Executive Summary
Inseparability has long been recognized as a defining characteristic to distinguish services from products. Yet for many services, consumption is, or can be, separated from production. Consider the following contrasting examples: When a customer visits a spa, he or she relaxes and unwinds during the massage. This service is unseparated because the customer is physically involved and consumes the service as it is being produced. In contrast, after a customer drops off a malfunctioning laptop computer at a retail repair site, repair is performed in the absence of the customer. Therefore, this service is separated in the sense of the spatial decoupling between its production and its consumption. An intriguing questions is, when a service can be delivered both separately and inseparably, such as banking (i.e., retail banking versus telephone banking) and retailing (i.e., offline store versus online store), will customers react to these two delivery modes differently? If so, which one will they prefer and why? To answer these questions, the current research defines service separation as customers’ absence from service production and examines how customers’ reactions to service separation influence their purchase decisions and evaluations.
Across a series of qualitative and quantitative studies, the authors find that separated modes of service delivery are perceived as having greater access convenience (i.e., convenience in reaching the service provider and requesting the service) and benefit convenience (i.e., convenience in experiencing the service’s core benefit). However, they are also associated with higher performance risk (i.e., the risk that the service cannot perform as expected and thus is unable to satisfy customer needs) and psychological risk (i.e., customers’ loss of psychological well-being due to using separated services). When both separated and unseparated service modes are available, customers will make trade-offs between the benefits and the shortcomings of both options. The findings in this study indicate that customers prefer to purchase the separated mode of experience services and from service providers with which they have long-term relationships because under these two conditions, the benefits of service separation outweigh its drawbacks. On the basis of these results, the authors suggest that while some services do not lend themselves to separation, for services that can be delivered both separately and inseparably (i.e., services involving nonphysical acts to customers’ minds and information processing), it is imperative to deliberate on the appropriate delivery mode. Specifically, for experience services, separation of consumption and production not only improves service efficiency and reduces service variability, as previous research suggests, but also provides customers with greater access and benefit convenience. Therefore, delivering separated experience services can be a win–win strategy for both firms and customers. For credence services, however, firms should carefully decide which delivery mode to offer. The answer may depend on the target segment. For example, to attract new customers, a firm can offer the unseparated mode to reduce prospective customers’ perceived risk and thus increase purchase probability. For long-standing customers, however, a firm can encourage them to use the separated mode by emphasizing its greater convenience.
Biography
Hean Tat Keh is an associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Marketing in the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. He was previously on the faculty of the National University of Singapore and was a corporate executive at the Wharf (Holdings) Ltd., Hong Kong. His research interests include brand management, services marketing, strategic marketing, and cross-cultural research, and he has published in leading academic journals, such as Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Advertising, Journal of International Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Business Venturing, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, among others. He is the author of several books, consults widely, and is an award-winning teacher. He received his PhD from the University of Washington.
Jun Pang is a doctoral candidate in Marketing in the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. During the 2008–2009 academic year, she was a Fulbright PhD student in the Stern School of Business at New York University. She received her BA in Marketing from Peking University. Her research interests include consumer behavior, social influence, and services marketing.
Journal of Marketing, Volume 74, Number 2, March 2010
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