to describe how the visualized backstage operates. Firstly, the attractiveness dimension comes from environmental psychology. The influence of physical environments on human psychology and behavior has long been acknowledged by servicescapers, facility aestheticians, interior designers, and environmental psychologists (Ryu and Jang, 2008). The literature in those fields suggests that facility aesthetics and employees indeed influence customers’ emotional states and behavioral intention. In this respect, the attractiveness of backstage visibility is important because it can either enhance or suppress customers’ perceived values and subsequent behaviors. In other words, attractiveness of backstage visibility can be viewed as a measure of power to catch customers’ attention, arouse customers’ interest, or instill pleasure for customers (Ezeh and Harris, 2007). The second dimension, complexity, comes from Bitner (1992)’s environment-user relationships. To capture how to manage the servicescape, Bitner developed a typology of service organizations based on physical complexity of the servicescape and the roles performing actions within the servicescape. The first option of physical complexity, defined as elaborate, is characterized by many elements and forms and is therefore complicated; the second option, defined as lean, covers a more simple service environment with only few elements, few spaces and few forms. Therefore, complexity can be understood as a measure of the difficult degree of moving backstage activities into the frontstage or displaying the backstage (Bitner et al., 2008). The more the customers participate in the service process, the higher the difficult level of backstage visibility is.
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3. Research method Critical Incident Technique (CIT) is employed for data collection in this study. CIT, as a method of classification, ‘‘determines categories based on analysis of a specific set of data and is particularly useful when there is little documentation of the properties that are likely to be important for classifying’’ (Bitner et al., 1990) or when the concepts or phenomena are not entirely clear (Walker and Truly, 1992). Due to the open-ended nature of questions, CIT is able to generate rich and real data, while respondents are given opportunities to provide a thorough and in-depth description of their own experiences (Harris and Reynolds, 2004). Therefore, CIT is deemed appropriate for this study. 3.1. Data collection Applying CIT methodology involves: (1) identifying the critical incidents that are the target of investigation, (2) collecting data, and (3) using content analysis to interpret the data (Flanagan, 1954). Therefore, using trained people to collect data is necessary to assure data quality. Fifty trained senior undergraduate business students at two universities in Macau and Taiwan volunteered to administer the survey. Each student collected data in urban areas in the Greater China region (including Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan) within a month. The sampling strategy was purposive and the people who lately had just experienced service backstage visibility were interviewed. Refer to past research (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007; Glushko and Tabas, 2009), participants were asked: (1) what service they were thinking about, (2) what parts of backstage area were viewed or what backstage activities were moved into the frontstage, and (3) what values that respondents perceived from the visualized backstage. Open-ended response formats are used for each question in the questionnaire. Following Flanagan’s (1954) suggestions, the responses that lack sufficient details or are too vague in terms of specific discrete incidents are deemed unacceptable and removed. To keep the validity of the data, these questionnaires have to meet three criteria to remain in the following analysis process (1) the handwriting in each questionnaire is different, indicating that the students did not fabricate the other responses; (2) the description conveys full and precise details, another indicator of authenticity; and (3) the response content has face validity (i.e., seem to be reasonable). The data collection process resulted in a total of 482 critical incidents. Some were eliminated because these experiences are not qualified for the requirement of ‘‘the visualized backstage’’ or ‘‘moving backstage activities into the frontstage’’. After the eliminating process, 387 usable incidents were remained. The demographic profile of the sample indicated that 43% of the participants were male. The participants’ ages were from 18 to 72 years old, with an average of 42 years old. More than 42% of the participants received some college education and 72% are full-or part-time employees.
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In the second stage, 100 incidents from the 387 usable ones were randomly selected and retained as holdout samples. Support for content validity of categorization is available when the critical incidents in the holdout sample are fully represented by the categories identified in categorization of the classification sample (Flanagan, 1954). The emergence of no additional categories after the addition of 100 holdout samples is suggested to be a strong evidence of satisfactory content validity (see Flanagan, 1954; Roster, 2006). The remaining 287 incidents were included in the classification sample. Four business graduate students without prior knowledge were trained as judges for the 287 incidents and all of them were unaware of the objectives of the study during the time period they acted as judges. Two judges, A and B were trained to be familiar with the coding scheme and operational definitions of perceived values based on Sheth et al. (1991b)’s model. Then, they independently read through the participants’ reported stories and identified what perceived values were perceived. Different opinions were resolved through discussion. On the other hand, two additional judges, C and D, were responsible to sort the visualized backstage activities into mutually exclusive categories based on two dimensions (complexity and attractiveness) until each category contained items that were similar to each other. Through an iterative process of sorting and resorting, the categorization resulted into four categories. Categorization of the backstage visibility and perceived value were done separately because they address the two different constructs. In the third stage, the four judges changed the responsible constructs for the holdout samples, primly looking for the emergence of new categories. Judges C and D identified the perceived values for the holdout samples following the similar process. Judges A and B then categorized the visualized backstage activities into mutually exclusive categories based on two dimensions. Because the incidents in the holdout sample do not produce new categories, it is assumed that the original sample size is adequate. In addition, the outcome of the categorization of the holdout sample resembles the original classification schema, thus providing support for content validity. A rigorous classification system should also be ‘‘intersubjectively unambiguous’’ (Hunt, 1983), as measured by interjudge reliability. The interjudge reliabilities in this study are 0.83 for the categorization of backstage visibility and 0.84 for categorization of perceived values. These values exceed 0.80, which is the generally accepted threshold of interjudge reliability for CIT studies (Gremler, 2004; Roster, 2006).
4. Result 4.1. Categorization of backstage visibility The categorization of backstage visibility by complexity and attractiveness is shown in Table 1.
3.2. Data analysis Referring to Gremler (2004) and Roster (2006)’s suggestions, the content analysis procedure was carried out in three steps to assure adequacy of sample size and content validity of the categorization. Development of a classification system began with identifying the dimensions of backstage visibility, which can be used to describe how the visualized backstage operates. Two dimensions, complexity and attractiveness, were used to classify incidents. The researcher accordingly developed an initial classification scheme for coding the received incidents into four basic categories.
4.1.1. The visualized backstage with low complexity and low attractiveness About 18% of the reported incidents are sorted into this category and the main feature of this category is that the service providers just performing the simple parts of backstage activities in the frontstage and don’t do any other arrangements for these activities. Low attractiveness means the intensity of arousal is not strong. Even though customers do not see the backstage visibility, their purchase decision will not change much. Low complexity means the backstage environment with only few elements is simple to be visualized.
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Table 1 The categorization of backstage visibility by complexity and attractiveness. Complexity
Low
High
Attractiveness Low
High
Backstage visibility is presented by moving back the line of visibility, just displaying, or without backstage Backstage visibility is professional or skillful
Backstage visibility is shown as a performance
Backstage visibility is presented through adding new service elements to an existing service and making customers become actors
Generally speaking, the incidents that constituted this category includes that services just moving back the line of visibility (e.g., ‘‘the cooked food section in super markets is preparing, cooking, and selling in front of customers’’ and ‘‘TV interviews show the inviting and interviewing processes at front desk’’), services that display backstage to customers (e.g., ‘‘through a large glass window, customers can watch the bread/doughnuts being made’’), and services originally with no backstage (e.g., street vendors make foods/juices/drinks directly in the front of customers). Participant A (Female, 34): ‘‘While I went to the restaurant selling Lanzhou hand-extended noodles with my friends, it was very clear what has happen in the kitchen. Dining the clean kitchen with a transparent glass, the chefs cooked noodles ordered by the customers. In addition, customers could dine while also enjoyed the chefs’ skillful and fancy ramen-making performance. . .this restaurant showed their customers not only a clean and orderly kitchen, but also a interesting operating procedures. While seeing the operating process, I thought the cooking quality is guaranteed. . .meanwhile, when I saw the smoking pot and smelled the food aroma from the kitchen, the environment triggered my appetite.’’ Participant B (Male, 47): ‘‘When I was in a French restaurant, I saw the service staffs cooking the dishes, seasoning the food, dividing and plating the dishes, and putting the plates with the installed food in front of the customer. These services in front of customers made me feel that my needs and personal preferences can be met. . .I was very happy that the roasted meat is cut based on my’ requirements.’’ 4.1.2. The visualized backstage with low complexity and high attractiveness The visualized backstage become a performance showing in the frontstage and hence, bring new service experiences to customers. Nearly 49% of incidents are classified into this category and the data means this category of backstage visibility is now the most popular and frequently performed. In this group, service providers choose specific backstage activities, which are eye-catching as well as easily shown in the frontstage, and redesign them to make these visualized backstage become new frontstage activities. The visualized backstage turns into a performance and brings additional service experiences to customers. In addition, these performances benefit service providers with low-cost ways since the backstage visibility is developed based on the original service contents and the service procedure does change too much. Participant C (Female, 26): ‘‘Once, I went to a coffee shop, I sat at the bar where I saw the barista display the Latte art in front of customers and make various patterns based on customers’ requirements. Sometimes, the barista also showed his fancy coffeemaking skills and customized the flavors according to customers’ preference. These performances make the coffee-drinking become
a enjoyment. If I just want to drink a coffee without Latte art, many coffee shops, even convenience stores, can provide and I am only willing to pay 35 N.T. dollars. In this special coffee shop, a cup of coffee is worth more since the coffee-drinking is a pleasure rather than for consumption.’’ Participant D (Male, 20): ‘‘When I get toghter with my friends, we like to go to a specific pub and we usually patronize that pub. In that place, the bartender shows flair bartending in front of customers and their performances often attract me and my friends. When a new or a special flair bartending is presented, we all feel excited.’’ Participant E (Male, 33): ‘‘Usually, I feel the secret news brief of a movie or a drama is very interesting and I like to see these briefs. Now, before the movie screening, more and more movie studios provide behind-the-scenes montages, which include the missing fractions of the filming process, the background of the film or interviews with cast and filmmakers, to attract customers’ seeing the movie. Even, some movie studios use the behind-the-scenes montages as a premium to DVD buyers. Sometime I buy the DVD of a movie just because I like this move very much and want to see the ‘complete’ version.’’ 4.1.3. The visualized backstage with high complexity and low attractiveness The visualized backstage that constituted this category is relatively professional or skillful. In the service settings with complex and unattractive backstage activities, few service providers consider the visibility of these activities in the frontstage. The number of service experiences categorized into this type is relatively few, about 6% of the respondents, which is the lowest proportions within the four categories. The reasons may be that (1) the complex backstage activities involve many elements and are difficult to move into the frontstage, (2) customers just care the performance results and have little interest about the backstage, and (3) these services are low-contact services and hence, customers have little understanding about the backstage operation. Participant F (Male, 42): ‘‘I regularly maintain my car in a car maintenance company. In this company, the auto repair worktables and the whole process of the maintenance check are presented in front of the customers. The whole process includes many steps and in each step, responsible automobile repair personnel will explain what they will do for the car. I feel secure while I know what components will be replaced and who will do this work.’’ 4.1.4. The visualized backstage with high complexity and high attractiveness The visualized backstage activities that constituted this category include the services that service providers add new service elements to service delivery, and sometimes, customers not only are audiences but also become actors. Twenty-seven percent of the visualized backstage are in this group and this type of the visualized backstage activities covers more diversified services than the other three types. Participant G (Female, 28): ‘‘On the Valentine’s Day in this year, I participated a DIY-chocolate activity, not buy chocolates in shops. The DIY chocolate bar let customers participate the chocolates making process. Not only various types of DIY chocolates can be made based on my preference, but also some messages can be written on my chocolates, such as ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’.’’ Participant H (Female, 38): ‘‘Recently, I had a trip to Hainan Island. This trip impressed me that Sanya Heren Jewelry Co., Ltd. lets the making process of pearl necklaces become a performance to attract visitors. Moreover, this company sets a DIY zone, in which there are various jewelry experts share ideas and skills to
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inspire and motivate customers to create one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces. In this area, I personally selected the size of my needed pearls, and some experts taught me how to design my own jewelry.’’ The major characteristic of this category is that the backstage activities are not easy to move into the front stage or to show in front of customers. The involved backstage area/activities are highly complex or skillful, and need to redesign special arrangement to let them become visible. After the rearrangement, the visualized backstage activities become a part of the frontstage and bring new service experiences to customers; even they could spin off as a new service. For example, the making of chocolates is originally in the kitchens or factories (the backstage). The DIY chocolates bars/shops are independent from the originally making process of chocolates and now have become an emerging service. Overall, nearly 76% of incidents fall in the category of high attractive backstage activities. Further, the backstage activities that are relatively easy to moving into the frontstage or to be visualized accounted for about 67% of the service experiences (see Table 1). These findings suggest that until now, the major considered situation of the visualized backstage is either the activity attractiveness (i.e., effect factor) or the difficult level to implement (i.e., efficiency factor). 4.2. Categorization of perceived values Based on Sheth et al. (1991b)’s model, there are five types of perceived values are identified for each category of backstage visibility: sensory, quality, epistemic, emotional and social values (see Table 2). The definitions for each type are based on previous studies (Kantamneni and Coulson, 1996; Sheth et al., 1991a,b; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001) and discussed in the following. 4.2.1. Sensory value Sensory value denotes the perceived utility acquired from the service provider’s capacity for bring the sensory stimulus or recreation during the service delivery process. Backstage visibility gives customers ocular recreation, smell stimulus, or acoustical enjoyment, and hence, may become parts of ambient conditions in a servicescape. These sensory values may affect customers’ emotional well-being, perceptions, and even attitudes and behaviors. 4.2.2. Quality value Quality value denotes the perceived utility acquired from a service provider’s ability for provide high-quality performance through the possession of outstanding, consistent, or reliable attributes. While informants view the visualized backstage activities, they sense that ‘‘if the service quality of this service provider would be reliable,’’ ‘‘the service performance of this service provider will be outstanding or not,’’ and ‘‘if this service provider have consistent-quality service.’’ Since intangible elements usually dominate value creation in the service sector, the visualized backstage become a tangible clue for customers to evaluate service quality.
Table 2 The aroused perceived values for each category of backstage visibility. Complexity
Low High
Attractiveness Low
High
Quality, sensory Quality, epistemic
Quality, sensory, epistemic, emotional Quality, sensory, epistemic, emotional, social
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Moreover, backstage visibility is helpful for reducing customers’ perceived risk and uncertainty. 4.2.3. Epistemic value The perceived utility acquired from a service provider’s ability to arouse curiosity, provide novelty, and/or satisfy a desire for knowledge is denoted as epistemic value. For informants, backstage visibility ‘‘would arouse my attention,’’ ‘‘is novelty to me,’’ ‘‘satisfy my curiosity,’’ ‘‘is not ordinary for me,’’ ‘‘would satisfy my desire for understanding the operating process of the service,’’ and ‘‘arouse my interest in this service.’’ Since managing consumer experiences has become the foundations of competitive strategies (Zeithaml et al., 2006), backstage visibility can become a new strategy to satisfy customers’ curiosity, even arouse their various emotional feelings. 4.2.4. Emotional value Emotional value refers to the perceived utility acquired from a service provider’s ability of arouses feelings or affective stages. A service provider acquires emotional value with specific feelings (e.g., pleasure, excitement, interest, relaxation, or repurchase). While informants view the visualized backstage activities, they feel pleased, interesting, exciting and so on. Moreover, these positive emotions would make them want to repatronize the service environment. 4.2.5. Social value The perceived utility relating to the social impact of the purchase made is denoted as social value. In this study, some informants mention that their experience of viewing backstage visibility improved the way other people perceived them. For example, when customers bring their friends to DIY chocolate bars/shops, they obtain social approval. Some teenagers feel acceptable or impressive when they share information of TV stars’ blogs or the behind-the-scenes montages of movies/MTV/TV programs. Overall, although comparisons and classifications of perceived values could be observed and analyzed based on past works, some differences exist in the same service. Since the categorization of perceived values is quietly context-embedded, the same visualized backstage may lead to different perceived values. Moreover, each consumer may perceive many types of perceived values at the same time. The relationship between backstage visibility and perceived value is discussed in the following. 4.3. The perceived values for each category of backstage visibility According to Table 2, some findings are observed. First, the most common perceived values aroused by backstage visibility is the quality, sensory, and epistemic values and further, customers experiencing all the four categories of backstage visibility perceive quality value. The finding reflects the fact that service intangibility makes it difficult to assess important service features in advance of use and to evaluate the quality of the performance itself (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). Backstage visibility is helpful for customers to confirm the ‘‘real’’ quality of the service offerings, rather than to compare the prices with other alternatives. As to the sensory and epistemic values, goods and services companies alike are being admonished to create ‘‘memorable experiences for their customers’’ (Schmitt, 2003). Therefore, our finding is concordant with the fact that the importance of consumer experiences in influencing consumer behavior is getting emphasized. Second, although emotional and social values appear to be relatively popular in the most recent research (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011), they are just aroused by the high attractive visualized backstage activities. The finding is very interesting because of its
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unexpectedness. It can be explained that backstage visibility categorized into the high attractiveness is usually displayed as a performance or show. Service providers choose specific backstage activities, which are high eye-catching, to transform them into a new service experience. Therefore, customers’ perceived utility through the creation or perpetuation of affective states is positive while they compare trade-off of total benefits received to total sacrifices. Moreover, these positive experiences of backstage visibility are helpful for customers’ social activities. Third, social value only appears in the visualized backstage activities with high complexity and high attractiveness. This category of backstage visibility emphasizes customers’ participation more than the other three categories. The finding reveals that customers’ interaction and involvement in service consumption could be one part of the service performance. Moisio and Arnould (2005) define this concept as ‘‘drama interaction,’’ which means the level of consumer involvement or activity that can shape, redirect and structure the unfolding of the drama performance. When the backstage activities are complex or difficult to show to customers, customers will feel valuable to see or to experience backstage visibility and hence, they would like to participate the drama performance, even invite their friends to view or to join the shown backstage activities. Four, for the category of backstage visibility with high complexity and low attractiveness, customers’ choice process for these services is inherently risky with many unknowns, and therefore, performance attractiveness is not the major consideration for customers. The major purpose of opening the backstage to public inspection is to convince customers. Customers may not feel interesting or exciting to view the shown backstage. Moreover, customers’ knowledge and past experiences would affect their feelings about the shown backstage. Customers with high knowledge or rich experiences may not want to see the backstage. In contract, Customers with low knowledge or few experiences to the service would be aroused more perceived values. Summarily, the discussion about the perceived values that are triggered by backstage visibility is helpful for service providers to consider why and how to benefit from the visualized backstage. The visual elements of a service play an important role both in service quality evaluations and customers’ emotions, which play important roles in influencing consumer experiences (Berry et al., 2002). Our analysis of the relationships between backstage visibility and perceived value indicates that the observed variations in perceived values depend on attractiveness, not on complexity, of the visualized backstage activities. The more attractive the shown backstage activities are, the more diversified the perceived values are. Therefore, to choose simple but attractive backstage activities to be visualized may be the best strategy for service providers.
5. Implications and limitations 5.1. Managerial issues The findings of this study strengthen the importance of backstage visibility for several reasons. First, Customers indeed care about the backstage visibility no matter for what reason. Glinoga and Tombs (2007) argued that customers perceive backstage visibility as the information of transparency, which meant that service provider is confident at showing their honesty which in turn mitigates the level of the customer’s perceived risk. The findings of this research propose the more communicated signals of backstage visibility than transparency. Second, backstage information and process can improve the front stage experience. Backstage visibility generates a real strategic question: what to reveal versus what to conceal. The front stage
may be considered as ‘‘what is readily visible to customers,’’ and hence, service providers should notice that once something that was backstage is presented to customers, it has become frontstage. Establishing suitable systems and procedures, which are designed to create ‘‘performance’’ to customers and attract potential customers into the servicescape, is an emerging issues for raising competitive ability. Rather than hiding the activities carrying out in the firm’s back region, the behind-the-scenes activities could be new sources of profits. Third, backstage visibility does not only play the supporting role, but also could become a competitive weapon to create profits. Since the business environment is getting competitive, companies must do more to differentiate themselves in their customers’ eyes. Managing the total consumer experience – not only meeting, but exceeding, both the rational and emotional needs of their customers – becomes one of the successful factors. Finally, it should be note that the visualized backstage activities are the ones which are choreographedly chosen by service providers as integral component of the dramaturgical framework. Not all backstage activities could be displayed in front of audiences. 5.2. Research issues Our findings provide some useful insights by studying the phenomenon of the backstage visibility. First, Berry and Lampo (2000) identified five service redesign concepts: self-service (consumer assumes role of producer), direct service (service delivered to the consumer’s location), preservice, bundled service (combines multiple services into a package), and physical service (manipulation of tangibles associated with the service). Lovelock and Wirtz (2007) expanded Berry and Lampo’s concepts and added the concept of eliminating non-value-adding work steps in all stages of service delivery. The backstage visibility could be added as one of service redesign concepts. Second, the finding supports a viewpoint that the dividing line between the front and back stages will get blurred. In dramaturgy theory, servicescape design could be separated into the front and back stages by the line of visibility. Now service providers can move back the line of visibility to enlarge the front stage as much as possible (Glushko and Tabas, 2009). 5.3. Limitations and further research Although rigorous research procedures are followed, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, there may be other potential variables, which could affect customers’ perception of backstage visibility. For example, while customers have more experiences for the service, they could feel less interesting or novelty to the visualized backstage activities. Customers’ knowledge, familiarization with the service, and the past experiences may have impacts on their perception of the visualized backstage activities. In addition, this study only discusses positive experiences of backstage visibility, but negative experiences are excluded. It should be noticed when service providers show backstage visibility, some negative presentations are unavoidable. For example, while customers see a chef in the cooking, but also see other chefs in the chat. Second, considering the four-component framework (i.e., actors, audience, setting, and performance), this study just discusses the setting and performance. However, actors’ skills of performing their routines, the way they appear, and their commitment to the ‘‘show’’ are all essential to service delivery (Zeithaml et al., 2006). In addition, frontstage employees are often required to conform to both a dress code and grooming standards (such as Disney Park) (Zeithaml et al., 2006). With regard to actors in the visualized backstage, the role-related expectations and scripts must be adjusted to make employees become competent actors in their roles.
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Managers even must rearrange which actors could be observed by customers and must provide these actors with training that makes them competent in their roles. The further researches could consider the physical attractiveness, appearances, skills, apparel, and scripts of the personnel, who play the visualized backstage activities, on customers’ perception. Third, further research could re-examine the categorization schema in this study and make it more generalizable by including various visualized backstage activities and perceived values. This study tries to recognize and distinguishes the visualized backstage activities as diversified as possible. Although our data analysis leads to the emergence of four main types of the visualized backstage activities, it is still not enough to be a solid categorization. There may be other suitable or effective method to categorize the visualized backstage activities. References Berry, L.L., Lampo, S.K., 2000. Teaching an old service new tricks: the promise of service redesign. Journal of Service Research 2 (3), 265–275. Berry, L.L., Carbone, L.P., Haeckel, S.H., 2002. Managing the total customer experience. Slone Management Review 43 (3), 85–89. Bitner, M.J., 1992. Servicescapes: the impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing 56, 57–71. Bitner, M.J., Booms, B.H., Tetreault, M.S., 1990. The service encounter: diagnosing favorable and unfavorable incidents. Journal of Marketing 54 (1), 71–84. Bitner, M.J., Ostrom, A.L., Morgan, F.N., 2008. Service blueprinting: a practical technique for service innovation. California Management Review 50 (3), 66–94. Boksberger, P.E., Melsen, L., 2011. Perceived value: a critical examination of definitions, concepts and measures for the service industry. Journal of Services Marketing 25 (3), 229–240. Eisenhardt, K.M., 1989. Agency theory: an assessment and review. Academy of Management Review 14 (1), 57–74. Ezeh, C., Harris, L., 2007. Servicescape research: a review and a research agenda. The Marketing Review 7 (1), 59–78. Fisk, R.P., Grove, S.J., John, J., 2000. Services Marketing Self-Portraits: Introspections, Reflections, and Glimpses from the Experts. American Marketing Association, Chicago. Flanagan, J.C., 1954. The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin 51, 327– 357. Glinoga, M., Tombs, A., 2007. Backstage visibility: do the customers care? In: Thyne, M., Deans, K.R., Gnoth, J. (Eds.), ANZMAC 2007 Reputation, Responsibility, Relevance. Conference Proceedings, Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Conference 2007, Dunedin, New Zealand, 3–5 December, 2007, pp. 2541–2549. Glushko, R.L., Tabas, L., 2009. Designing service systems by bridging the front stage and back stage. Information Systems and e-Business Management 7, 407–427. Gremler, D.D., 2004. The critical incident technique in service research. Journal of Service Research 7, 65–89. Grove, S.J., Fisk, R.P., 1992. The service experience as theater. Advances in Consumer Research 19, 455–461. Grove, S.J., Fisk, R.P., Dorsch, M.J., 1998. Assessing the theatrical components of the service encounter: a cluster analysis examination. The Service Industries Journal 18 (3), 116–134.
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Harris, L.C., Reynolds, K.L., 2004. Jaycustomer behavior: an exploration of types and motives in the hospitality industry. Journal of Services Marketing 18 (5), 339– 357. Hunt, S.D., 1983. Marketing Theory. Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, IL. Kantamneni, S.P., Coulson, K.R., 1996. Measuring perceived value: scale development and research findings from a consumer survey. Journal of Marketing Management 6 (2), 72–86. Lovelock, C.H., Wirtz, J., 2007. Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy, sixth ed. Prentice Hall, N.J. Moisio, R., Arnould, E.J., 2005. Extending the dramaturgical framework in marketing: drama structure, drama interaction and drama content in shopping experiences. Journal of Consumer Behaviour 4 (4), 246–256. Roster, C.A., 2006. Moments of truth in gift exchanges: a critical incident analysis of communication indicators used to detect gift failure. Psychology & Marketing 23 (1), 885–903. Ryu, K., Jang, S., 2008. Influence of restaurants’ physical environments on emotion and behavioral intention. The Service Industrial Journal 28 (8), 1151–1165. Sánchez, J., Callarisa, L., Rodríguez, R.M., Moliner, M.A., 2006. Perceived value of the purchase of a tourism product. Tourism Management 27, 394–409. Sánchez, J., Moliner, M.A., Callarisa, L., Rodríguez, R.M., 2007. Relationship quality of an establishment and perceived value of a purchase. The Service Industries Journal 27 (2), 151–174. Schmitt, B.H., 2003. Customer Experience Management. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey. Serwer, A., 2003. The hole story: how Krispy Kreme became the hottest brand in American. Fortune, 52–62. Sheth, J.N., Newman, B.I., Gross, B.L., 1991a. Consumption Values and Market Choice. South Western Publishing, Cincinnati, Ohio. Sheth, J.N., Newman, B.I., Gross, B.L., 1991b. Why we buy what we buy: a theory of consumption values. Journal of Business Research 22 (2), 159–170. Sinha, I., DeSarbo, W.S., 1998. An integrated approach toward the spatial modeling of perceived customer value. Journal of Marketing Research XXXV, 236–249. Sweeney, J.C., Soutar, G.N., 2001. Consumer perceived value: the development of a multiple item scale. Journal of Retailing 77, 203–220. Walker, S.J., Truly, E., 1992. The critical incidents technique: philosophical foundations and methodological implications. Paper presented at the AMA Winter Educator’s Conference, San Antonio, TX. Williams, J.A., Anderson, H.H., 2005. Engaging customers in service creation: a theater perspective. Journal of Services Marketing 19 (1), 13–23. Woodruff, R., 1997. Customer value: the next source for competitive advantage. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 25, 139–153. Zeithaml, V.A., 1988. Consumer perceptions of price, quality and value: a meansend model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing 52, 2–22. Zeithaml, V.A., Bitner, M.J., Gremler, D.D., 2006. Services Management: Integrating Customer Focus across the Firm, fourth ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Dr. Huang is currently the Deputy Chief, Medical Quality Department, Taipei Medical University Shuang-Ho Hospital, Taiwan. She obtained her Ph.D. from National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan in the field of business management. When she was the Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Management and Administration, Macau University of Science and Technology, she has the teaching experiences in Marketing Management, Services Marketing, and Research Methodology. Now, she plunges into the industrial area to add practical experiences and is actively working on research projects related to marketing, service marketing and supply chain management issues in China and Taiwan.
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Service backstage visibility and the corresponding perceived values in the process of service delivery Yu-Ying Huang 1 8F.-8, No.4, Ln. 609, Sec. 5, Chongxin Rd., Sanchong Dist., New Taipei City 241, Taiwan, ROC
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Article history: Received 2 August 2011 Revised 29 December 2011 Accepted 25 May 2012 Available online 6 July 2012 Keywords: Dramaturgical theory Perceived value Backstage visibility
a b s t r a c t Increasingly service providers show customers some activities originally in the backstage but few are known about the phenomenon from theoretical viewpoints. The purpose of this study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of positive backstage visibility and the corresponding perceived values. The CIT method was applied to analyze 387 service experiences in Greater China (including Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan). The categorization of backstage visibility was classified by two dimensions (complexity and attractiveness), and the corresponding perceived values for backstage visibility for each category of backstage visibility was discussed. The main findings of this study include that (1) the visualized backstage could become a differentiated strategy or tangible clue for services, and (2) the contents of dramaturgy theory should be adjusted to be suitable in the business practices today. Ó 2012 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In the service sector, service delivery is usually described with ‘‘people-oriented’’ terms such as ‘‘performance’’ or ‘‘dramaturgy’’ (Glushko and Tabas, 2009). Like a theatrical play, service is an experience occurring in the frontstage of the service facility and the frontstage and the backstage are separated by the ‘‘line of visibility’’. Customers are not allowed to view the backstage, which is a factory-like environment. The visible components of service operations are those relating to actors (or service personnel) and to stage sets (or physical facilities, equipments, and other tangibles) (Grove and Fisk, 1992). To provide different service experiences, increasingly service providers show customers some activities originally in the backstage. Service organizations can differentiate themselves by increasing or decreasing the frontstage components of the stage setting (Fisk et al., 2000). This emerging trend is called ‘‘backstage visibility’’ that means some parts of the backstage activities, which originally should not be viewed by the audience, are displayed to customers or transferred into the frontstage. The purpose of this study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of positive backstage visibility in the service sector and the corresponding perceived values. There are three important reasons of discussing backstage visibility. First how customer perceive backstage visibility is still much to learn. There is few understanding on how the backstage components of the service setting impact
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E-mail address: [email protected] Academic Research Section, Future Career Professional Publisher.
on customers’ perception towards the service provider since most of the current research focuses on the frontstage of the service theater. Second, it is worth to examine the effect of backstage visibility from the customer perspective rather than a managerial perspective (such as some research on service blueprinting). Customers have few chances to observe the backstage activities and hence, may experience information asymmetry problems (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007). Backstage visibility may be helpful to gain customers’ attention, enhance their experience and reduce their perceived risk. Third, the question that services with what characteristics are suitable to show the backstage is worth to discuss for both theory and practice. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical bases derived from past literature. Section 3 describes the collecting process of the critical service experiences that involve backstage visibility. In Section 4, this study develops a typology of backstage visibility and uses this typology to discuss the corresponding customers’ perceived values after experiencing backstage visibility. Finally, the reasons that service providers enable their customers to see the backstage area/activities are discussed and the service characteristics that are suitable to perform backstage visibility are discussed. 2. Literature review 2.1. Dramaturgical theory The concept using the drama metaphor to express service encounter and service delivery is usually known as the dramaturgical theory. The drama metaphor is the basis for a distinct model
1441-3582/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2012.05.016
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of human interaction while examining face-to-face interactions among individuals (Grove and Fisk, 1992). Using a four-component (i.e., actors, audience, setting, and performance) framework in the dramaturgical theory, the whole service processes is separated into two parts: front-stage processes that involve direct interaction with customers and back-stage processes that have little consumer contact (Grove et al., 1998; Moisio and Arnould, 2005; Williams and Anderson, 2005). In other words, front-stage service processes are devised to meet customers’ approval, while back-stage service processes are normally not open to customers’ inspection. In most service processes, it is necessary to keep the two stages separate so as to avoid imperiling the performance presentation (Grove and Fisk, 1992). Customers, for example, are not normally allowed to view back-stage processes of restaurants (kitchen area), auto repair (the garage itself), hospitals (doctors and staff lounges), and so on. 2.2. Backstage visibility Since managing consumer experiences has become the foundations of competitive strategies, some service providers are beginning to adjust the arrangement of the spatial layout and display the backstage to customers or move some backstage activities into the frontstage. In the past, for example, bartenders simply mixed what customers order at bars; recently, more and more pubs are practicing ‘‘freestyle mixing.’’ In Teppanyaki and spinning-sushi restaurants, chefs prepare and cook foods directly in front of the customers rather than in the kitchens. Increasingly, movie studios sell additional tidbits, which are not shown in the movies, to DVD buyers. These tidbits beyond the movie exhibit some fractions of the filming process, the background of the film, or interviews with the cast and filmmakers. Another example is Krispy Kreme doughnuts, like McDonald, provides a service rather than a product. Through a large glass window, customers can watch Krispy Kreme doughnuts being made. They can see the doughnuts are cooked for exactly 115 s in 365-degree vegetable shortening and then passed through a waterfall of sugar glazing before they trundle along the conveyer to be served (Serwer, 2003). In the above examples, customers are allowed access to the back region of the service. These examples demonstrate the fact that the backstage visibility has blanked out the separation between the front and back regions. Why backstage visibility is worth discussing? The first reason may be to reduce perceived risk. Based on the information economics, customers are often received incomplete information presentation. While customers are not able to view the backstage process, they may perceive that the service providers are possibly hiding relevant information and the problem of information asymmetry arises (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007). Customers are confronted with the risk that service providers may misrepresent themselves by making false quality claims (Eisenhardt, 1989). As to the second reason, backstage visibility is helpful to raise customers’ perceived values of a service experience. While customers see some operations or activities originally in the backstage, it may satisfy their curiosity about how the service is performed and even may raise customers’ trust in the service provision. For giving customers’ different consumption experiences, showing the backstage is a useful strategy to increase interaction between customers and service providers, or let customers feel novel. 2.3. Perceived value Perceived value, which is regarded as a ‘‘consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product (or service) based on perceptions of what is received and what is given’’ (Zeithaml, 1988), is usually used to explain why customers choose to buy or not (or to use or not) a specific product/service and why customers choose
one product/service provider over another (Sheth et al., 1991a,b). In the literature, perceived value is usually described with the utilitarian perspective based on the utility theory or with the behavioral perspective based on the social exchange theory (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011). As to the operationalization of perceived value, both uni-dimensional and multi-dimensional methods have been used to measure this construct, but the unidimensional method have been criticized for lacking validity (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011). Now, perceived value is demonstrated as a multidimensional concept (see Kantamneni and Coulson, 1996; Sánchez et al., 2007; Sinha and DeSarbo, 1998; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001; Woodruff, 1997). Considering different dimensions of perceived value, there is a fairly general consensus in the identification of functional factor (including quality and price) and affective factors (including feelings and social impact) (Sánchez et al., 2007). Other dimensions such as emotional, epistemic, conditional, sensory, personal, and commercial are also identified (see Kantamneni and Coulson, 1996; Sánchez et al., 2006; Sheth et al., 1991a,b; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001). It is evidenced that functional, emotional and social values appear to be relatively popular in the most recent research (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011).
2.4. The relationship between backstage visibility and perceived value The multidimensional perspective of perceived value corresponds with the experiential view (Sánchez et al., 2007), which is the core issue of backstage visibility. Perceived value of service is a combined assessment of customers’ perception of benefits and sacrifices for a variety of perceived value dimensions (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011). Positive responses to backstage visibility will result in customers’ satisfaction with the service delivery. For example, while customers experience backstage visibility, they think the service provider is confident at showing their honesty which in turn mitigates the level of the customer’s perceived risk (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007). While customers experiencing backstage visibility, two dimensions can be used to describe how the visualized backstage operates. Firstly, the attractiveness dimension comes from environmental psychology. The influence of physical environments on human psychology and behavior has long been acknowledged by servicescapers, facility aestheticians, interior designers, and environmental psychologists (Ryu and Jang, 2008). The literature in those fields suggests that facility aesthetics and employees indeed influence customers’ emotional states and behavioral intention. In this respect, the attractiveness of backstage visibility is important because it can either enhance or suppress customers’ perceived values and subsequent behaviors. In other words, attractiveness of backstage visibility can be viewed as a measure of power to catch customers’ attention, arouse customers’ interest, or instill pleasure for customers (Ezeh and Harris, 2007). The second dimension, complexity, comes from Bitner (1992)’s environment-user relationships. To capture how to manage the servicescape, Bitner developed a typology of service organizations based on physical complexity of the servicescape and the roles performing actions within the servicescape. The first option of physical complexity, defined as elaborate, is characterized by many elements and forms and is therefore complicated; the second option, defined as lean, covers a more simple service environment with only few elements, few spaces and few forms. Therefore, complexity can be understood as a measure of the difficult degree of moving backstage activities into the frontstage or displaying the backstage (Bitner et al., 2008). The more the customers participate in the service process, the higher the difficult level of backstage visibility is.
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3. Research method Critical Incident Technique (CIT) is employed for data collection in this study. CIT, as a method of classification, ‘‘determines categories based on analysis of a specific set of data and is particularly useful when there is little documentation of the properties that are likely to be important for classifying’’ (Bitner et al., 1990) or when the concepts or phenomena are not entirely clear (Walker and Truly, 1992). Due to the open-ended nature of questions, CIT is able to generate rich and real data, while respondents are given opportunities to provide a thorough and in-depth description of their own experiences (Harris and Reynolds, 2004). Therefore, CIT is deemed appropriate for this study. 3.1. Data collection Applying CIT methodology involves: (1) identifying the critical incidents that are the target of investigation, (2) collecting data, and (3) using content analysis to interpret the data (Flanagan, 1954). Therefore, using trained people to collect data is necessary to assure data quality. Fifty trained senior undergraduate business students at two universities in Macau and Taiwan volunteered to administer the survey. Each student collected data in urban areas in the Greater China region (including Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan) within a month. The sampling strategy was purposive and the people who lately had just experienced service backstage visibility were interviewed. Refer to past research (Glinoga and Tombs, 2007; Glushko and Tabas, 2009), participants were asked: (1) what service they were thinking about, (2) what parts of backstage area were viewed or what backstage activities were moved into the frontstage, and (3) what values that respondents perceived from the visualized backstage. Open-ended response formats are used for each question in the questionnaire. Following Flanagan’s (1954) suggestions, the responses that lack sufficient details or are too vague in terms of specific discrete incidents are deemed unacceptable and removed. To keep the validity of the data, these questionnaires have to meet three criteria to remain in the following analysis process (1) the handwriting in each questionnaire is different, indicating that the students did not fabricate the other responses; (2) the description conveys full and precise details, another indicator of authenticity; and (3) the response content has face validity (i.e., seem to be reasonable). The data collection process resulted in a total of 482 critical incidents. Some were eliminated because these experiences are not qualified for the requirement of ‘‘the visualized backstage’’ or ‘‘moving backstage activities into the frontstage’’. After the eliminating process, 387 usable incidents were remained. The demographic profile of the sample indicated that 43% of the participants were male. The participants’ ages were from 18 to 72 years old, with an average of 42 years old. More than 42% of the participants received some college education and 72% are full-or part-time employees.
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In the second stage, 100 incidents from the 387 usable ones were randomly selected and retained as holdout samples. Support for content validity of categorization is available when the critical incidents in the holdout sample are fully represented by the categories identified in categorization of the classification sample (Flanagan, 1954). The emergence of no additional categories after the addition of 100 holdout samples is suggested to be a strong evidence of satisfactory content validity (see Flanagan, 1954; Roster, 2006). The remaining 287 incidents were included in the classification sample. Four business graduate students without prior knowledge were trained as judges for the 287 incidents and all of them were unaware of the objectives of the study during the time period they acted as judges. Two judges, A and B were trained to be familiar with the coding scheme and operational definitions of perceived values based on Sheth et al. (1991b)’s model. Then, they independently read through the participants’ reported stories and identified what perceived values were perceived. Different opinions were resolved through discussion. On the other hand, two additional judges, C and D, were responsible to sort the visualized backstage activities into mutually exclusive categories based on two dimensions (complexity and attractiveness) until each category contained items that were similar to each other. Through an iterative process of sorting and resorting, the categorization resulted into four categories. Categorization of the backstage visibility and perceived value were done separately because they address the two different constructs. In the third stage, the four judges changed the responsible constructs for the holdout samples, primly looking for the emergence of new categories. Judges C and D identified the perceived values for the holdout samples following the similar process. Judges A and B then categorized the visualized backstage activities into mutually exclusive categories based on two dimensions. Because the incidents in the holdout sample do not produce new categories, it is assumed that the original sample size is adequate. In addition, the outcome of the categorization of the holdout sample resembles the original classification schema, thus providing support for content validity. A rigorous classification system should also be ‘‘intersubjectively unambiguous’’ (Hunt, 1983), as measured by interjudge reliability. The interjudge reliabilities in this study are 0.83 for the categorization of backstage visibility and 0.84 for categorization of perceived values. These values exceed 0.80, which is the generally accepted threshold of interjudge reliability for CIT studies (Gremler, 2004; Roster, 2006).
4. Result 4.1. Categorization of backstage visibility The categorization of backstage visibility by complexity and attractiveness is shown in Table 1.
3.2. Data analysis Referring to Gremler (2004) and Roster (2006)’s suggestions, the content analysis procedure was carried out in three steps to assure adequacy of sample size and content validity of the categorization. Development of a classification system began with identifying the dimensions of backstage visibility, which can be used to describe how the visualized backstage operates. Two dimensions, complexity and attractiveness, were used to classify incidents. The researcher accordingly developed an initial classification scheme for coding the received incidents into four basic categories.
4.1.1. The visualized backstage with low complexity and low attractiveness About 18% of the reported incidents are sorted into this category and the main feature of this category is that the service providers just performing the simple parts of backstage activities in the frontstage and don’t do any other arrangements for these activities. Low attractiveness means the intensity of arousal is not strong. Even though customers do not see the backstage visibility, their purchase decision will not change much. Low complexity means the backstage environment with only few elements is simple to be visualized.
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Table 1 The categorization of backstage visibility by complexity and attractiveness. Complexity
Low
High
Attractiveness Low
High
Backstage visibility is presented by moving back the line of visibility, just displaying, or without backstage Backstage visibility is professional or skillful
Backstage visibility is shown as a performance
Backstage visibility is presented through adding new service elements to an existing service and making customers become actors
Generally speaking, the incidents that constituted this category includes that services just moving back the line of visibility (e.g., ‘‘the cooked food section in super markets is preparing, cooking, and selling in front of customers’’ and ‘‘TV interviews show the inviting and interviewing processes at front desk’’), services that display backstage to customers (e.g., ‘‘through a large glass window, customers can watch the bread/doughnuts being made’’), and services originally with no backstage (e.g., street vendors make foods/juices/drinks directly in the front of customers). Participant A (Female, 34): ‘‘While I went to the restaurant selling Lanzhou hand-extended noodles with my friends, it was very clear what has happen in the kitchen. Dining the clean kitchen with a transparent glass, the chefs cooked noodles ordered by the customers. In addition, customers could dine while also enjoyed the chefs’ skillful and fancy ramen-making performance. . .this restaurant showed their customers not only a clean and orderly kitchen, but also a interesting operating procedures. While seeing the operating process, I thought the cooking quality is guaranteed. . .meanwhile, when I saw the smoking pot and smelled the food aroma from the kitchen, the environment triggered my appetite.’’ Participant B (Male, 47): ‘‘When I was in a French restaurant, I saw the service staffs cooking the dishes, seasoning the food, dividing and plating the dishes, and putting the plates with the installed food in front of the customer. These services in front of customers made me feel that my needs and personal preferences can be met. . .I was very happy that the roasted meat is cut based on my’ requirements.’’ 4.1.2. The visualized backstage with low complexity and high attractiveness The visualized backstage become a performance showing in the frontstage and hence, bring new service experiences to customers. Nearly 49% of incidents are classified into this category and the data means this category of backstage visibility is now the most popular and frequently performed. In this group, service providers choose specific backstage activities, which are eye-catching as well as easily shown in the frontstage, and redesign them to make these visualized backstage become new frontstage activities. The visualized backstage turns into a performance and brings additional service experiences to customers. In addition, these performances benefit service providers with low-cost ways since the backstage visibility is developed based on the original service contents and the service procedure does change too much. Participant C (Female, 26): ‘‘Once, I went to a coffee shop, I sat at the bar where I saw the barista display the Latte art in front of customers and make various patterns based on customers’ requirements. Sometimes, the barista also showed his fancy coffeemaking skills and customized the flavors according to customers’ preference. These performances make the coffee-drinking become
a enjoyment. If I just want to drink a coffee without Latte art, many coffee shops, even convenience stores, can provide and I am only willing to pay 35 N.T. dollars. In this special coffee shop, a cup of coffee is worth more since the coffee-drinking is a pleasure rather than for consumption.’’ Participant D (Male, 20): ‘‘When I get toghter with my friends, we like to go to a specific pub and we usually patronize that pub. In that place, the bartender shows flair bartending in front of customers and their performances often attract me and my friends. When a new or a special flair bartending is presented, we all feel excited.’’ Participant E (Male, 33): ‘‘Usually, I feel the secret news brief of a movie or a drama is very interesting and I like to see these briefs. Now, before the movie screening, more and more movie studios provide behind-the-scenes montages, which include the missing fractions of the filming process, the background of the film or interviews with cast and filmmakers, to attract customers’ seeing the movie. Even, some movie studios use the behind-the-scenes montages as a premium to DVD buyers. Sometime I buy the DVD of a movie just because I like this move very much and want to see the ‘complete’ version.’’ 4.1.3. The visualized backstage with high complexity and low attractiveness The visualized backstage that constituted this category is relatively professional or skillful. In the service settings with complex and unattractive backstage activities, few service providers consider the visibility of these activities in the frontstage. The number of service experiences categorized into this type is relatively few, about 6% of the respondents, which is the lowest proportions within the four categories. The reasons may be that (1) the complex backstage activities involve many elements and are difficult to move into the frontstage, (2) customers just care the performance results and have little interest about the backstage, and (3) these services are low-contact services and hence, customers have little understanding about the backstage operation. Participant F (Male, 42): ‘‘I regularly maintain my car in a car maintenance company. In this company, the auto repair worktables and the whole process of the maintenance check are presented in front of the customers. The whole process includes many steps and in each step, responsible automobile repair personnel will explain what they will do for the car. I feel secure while I know what components will be replaced and who will do this work.’’ 4.1.4. The visualized backstage with high complexity and high attractiveness The visualized backstage activities that constituted this category include the services that service providers add new service elements to service delivery, and sometimes, customers not only are audiences but also become actors. Twenty-seven percent of the visualized backstage are in this group and this type of the visualized backstage activities covers more diversified services than the other three types. Participant G (Female, 28): ‘‘On the Valentine’s Day in this year, I participated a DIY-chocolate activity, not buy chocolates in shops. The DIY chocolate bar let customers participate the chocolates making process. Not only various types of DIY chocolates can be made based on my preference, but also some messages can be written on my chocolates, such as ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’.’’ Participant H (Female, 38): ‘‘Recently, I had a trip to Hainan Island. This trip impressed me that Sanya Heren Jewelry Co., Ltd. lets the making process of pearl necklaces become a performance to attract visitors. Moreover, this company sets a DIY zone, in which there are various jewelry experts share ideas and skills to
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inspire and motivate customers to create one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces. In this area, I personally selected the size of my needed pearls, and some experts taught me how to design my own jewelry.’’ The major characteristic of this category is that the backstage activities are not easy to move into the front stage or to show in front of customers. The involved backstage area/activities are highly complex or skillful, and need to redesign special arrangement to let them become visible. After the rearrangement, the visualized backstage activities become a part of the frontstage and bring new service experiences to customers; even they could spin off as a new service. For example, the making of chocolates is originally in the kitchens or factories (the backstage). The DIY chocolates bars/shops are independent from the originally making process of chocolates and now have become an emerging service. Overall, nearly 76% of incidents fall in the category of high attractive backstage activities. Further, the backstage activities that are relatively easy to moving into the frontstage or to be visualized accounted for about 67% of the service experiences (see Table 1). These findings suggest that until now, the major considered situation of the visualized backstage is either the activity attractiveness (i.e., effect factor) or the difficult level to implement (i.e., efficiency factor). 4.2. Categorization of perceived values Based on Sheth et al. (1991b)’s model, there are five types of perceived values are identified for each category of backstage visibility: sensory, quality, epistemic, emotional and social values (see Table 2). The definitions for each type are based on previous studies (Kantamneni and Coulson, 1996; Sheth et al., 1991a,b; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001) and discussed in the following. 4.2.1. Sensory value Sensory value denotes the perceived utility acquired from the service provider’s capacity for bring the sensory stimulus or recreation during the service delivery process. Backstage visibility gives customers ocular recreation, smell stimulus, or acoustical enjoyment, and hence, may become parts of ambient conditions in a servicescape. These sensory values may affect customers’ emotional well-being, perceptions, and even attitudes and behaviors. 4.2.2. Quality value Quality value denotes the perceived utility acquired from a service provider’s ability for provide high-quality performance through the possession of outstanding, consistent, or reliable attributes. While informants view the visualized backstage activities, they sense that ‘‘if the service quality of this service provider would be reliable,’’ ‘‘the service performance of this service provider will be outstanding or not,’’ and ‘‘if this service provider have consistent-quality service.’’ Since intangible elements usually dominate value creation in the service sector, the visualized backstage become a tangible clue for customers to evaluate service quality.
Table 2 The aroused perceived values for each category of backstage visibility. Complexity
Low High
Attractiveness Low
High
Quality, sensory Quality, epistemic
Quality, sensory, epistemic, emotional Quality, sensory, epistemic, emotional, social
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Moreover, backstage visibility is helpful for reducing customers’ perceived risk and uncertainty. 4.2.3. Epistemic value The perceived utility acquired from a service provider’s ability to arouse curiosity, provide novelty, and/or satisfy a desire for knowledge is denoted as epistemic value. For informants, backstage visibility ‘‘would arouse my attention,’’ ‘‘is novelty to me,’’ ‘‘satisfy my curiosity,’’ ‘‘is not ordinary for me,’’ ‘‘would satisfy my desire for understanding the operating process of the service,’’ and ‘‘arouse my interest in this service.’’ Since managing consumer experiences has become the foundations of competitive strategies (Zeithaml et al., 2006), backstage visibility can become a new strategy to satisfy customers’ curiosity, even arouse their various emotional feelings. 4.2.4. Emotional value Emotional value refers to the perceived utility acquired from a service provider’s ability of arouses feelings or affective stages. A service provider acquires emotional value with specific feelings (e.g., pleasure, excitement, interest, relaxation, or repurchase). While informants view the visualized backstage activities, they feel pleased, interesting, exciting and so on. Moreover, these positive emotions would make them want to repatronize the service environment. 4.2.5. Social value The perceived utility relating to the social impact of the purchase made is denoted as social value. In this study, some informants mention that their experience of viewing backstage visibility improved the way other people perceived them. For example, when customers bring their friends to DIY chocolate bars/shops, they obtain social approval. Some teenagers feel acceptable or impressive when they share information of TV stars’ blogs or the behind-the-scenes montages of movies/MTV/TV programs. Overall, although comparisons and classifications of perceived values could be observed and analyzed based on past works, some differences exist in the same service. Since the categorization of perceived values is quietly context-embedded, the same visualized backstage may lead to different perceived values. Moreover, each consumer may perceive many types of perceived values at the same time. The relationship between backstage visibility and perceived value is discussed in the following. 4.3. The perceived values for each category of backstage visibility According to Table 2, some findings are observed. First, the most common perceived values aroused by backstage visibility is the quality, sensory, and epistemic values and further, customers experiencing all the four categories of backstage visibility perceive quality value. The finding reflects the fact that service intangibility makes it difficult to assess important service features in advance of use and to evaluate the quality of the performance itself (Lovelock and Wirtz, 2007). Backstage visibility is helpful for customers to confirm the ‘‘real’’ quality of the service offerings, rather than to compare the prices with other alternatives. As to the sensory and epistemic values, goods and services companies alike are being admonished to create ‘‘memorable experiences for their customers’’ (Schmitt, 2003). Therefore, our finding is concordant with the fact that the importance of consumer experiences in influencing consumer behavior is getting emphasized. Second, although emotional and social values appear to be relatively popular in the most recent research (Boksberger and Melsen, 2011), they are just aroused by the high attractive visualized backstage activities. The finding is very interesting because of its
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unexpectedness. It can be explained that backstage visibility categorized into the high attractiveness is usually displayed as a performance or show. Service providers choose specific backstage activities, which are high eye-catching, to transform them into a new service experience. Therefore, customers’ perceived utility through the creation or perpetuation of affective states is positive while they compare trade-off of total benefits received to total sacrifices. Moreover, these positive experiences of backstage visibility are helpful for customers’ social activities. Third, social value only appears in the visualized backstage activities with high complexity and high attractiveness. This category of backstage visibility emphasizes customers’ participation more than the other three categories. The finding reveals that customers’ interaction and involvement in service consumption could be one part of the service performance. Moisio and Arnould (2005) define this concept as ‘‘drama interaction,’’ which means the level of consumer involvement or activity that can shape, redirect and structure the unfolding of the drama performance. When the backstage activities are complex or difficult to show to customers, customers will feel valuable to see or to experience backstage visibility and hence, they would like to participate the drama performance, even invite their friends to view or to join the shown backstage activities. Four, for the category of backstage visibility with high complexity and low attractiveness, customers’ choice process for these services is inherently risky with many unknowns, and therefore, performance attractiveness is not the major consideration for customers. The major purpose of opening the backstage to public inspection is to convince customers. Customers may not feel interesting or exciting to view the shown backstage. Moreover, customers’ knowledge and past experiences would affect their feelings about the shown backstage. Customers with high knowledge or rich experiences may not want to see the backstage. In contract, Customers with low knowledge or few experiences to the service would be aroused more perceived values. Summarily, the discussion about the perceived values that are triggered by backstage visibility is helpful for service providers to consider why and how to benefit from the visualized backstage. The visual elements of a service play an important role both in service quality evaluations and customers’ emotions, which play important roles in influencing consumer experiences (Berry et al., 2002). Our analysis of the relationships between backstage visibility and perceived value indicates that the observed variations in perceived values depend on attractiveness, not on complexity, of the visualized backstage activities. The more attractive the shown backstage activities are, the more diversified the perceived values are. Therefore, to choose simple but attractive backstage activities to be visualized may be the best strategy for service providers.
5. Implications and limitations 5.1. Managerial issues The findings of this study strengthen the importance of backstage visibility for several reasons. First, Customers indeed care about the backstage visibility no matter for what reason. Glinoga and Tombs (2007) argued that customers perceive backstage visibility as the information of transparency, which meant that service provider is confident at showing their honesty which in turn mitigates the level of the customer’s perceived risk. The findings of this research propose the more communicated signals of backstage visibility than transparency. Second, backstage information and process can improve the front stage experience. Backstage visibility generates a real strategic question: what to reveal versus what to conceal. The front stage
may be considered as ‘‘what is readily visible to customers,’’ and hence, service providers should notice that once something that was backstage is presented to customers, it has become frontstage. Establishing suitable systems and procedures, which are designed to create ‘‘performance’’ to customers and attract potential customers into the servicescape, is an emerging issues for raising competitive ability. Rather than hiding the activities carrying out in the firm’s back region, the behind-the-scenes activities could be new sources of profits. Third, backstage visibility does not only play the supporting role, but also could become a competitive weapon to create profits. Since the business environment is getting competitive, companies must do more to differentiate themselves in their customers’ eyes. Managing the total consumer experience – not only meeting, but exceeding, both the rational and emotional needs of their customers – becomes one of the successful factors. Finally, it should be note that the visualized backstage activities are the ones which are choreographedly chosen by service providers as integral component of the dramaturgical framework. Not all backstage activities could be displayed in front of audiences. 5.2. Research issues Our findings provide some useful insights by studying the phenomenon of the backstage visibility. First, Berry and Lampo (2000) identified five service redesign concepts: self-service (consumer assumes role of producer), direct service (service delivered to the consumer’s location), preservice, bundled service (combines multiple services into a package), and physical service (manipulation of tangibles associated with the service). Lovelock and Wirtz (2007) expanded Berry and Lampo’s concepts and added the concept of eliminating non-value-adding work steps in all stages of service delivery. The backstage visibility could be added as one of service redesign concepts. Second, the finding supports a viewpoint that the dividing line between the front and back stages will get blurred. In dramaturgy theory, servicescape design could be separated into the front and back stages by the line of visibility. Now service providers can move back the line of visibility to enlarge the front stage as much as possible (Glushko and Tabas, 2009). 5.3. Limitations and further research Although rigorous research procedures are followed, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, there may be other potential variables, which could affect customers’ perception of backstage visibility. For example, while customers have more experiences for the service, they could feel less interesting or novelty to the visualized backstage activities. Customers’ knowledge, familiarization with the service, and the past experiences may have impacts on their perception of the visualized backstage activities. In addition, this study only discusses positive experiences of backstage visibility, but negative experiences are excluded. It should be noticed when service providers show backstage visibility, some negative presentations are unavoidable. For example, while customers see a chef in the cooking, but also see other chefs in the chat. Second, considering the four-component framework (i.e., actors, audience, setting, and performance), this study just discusses the setting and performance. However, actors’ skills of performing their routines, the way they appear, and their commitment to the ‘‘show’’ are all essential to service delivery (Zeithaml et al., 2006). In addition, frontstage employees are often required to conform to both a dress code and grooming standards (such as Disney Park) (Zeithaml et al., 2006). With regard to actors in the visualized backstage, the role-related expectations and scripts must be adjusted to make employees become competent actors in their roles.
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Managers even must rearrange which actors could be observed by customers and must provide these actors with training that makes them competent in their roles. The further researches could consider the physical attractiveness, appearances, skills, apparel, and scripts of the personnel, who play the visualized backstage activities, on customers’ perception. Third, further research could re-examine the categorization schema in this study and make it more generalizable by including various visualized backstage activities and perceived values. This study tries to recognize and distinguishes the visualized backstage activities as diversified as possible. Although our data analysis leads to the emergence of four main types of the visualized backstage activities, it is still not enough to be a solid categorization. There may be other suitable or effective method to categorize the visualized backstage activities. References Berry, L.L., Lampo, S.K., 2000. Teaching an old service new tricks: the promise of service redesign. Journal of Service Research 2 (3), 265–275. Berry, L.L., Carbone, L.P., Haeckel, S.H., 2002. Managing the total customer experience. Slone Management Review 43 (3), 85–89. Bitner, M.J., 1992. Servicescapes: the impact of physical surroundings on customers and employees. Journal of Marketing 56, 57–71. Bitner, M.J., Booms, B.H., Tetreault, M.S., 1990. The service encounter: diagnosing favorable and unfavorable incidents. Journal of Marketing 54 (1), 71–84. Bitner, M.J., Ostrom, A.L., Morgan, F.N., 2008. Service blueprinting: a practical technique for service innovation. California Management Review 50 (3), 66–94. Boksberger, P.E., Melsen, L., 2011. Perceived value: a critical examination of definitions, concepts and measures for the service industry. Journal of Services Marketing 25 (3), 229–240. Eisenhardt, K.M., 1989. Agency theory: an assessment and review. Academy of Management Review 14 (1), 57–74. Ezeh, C., Harris, L., 2007. Servicescape research: a review and a research agenda. The Marketing Review 7 (1), 59–78. Fisk, R.P., Grove, S.J., John, J., 2000. Services Marketing Self-Portraits: Introspections, Reflections, and Glimpses from the Experts. American Marketing Association, Chicago. Flanagan, J.C., 1954. The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin 51, 327– 357. Glinoga, M., Tombs, A., 2007. Backstage visibility: do the customers care? In: Thyne, M., Deans, K.R., Gnoth, J. (Eds.), ANZMAC 2007 Reputation, Responsibility, Relevance. Conference Proceedings, Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) Conference 2007, Dunedin, New Zealand, 3–5 December, 2007, pp. 2541–2549. Glushko, R.L., Tabas, L., 2009. Designing service systems by bridging the front stage and back stage. Information Systems and e-Business Management 7, 407–427. Gremler, D.D., 2004. The critical incident technique in service research. Journal of Service Research 7, 65–89. Grove, S.J., Fisk, R.P., 1992. The service experience as theater. Advances in Consumer Research 19, 455–461. Grove, S.J., Fisk, R.P., Dorsch, M.J., 1998. Assessing the theatrical components of the service encounter: a cluster analysis examination. The Service Industries Journal 18 (3), 116–134.
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