Social Servicescape: Understanding the Impact of Customer to Customer Interactions in Beauty Salons

Abstract

The presence of customers and the interactions within customers has a very integral role in determining the service experience. Within a service setting the social behaviour of customers affects the overall experience.The impact of customer’s presence and interactions among customers belonging to different backgrounds has a very little understanding impacting service experiences which further effect future interactions and visits [3-2]. The physical environment has been researched by many researchers and individually there has been a lot of research on its major elements which are ambient conditions, spatial layout and functionality as well as sign, symbol and artifacts. There is dearth of studies on the social aspect of the servicescape which includes the impact created by customer to customer interactions on the service environment also known as servicescape [5-6-8]. The article focuses on finding out the perspective of customers and what they perceive in a service environment in the context of beauty salons. The customers are looking for the fulfilling experience of experiencing the servicescape. The service environment can be extended from the social aspects of the service setting as well [7-8-9]. As per social facilitation theory because of the awareness of the social aspects of the environment, the mere presence or absence of individuals has an effect on human behavior. A service setting in which customers will have a social influence on the other customers present increases customer’s sense of belongingness, because of the mere presence of other customers the customers would stay in a service setting servicescape [1-4-10]. The study involves a review of literature which will help to assess the behaviour and interpretations of people towards servicescape. The papers aims filling the gaps with a systematic literature review based on rigorous criteria as there is still dearth in the theoretical and empirical understanding of social aspects of servicescape. The study focuses on finding out the determining factors of customer to customer interactions effecting service experiences in a service setting. The result of the study indicates that social environment of a service environment impacts the service experience. The interaction among customers, the presence of other customers, the customer collaboration has a major impact in determining the service environment of a service setting. The study has been reviewed in the context of salons which comprehends that the presence of other customers their body language, their attire, the number of customers present in the salon impacts the service experiences.