Problematiska servicemöten och hur frontpersonal hanterar dem

I företag och organisationer sker dagligen en mängd servicemöten1 mellan kunderoch frontpersonal. Servicemötena är en avgörande faktor för kunders tillfredsställelsemed servicen (Czepiel et al., 1985) då kunders utvärdering av serviceni hög grad baseras på deras utvärdering av dessa möten (Bitner, 1990).Uttrycket ”sanningens ögonblick” (Normann, 1984) används ibland för attillustrera vikten av dessa interaktioner. Den som tillhandahåller servicen har dåmöjlighet att demonstrera servicens kvalitet. Det är frontpersonals skicklighet,motivation och verktyg som tillsammans med kunders förväntningar och beteendenskapar serviceprocessen. Frontpersonal har därmed en unik position på såsätt att de kan fånga händelser från möten med kunder och återföra det till denövriga organisationen. De allra flesta servicemöten är harmoniska och oproblematiska.Redaktör: Karin M Ekström.</p

Experiences of demand responsive transport among vulnerable travellers - a handbook on need, demeanour, and interaction

This research-based handbook provides an understanding about the experiences that vulnerable travellers have when they use demand responsive transport (DRT) modes. It deals with issues of importance when conducting this form of service: ways to interact with travellers, being sensitive to their needs and adapt to situations in the traffic environment. The handbook starts with a detailed description of the phases that a trip typically consists of and the different demands that needs to be accounted for. It details how important social structures are produced in interaction. Further, some concrete issues of driver-traveller interaction are discussed, followed by an identification of critical touchpoints during travel. It is argued that providers need to go beyond the mere managerial discourse on being ‘service-minded’, and pay more attention to the embodied, behavioural, multimodal and sequential aspects during training and education since these are important mechanisms for traveller and employee well-being. Travellers may be guided in how to more distinctively and actively use their own and the provider’s resources, e.g. knowledge, capabilities and equipment.The handbook also highlights general problems and challenges, having a user-perspective on the trip and suggests some solutions and opportunities that DRT-systems provide. The section discusses crucial aspects, such as service employee demeanour, traveller coping behaviour, and traveller misbehaviour. It is argued that transport providers should be aware of the principal forms of vulnerability, i.e. physical discomfort, commodification, and disorientation, which travellers may experience during traveller-driver interactions. Environmental designers may benefit from using this type of data on traveller behaviour, paying particular attention to the communication environment from a processual perspective. Marketing personnel in provider organizations could provide more accurate and timely information to travellers during, before, and after trips.Armed with a more profound knowledge of travellers’ real-time perceptions, transport operators might increase their ability to design more user-friendly services. This, in turn, could have a substantial impact in inducing travellers to switch from costly road-based special transport vehicles (such as various kinds of taxis for disabled travellers) to public transport. Travellers’ real-time perceptions could be an alternative starting-point for design of DRT-service—especially in integrating various responsible organisations. In the case of public transport there are many actors—including the operators of various transport modes (bus, train, and tram), the various transport authorities, different regional authorities, and various traveller representatives. All of these parties could use this kind of concrete visual information as a platform for a more profound dialogue that promotes a long-term, accessible, and sustainable service system.The handbook ends with some recommendations on how to develop methods for a better understanding of vulnerable travellers and how more specifically conduct group sessions where participants may analyse and develop co-designed future transport solutions. It is argued that transport provider awareness of the value co-formation activities in the practices described enables a more precise strategy for employee education and traveller involvement in the services. More service staff training in interactional techniques can thus be beneficial. Further, employee education could include discussions about general practices in services for functionally limited travellers and the delicate balance of assisting the traveller and letting the traveller decide how much assistance that is needed. The latter requires sensitivity to verbal and non-verbal cues that only can be picked up in the meeting with each traveller. All sections include suggestions for managerial implications.RESPONSE - Demand-Responsive Transport to ensure accessibility, availability and reliability of rural public transpor

Tricks and tactics used against troublesome travelers : Frontline staff’s experiences from Swedish buses and trains

Public transport is facing escalating problems with passengers who behave badly by threatening and assaulting both staff and other passengers. Troublesome customers are known to affect employees’ health and work motivation adversely. However, employees also form strategies for handling the incidents that arise. Developing successful ways of dealing with customer misbehavior, on both an operational and a strategic level, represents a key challenge facing the public transport sector. The aim of this article is to investigate the nature of such negative situations in public transport; in particular, highlighting the practical strategies that are used by public transport staff to handle these kinds of incidents. An interview study consisting of 23 in-depth interviews was conducted both with conductors on regional trains and bus drivers on local buses in Sweden. Several instances of customer misbehavior were described by the respondents, e.g. verbal abuse, threats, and even physical violence. These alarming incidents were dealt with by staff using a range of individual strategies aimed at averting or controlling misbehaving customers. Our study clearly demonstrates the importance of the employees’ appearance and their interactional abilities, in addition to their use of the physical environment, when handling incidents that included misbehavior

Embodied interaction : a turn to better understand disabling marketplaces and consumer vulnerability

The purpose of this study is to extend current understanding of disabling marketplaces by substantiating embodied interaction, between service providers and disabled consumers, as interlinked multimodal activities in a material environment. The study is based on three extensive datasets on service production and provider-consumer interactions, gathered from several public sector markets containing private service providers. Using different qualitative and semi-ethnographical methods, the study makes three contributions: i) a more embodied construct of disability, materialised in a conceptual typology of embodiment and materiality, advancing research into what disables consumers from being active members of marketplaces; ii) identifying themes of disabling marketplace interactions which contribute a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between embodiment and how consumers experience vulnerability - an explanation of how consumers with disabilities appropriate space and ascribe meanings to a place; and iii) substantiating previous research into 'bodily dys-appearance'

Bi-directional and stratified demeanour in value forming service encounter interactions

The purpose of this paper is to unearth the bi-directional and stratified nature of service encounter interactions. Drawing on a detailed empirical study of service demeanour in mobility service seen from a customer perspective, we outline a classification of 6 overarching demeanour practices, 20 sub-activities, and interactional sequences, explaining how value co-formation is realized. We suggest that value derives from bi-directional activities mutually combined in congruent ways, avoiding counterproductive interactions

Bi-directional and Stratified Demeanour in Value Forming Service Encounter Interactions

The purpose of this paper is to unearth the bi-directional and stratified nature of service encounter interactions. Drawing on a detailed empirical study of service demeanour in mobility services, seen from a customer perspective, we outline a classification of 6 overarching demeanour practices, 20 sub-activities, and interactional sequences, explaining how value co-formation is realized. We suggest that value derives from bi-directional activities mutually combined in congruent ways, avoiding counterproductive interactions

The expected retail customer : Value co-creator, co-producer or disturbance?

The purpose of this paper is to explore expectations among front-line employees regarding their customers and how these expectations can be understood in relation to strategies of customer participation and value co-creation. Two categories of expectations are identified; operative and interactive. In particular, the operative expectations reveal a service practice that is heavily structured by large-scale systems and ideals of rational efficiency. It is argued that co-creation needs to be discussed on both the strategic level, i.e. in terms of what the “customer”/market wants, and on the operative level, where the customer’s direct contribution to the value-creating process has its focus.Att jobba med jobbiga kunde

Embodied value co-creation : A turn-taking perspective on service encounter interactions

This article aims at advancing research on value creation in service marketing by applying theories of turn-taking and multimodality. It is argued that there is a need to uncover what is inherent in the prefix ‘co’ in value co-creation and that focus needs to be broadened, from perception of value to the production of value–i.e. the specific reciprocal and embodied actions in service encounters. For the analysis, an empirical study of complex interactions between service providers and customers is used. A practice approach is applied, combining interviews and observations of interactants in situ. The article identifies four specific turn-taking patterns, ranging from ‘simple’ to ‘elaborated’, defined by their character and uncovers how the interactants reciprocally use multiple modes in the production of social outcomes. Theoretically, the study contributes to more fine-grained explanations to what explains the creation (and destruction) of value