Designing servicescapes for transformative service conversations: lessons from mental health services

Abstract

Purpose Dyadic services research has increasingly focused on helping providers facilitate transformative service conversations with consumers. Extant research has thoroughly documented the conversational skills that providers can use to facilitate consumer microtransformations (i.e. small changes in consumers’ thoughts, feelings and action plans toward their well-being goals). At the same time, extant research has largely neglected the role of servicescape design in transformative service conversations despite some evidence of its potential significance. To redress this oversight, this article aims to examine how servicescape design can be used to better facilitate consumer microtransformations in dyadic service conversations. Design/methodology/approach This article is based on an interpretive study of mental health services (i.e. counseling, psychotherapy and coaching). Both providers and consumers were interviewed about their lived experiences of service encounters. Informants frequently described the spatial and temporal dimensions of their service encounters as crucial to their experiences of service encounters. These data are interpreted through the lens of servicescape design theory, which disentangles servicescape design effects into dimensions, strategies, tactics, experiences and outcomes. Findings The data reveal two servicescape design strategies that help facilitate consumer microtransformations. “Service sequestration” is a suite of spatial design tactics (e.g., private offices) that creates strong consumer protections for emotional risk-taking. “Service serialization” is a suite of temporal design tactics (e.g., recurring appointments) that creates predictable rhythms for emotional risk-taking. The effects of service sequestration and service serialization on consumer microtransformations are mediated by psychological safety and psychological readiness, respectively. Practical implications The article details concrete servicescape design tactics that providers can use to improve consumer experiences and outcomes in dyadic service contexts. These tactics can help promote consumer microtransformations in the short run and consumer well-being in the long run. Originality/value This article develops a conceptual model of servicescape design strategies for transformative service conversations. This model explains how and why servicescape design can influence consumer microtransformations. The article also begins to transfer servicescape design tactics from mental health services to other dyadic services that seek to facilitate consumer microtransformations. Examples of such services include career counseling, divorce law, financial advising, geriatric social work, nutrition counseling, personal styling and professional organizing.

Understanding perceived value as important factors for the successful implementation of value co-creation at the dyadic level

“…The findings not only suggest value is subjectively determined (Holbrook, 2006) but also reveal employee-guest collective meaning of value from distinct and same hotel service. This suggests that while hotel service might be similar, context-specific value, both collective and individual might result from service-use to employees and guests (Gopaldas et al, 2022;Perera et al, 2017). This is highlighted by the findings: value as in value for money as well as total experience resulting from hotel location, physical evidence, mutual respect, appreciation, safety and security, IHR 38,2 quality and varieties of food, technological characteristics of service.…”

“…The findings not only suggest value is subjectively determined (Holbrook, 2006) but also reveal employee-guest collective meaning of value from distinct and same hotel service. This suggests that while hotel service might be similar, context-specific value, both collective and individual might result from service-use to employees and guests (Gopaldas et al. , 2022; Perera et al.…”

“…These studies not only highlight how actor’s determine value differently (Gallarza & Saura, 2020) or consider the relevance of an exchange in delivering value (Solakis, Pena-Vinces, & Lopez-Bonilla, 2022) but also provide insights into how firms can create an enabling environment to facilitate actor’s creation of unique value or experiences. This suggests that actor’s not only construct value within varying contexts (Gopaldas et al. , 2022) considering that experiences are personal (Kahraman & Cifci, 2023) but also, no matter who is involved in service the centrality must be something of value (Prebensen & Xie, 2017), which ultimately becomes the basis for service exchange.…”

“…It means that studying only customers' or employees' value might not present a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. However, to date, research on value has mostly focused on not only customers from the developed world (Gopaldas, Siebert, & Ertimur, 2022) but also the literature analysis shows that existing knowledge on perceived value in hotels from sub-Saharan Africa is sparse. A further context that must be considered is that of industry's dyadic perspective involving employees and guests at the micro level to understand not only the different perceptions of value (Neghina et al, 2017) but also as a fruitful method to obtain accurate understanding into the phenomenon (McColl-Kennedy, Vargo, Dagger, Sweeney, & Kasteren, 2012).…”

Servicescape insights in place of birth: from restorative servicescapes to co-curated transformative places

“…The physical environment where health and well-being service delivery occurs has profound impacts on service quality. Several site-specific health-care servicescapes have received attention, for example: oncology (Rosenbaum et al , 2011); nursing homes (Sandberg et al , 2022); mental health (Gopaldas et al , 2022); and pharmacies (Lin et al , 2008). Given the importance of the place of birth (POB) environment and the moral responsibility for healthy mothers and babies (World Health Organization, 2023), it is surprising that POB has received scant attention from services marketing scholars.…”