Bringing down the house • 2
Photo by Nikola Bikar on Unsplash
Theater has been used for decades as a metaphor to highlight the differences between services marketing and product marketing. Standing on the shoulders of giants, I am using my version of the 7P framework to draw parallels between theater productions and service experiences.
(Product, Place, and Physical Evidence were covered in the previous blog post.)
People: Customers, frontline employees, backstage teams
The audience. For service experiences, the equivalent would be customers and other participants. Far from playing a passive role, customers are often (heavily) engaged in the co-production and co-delivery of the service; in essence, customers become partial employees (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016).
Actors/performers. For service experiences, the equivalent would be frontline employees interacting with customers to co-produce and co-deliver the service over time. Needless to say, frontline employees are extremely important for the overall perception and performance of the service (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016).
The artistic director. In the world of theater, the director interprets the playwright’s script; sets the creative vision for the production; hires the right artistic and technical talent; plans the production together with dramaturgs, choreographers, designers, and technicians; runs rehearsals and provides critique; and ultimately coordinates all elements into the finished production. In service organizations, the equivalent is arguably hard to find – perhaps the visionary, people-centered CX leader, CMO, or CEO?
Many other people are involved in planning, designing, staging, and supporting live performances – such as the producer, the production manager, the stage manager, the music director, the choreographer, the dramaturg, the costume designer, the lighting designer, the set designer, the sound designer, the technical director, the master electrician, the master carpenter, the sound engineer, the props master, the build crew, and the run crew. In service organizations, the equivalent would be multidisciplinary innovation & design teams (for envisioning, designing, and piloting new or revamped services), cross-functional technology teams (for building digital products and digitally-enabled services), and cross-functional service delivery teams (for co-producing and co-delivering services with the customers).
Process: Enabling and core processes for service production & delivery
Production and delivery processes. From the customer’s perspective, live performances and services are experiences. From the provider’s perspective, theatrical productions and services are processes that need to be designed and managed to deliver the desired customer experience. (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016) These co-production and co-delivery processes can be designed (or redesigned) using techniques/tools such as value stream mapping, flowcharting, service blueprinting, and process mapping. Identifying potential fail points at the design stage and designing ‘fail-proof’ services can greatly reduce the frequency and severity of service failures (Shostack, 1984).
Onstage/visible and backstage/invisible components. Back in 1982, Lynn Shostack (1984) introduced the service blueprint, emphasizing the need to include the invisible or hidden aspects of the service delivery which may impact the overall performance (in terms of service productivity and quality). While she did not explicitly use the theater metaphor, the blueprint was split into two sections divided by the ‘line of visibility.’ In 2007, Mary Jo Bitner showed the evolution of Shostack’s original service blueprint into five interconnected components (imagine layers, stacks, or swimlanes): Physical Evidence, Customer Actions, Onstage Contact Employee Actions, Backstage Contact Employee Actions, and Support Processes (Bitner et al., 2007).
Roles and scripts. Taking a leaf from theater production and performers, employees and customers take on specific roles, act out their parts, and stay in character following scripts, conventions, social norms, unwritten rules, etc. (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016). Service scripts determine the sequences of behavior employees (and customers) are expected to learn and follow during service production and delivery. To reduce variability and ensure uniform quality, many service dramas are tightly scripted. Highly customizable services typically require heavy customer involvement and more flexible scripts. (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016) On the flip side, scripts might (a) encourage ‘mindless’ and ‘habitual’ behaviors, and/or (b) make employees less attentive to non-verbal cues from customers (Harris et al., 2003).
Since high-contact services and experiences are so dependent on face-to-face interactions between customers and employees, two enabling processes worth highlighting are casting and rehearsals.
Casting. The artistic director works with the casting director to find the right people for the roles. They pay attention to training, experience, and past accomplishments; physical characteristics and vocal technique; personality traits, personal liveliness, and stage presence; ability to understand the play; suitability for the style of play; and general attitude, cooperativeness, and ‘directability.’ In service organizations, the equivalent to casting would be attracting, recruiting, and onboarding the right talent as well as staffing the service delivery teams with the right people across the organization.
Rehearsals. In rehearsals, actors interpret the script, rehearse their parts, memorize lines, discover new avenues of interpretation, etc. In service organizations, the equivalent to rehearsals would be team building, training, feedback, recognition, incentives, etc., to motivate and engage employees.
(To be continued)
References
Bitner, M.J., Ostrom, A.L., & Morgan F.N. (2007). Service blueprinting: A practical technique for service innovation. Center for Services Leadership, Arizona State University.
Harris R., Harris K. & Baron S. (2003). Theatrical service experiences: Dramatic script development with employees. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 14, 184–99.
Shostack, L. (1984). Designing services that deliver. Harvard Business Review.
Wirtz, J. & Lovelock, C. (2016). Services Marketing: People, technology, strategy (8th ed.). World Scientific Publishing.
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