1. GRACE D., AND ARON O’CASS (2004), “EXAMINING SERVICEEXPERIENCES
AND POST-CONSUMPTION EVALUATIONS,”JOURNAL OF SERVICES
MARKETING, 18 (6), 450-461.
Adam Alvarado
MKTG 463
Spring 2015
4/13/15

2. Article Overview
The main goal of the article was to examine how consumers evaluate their service experiences both during
and post-consumption. This is a challenging topic for marketers, because it is often difficult to communicate and
evaluate value for a service since the provision is often intangible. For example, consumers have difficulties when
evaluating aspects ofan intangible service before they make a purchase.This is more difficult than evaluating a
product before making a purchase,because products have easily distinguishable features and designs,therefore
consumers can determine valuable attributes of the product fairly easily. In some specialized services (such as
doctors,lawyers, and financial advisors)consumers know very little about the service and must evaluate the service
based on the advice and “expertise” of others.This leads to consumers never really knowing if the service was
adequate or not, which can hurt the branding of firms in the long run.
The article focuses on aspects ofthe service experience that will affect how consumers evaluate
experiences: core service (the process in which service is delivered), employee service (behaviors and performances
by the employees that deliver the service), and serviscape (the physical environment for the service). These aspects
make up the “service offering” (Grace and O’Cass, 2004) of a firm and affect feelings (positive or negative emotions
generated during a service experience), satisfaction (the immediate response to tangible or intangible brand stimuli),
and brand attitudes (the consumer’s evaluation of the brand) for consumers.(Grace and O’Cass, 2004) An
interesting point to add is that core service processes are very heavily reliant on employee service in order to prove
valuable to consumers. This is because the efficiency of a core service will not matter to consumers if employees
cannot effectively deliver the service.
All of these aspects ofthe service experience and their effects lead the authors to generate 4 hypotheses that
were validated in the article by an extensive case study.The hypotheses are:
 H1: The service consumption experience will have a significant effect on aroused feelings.
 H2a: Service consumption experience will influence satisfaction.
 H2b: Aroused feelings will have a significant effect on satisfaction.
 H3: Service consumption experience will influence attitude to the service.
 H4: Satisfaction will influence service brand attitude.
The authors concluded the article by showing the direct relationship between service process and employee service.
The relationship between the two is so strong that they can be seen as inseparable. Servicscape is also very
important because it is one of the only service aspects that provides tangibility to consumers. Firms must understand
these aspects in order to create and maintain a competitive advantage in various service industries.
Key Learning Points
 Intangibility is a problem for service providers: The article states a few problems that arise with the
intangibility of services such as variance of customer experiences, reliance on employee service, and gaps
between consumer expectations and service experiences. The authors paint the intangibility of service as
negative and spend a large portion of the article suggesting that services be made more tangible. The
authors do not mention the benefits that the intangibility of service brings to consumers. For instance,
people are not entirely logical and do not rely entirely on quantifiable reasoning when evaluating a product
or service experience. The article does state the importance of feelings in congruence with a positive
service experience, but does not properly explain how the intangibility of a service can affect feelings more
than a tangible product can.
 Determining consumer satisfaction of the service experience is difficult: The authors spend a large
portion of the article discussing variables that affect how consumers evaluate services.These variables
include the three sections of the service experience (core service, employee service, and serviscape) as well
as emotions, lack of expertise, and inaccurate expectations. This is an accurate viewpoint, as service
experiences tend to have more variables than products when a consumer is evaluating an experience.
 Firms must make the service experience as tangible as they can: The implications of the case study
done in the article are that “Service marketers need to considerhow the core service, employee service, and
serviscape can be presented in a light that will be favorably perceived by customers [and] need to look at

3. designing their core service delivery to provide the utmost benefit to customers.” (Grace and O’Cass, 2004)
Now, it is important for a firm to have control over operations,human resources,and the business
environment, but the article leans toward a services-dominant logic as a solution to the fluidity of the
service experience. Rather than implying that service be more like products,the article should have taken a
service-dominant view where organic human-to-human interaction, customer feedback, and the co-creation
of value are used in order to maximize the service experience.
Follow-On Research
Some follow-on research for this topic was done by studying an article titled “Customer Experience
Oriented Service Quality Management” written by Chen Jian et al. in 2012. The article expounds on research done
in the communication industry which states that consumers are not satisfied when firms only focus on improving the
quality of service. Many communication companies continuously expand and strengthen their networks only to have
customers leave for competitors. The article questions why quality core services are no longer the only thing needed
to satisfy consumers and looks into how the customer experience as a whole can be used to gain customer loyalty.
The article confirms the hypotheses presented by the previous article because the authors state that “a different
approach is required, where the actual perception and experience of the customers define the business strateg y ofthe
service provider.” (Jian, Et al., 2012)
The article presents a few currently used models for evaluating quality of service; these models include the
possibility of including an evaluation of network service quality management, new techniques to obtain metrics on
service performance throughout the network in order to measure consumer satisfaction, and a three-part model that
looks to combine transport factors, application factors, and service/content factors.The issue that all of these models
have is that they seek to only improve the quality of service, rather than attempting to evaluate and improve the
interactions between the consumers and their service providers in order to more effectively co-create value.
The two articles are quite similar because they both recognize the need for improving the customer
experience rather than focusing only on the service process.Now, this is not to say that service processes should be
ignored, (both articles stress the importance of the service process)but the authors all agree that consumers are
demanding more than efficient processes in an increasingly competitive service landscape worldwide. Both articles
take a similarly explorative perspective,as there is not much research on how to effectively co-create value with
consumers while still maintaining the intangible benefits that services have over products.An interesting takeaway
from both articles is that, although separated by eight years, they essentially come up with the same conclusion:the
intangibility of service is difficult to replicate and evaluate. Perhaps, rather than seeking a comprehensive, widely-
accepted model for creating a positive customer experience, firms should focus more on allowing their consumers to
assist with determining what a positive customer experience is. Both articles touch on this principle, but neither
delve into the topic very deeply.
Applications
 The two reviewed articles both present very serious trends to the service industry.As consumers
continually seek more than efficient service processes,firms must seek to take advantage of intangible
benefits in order to maintain customer loyalty. Based on the research done in these articles, service
companies should seek ways to co-create value with their customers and tailor the service experience in
order to gain satisfaction and a positive brand attitude from consumers.
 The research on feelings and satisfaction can directly apply to the topic of gamification, since games are
meant to invoke emotion (usually positive) and engage customers. It is very likely that gamification can
help bring some intangibilities of the service experience to life for consumers by engaging them with
aspects ofthe service experience that were previously hidden (for example: allowing customers to gain
points and “level up” rather than just sending out coupons).Gamification could be the key for many service
companies to successfully merge tangibility and intangibility without sacrificing positive emotional
connections.

4. Bibliography
Grace D., and Aron O’Cass (2004), “Examining Service Experiences and Post-Consumption Evaluations,” Journal
of ServicesMarketing, 18 (6), 450-461.
Jian, Chen et al., (2012) “Customer experience oriented service quality management,” Robotics and Applications,
June (2012), 298-301.