How well designed is your servicescape?

Abstract

PurposeThrough empirical research anchored in environmental psychology, the paper presents formative indicators that form an evaluation set “S.E.E.” (service environment evaluation), to simplify and systematize the measurement of visual aesthetics of servicescapes through consumers' perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted formative index development methodology, employing a one-shot experimental design using photographic surrogates of four different servicescapes (n = 1400), and testing the index with eight noted global servicescape images.FindingsFindings reveal that visual aesthetics of servicescapes can be captured using the composite index we developed with five dimensions: complexity, coherence, legibility, mystery and novelty. Also, service type: hedonic/utilitarian, does influence how consumers evaluate servicescape visual appeal.Originality/valueFormative indicators constituting S.E.E. enables assessment of subjective visual aesthetics of servicescapes holistic, objective and an effortless task for marketers, designers and decision-makers; and helps them reliably decide on and skillfully design servicescapes with the required visual appeal.

Servicescape design: balancing physical and psychological safety

“…Most of the servicescape frameworks (e.g. Donovan and Rossiter, 1982;Kumar et al, 2020;Nair et al, 2022), including Bitner's (1992), are based on S-O-R model, which considers the stimuli variables such as ambient conditions, space/function, sign, symbol and artifacts resulting in cognitive, emotional and physiological responses, leading to approach/ avoidance behavior for both employees and customers.…”

“…To this, we introduce servicescape safety (physical and psychological) as a critical mediator, which can lead to approach/avoidance behavior of users. Then we discuss the moderating effects of social factors (extending Wang et al, 2021) and service type (hedonic/utilitarian; Nair et al, 2022), to arrive at our final model, as in Figure -2. Finally, we propose a typology for social factors and discuss their moderating influence on the relationship between environmental dimensions and safety.…”

“…Multiple services classifications exist in the literature, most driven by consumption motives like convenience, preference, shopping and specialty services (Stell and Donoho, 1996), functional vs. leisure services (Wakefield and Blodgett, 1994) and hedonic vs. utilitarian services (e.g. Nair et al, 2022). We examine safety issues in servicescape design for hedonic vs. utilitarian services in this paper.…”

“…Then we discuss the moderating effects of social factors (extending Wang et al. , 2021) and service type (hedonic/utilitarian; Nair et al. , 2022), to arrive at our final model, as in Figure-2.…”