Service Encounter for Services Marketing

Service Experience Report

Switch Lifestyle, Fountain Gate[pic 1]

Switch Lifestyle is a restaurant and bar business with venues in Melbourne Suburbs. It offers a great casual dining experience, available for Lunch and Dinner it is open 7 days a week and also caters for breakfast on the weekends.

On Tuesday the 9th of August 2016 I visited Switch Fountain gate with a group of my friends to celebrate my 20th birthday. We arrived at the restaurant at 7.35pm after having watched a movie at Village Cinemas Fountain Gate. The service encounter lasted for a moderate duration for a dinner event, spanning of an approximate of an hour and a half from arrival leaving the venue at around 9.00pm.

Four broad Categories of Services

There are four broad categories of services which are Possession processing, Mental stimulus processing, Information processing and People processing. The four categories are organised by whether the nature of the service action is tangible or intangible and who the recipient of the action is from either people or possessions, the below diagram shows the layout of the four categories in a simple format to establish a clear understanding of the Categories and what they include.

People Processing

Restaurants such as Switch fall under the people processing category of services. Therefore, I will focus on this category of Service.  People processing is when the direct recipient of the service is a person, Switch caters for people and the tangible action it provides customers with is the preparation of food that they consume. This form of service is where production and consumption occur concurrently and the person receiving the service is physically present at the service factory. For this service to be completed it also requires consumer co-operation as consumers provide a guideline of what it is they desire. People processing also involves a lot of effort from management as they need to note the process and output of the service from the view of a consumer taking note of elements of the service apart from financial costs on the consumer. The factors of time, physical and mental effort of the service also need to be considered from the perspective of customer by managers. (Chew et al, 2012).

During my experience at Switch for me to receive this service it was necessary for me to be present throughout the delivery of the service. The delivery of the service required me to be co-operative with staff by outlining what it was I would like to order and setting a guideline of the output I expected. The menu I was provided with to order from was simple and easy to interpret as the name of the food and a brief description of the food was provided along with the price of each item. This shows managers took into consideration the financial costs and the mental effort consumers go through when ordering by providing a simple description of the food and the price of it they ensured the consumer decision making process is easier and less complicated. This also set an expectation of what to expect with the food based on its description and price provided.[pic 2][pic 3]

The image on the left is a small portion of the menu provided along with images of the food I was provided with as a result of this service. The service was simultaneous as the preparation of food began after I provided the staff with the information about my order, I ordered the Salt and Pepper Calamari with a Passionfruit mocktail, after preparation was complete the food was presented to me and I could consume the tangible good that was provided as a result of the service process at the restaurant. The preparation time was also acceptable as it did not take too long for my food to arrive which shows managers are aware of time factors consumers look at when they purchase a service and thus they ensure the delivery of the service is conducted within a reasonable amount of time.

The 3 Stage Model of Consumption

Pre-purchase Stage

Need Arousal

The pre-purchase stage begins when a service purchase is prompted due to consumers or organisations become aware of an underlying need and they decide to take action to resolve it. Needs can be triggered due to physical conditions, external sources and the unconscious mind. My underlying need was to celebrate my birthday and the need was triggered as my birthday was approaching and my personal identity is one which I am fond of celebrations and have always celebrated my birthday. Due to assignments and work I was aware I could not have my celebration on my actual birthday so a week before was the date set for the celebration but the matter of what to do was still in question.

Information Search  

When the need is recognized consumers go through the process of information search which is where they search for solutions to their needs. For a solution to my need to celebrate my birthday I compared all the possible events and celebrations I could have. I searched online for multiple venues and websites to see what I could do at this time the commercial of Suicide Squad was frequent and thus I thought I would watch the movie for my birthday but I was aware that just going to the movies for my birthday did not seem enjoyable and popcorn and drinks would not adequately satisfy my guests and I so dinner was necessary to celebrate my birthday. It was just a matter of where I would dine. Again through the process of information search I came across the popular restaurants from their online websites that were in close proximity to the cinemas.  

This is when the Evoked Set is formed as consumers such as myself evaluate the different alternatives available to them. The place set for watching the movie was Village Cinema’s Fountain Gate so restaurants nearby were in my list of my alternatives, my main two options were TGI Fridays and Switch Lifestyle. These two both offer a casual dining experience and I have experienced both service providers in the past.  I used the Multi-Attribute Model to determine which one I would choose as my service provider.