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Communication dynamics inthe service encounterA linguistic study in a hotel

conference departmentJan Mattsson and Marten J. den Haring

Department of Social Sciences, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

Communication during service encountersThe importance of service encounters for the purpose of creating andmaintaining good relationships between service firms and their customers hasbeen widely recognised (Czepiel, 1990; Gummesson, 1995). Perceptions ofservice encounters are important elements of customer satisfaction, perceptionsof quality and long-term loyalty (Brown et al., 1994).

Service encounters have been defined in different ways (Bitner et al., 1990;Crosby et al., 1990; Shostack, 1985). We will regard a service encounter as thetime-frame during which a customer directly interacts with service providers(Surprenant and Solomon, 1987). Much of current research on serviceencounters focuses on the question of how to manage customer-employeeinteractions (Brown et al., 1994). For this purpose, various scholars haveclassified encounters and pointed to differences in customer-employeerelationships (Bitner, 1992; Chase, 1978; Price et al., 1995). For example, serviceencounters have been classified according to the way in which consumersexperience them. Goodwin (1988) underlines the importance of customers’commitment to the service provider. When the relationship between serviceproviders and customers is characterised by either high or low commitment tothe service provider, this will cause motivational differences in how customersrespond to the provider and the context. The level of client motivation isconsidered to be influenced by expectations of repeated visits and the desire toplease people with whom they interact frequently.

Bitner et al. (1990) have differentiated between encounters by consideringtheir communication patterns. Some encounters follow short service scripts,others last longer and have complex patterns of communication. Stiles (1985, p. 221) echoes this perspective: “It should be possible to classify types ofencounters on the basis of similar exchange structure and then to developgeneral modes of how verbal processes in encounters are related to serviceefficiency and customer satisfaction”. It is this basic idea that we will nowaddress. We will attempt to find underlying structures in verbal discourse thatportray the dynamics of communication during encounters and how the servicecontext impacts communication.

How can we come to grasp the cognitive process by which people experienceservice encounters? We believe that much could be learned from analysing

Received June 1997Accepted January 1998

International Journal of Service Industry Management,Vol. 9 No. 5, 1998, pp. 416-435,© MCB University Press, 0956-4233

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communication and studying how individuals evaluate events and behaviour.Traditional methods rely on a rather narrow stream of interview data such asaccounts of so called critical incidents to analyse experiences duringencounters. Often these accounts are then categorized or classified by means ofcontent analysis to generate a larger sample of types of experiences (e.g. Bitneret al., 1990).

What seems to be a limitation with this traditional approach is that onlyverbal data is considered in retrospect, normally from one source only. Thus thedata considered is static and single sourced. It would be advantageous if realtime pictorial and verbal data could be combined for simultaneous analysis. Inthis way the context and the events taking place could be pegged to the dyadiccommunication between customers and service providers. We would generate adynamic, contextually embedded and multiple sourced data set. Quantitativeapproaches utilizing real-time multi-dimensional data from encounters haverecently been reported (Lemmink and Mattsson, 1997). This work will attemptto develop a qualitative procedure, based on the assumptions of groundedtheory (Glauser and Strauss, 1967), to analyse the structural dynamics ofcommunication. The main purpose is to ascertain a more robust qualitativeanalysis of the experiences of customers and service providers by using a multi-dimensional data set and a step by step procedure. The thrust of the article is todescribe how this can be done.

The outline of our article is as follows. We first discuss our theoreticalfoundations which we mainly draw from linguistics. Second, we develop amethod to record, analyse, and interpret verbal and some non-verbal data.Third, we report on a communicative setting selected for this study, the helpdesk of a hotel conference department. Fourth, we illustrate some of ourfindings to depict underlying structures of communication dynamics. Finally,we summarise and draw some conclusions as to the usefulness of our approach.

Theoretical foundationsIn order to communicate people have to share a comprehension of each other’sverbal and non-verbal expressions; they must share a certain rationality and awillingness to co-operate (Allwood, 1995). Therefore, there should exist astructure that helps us understand the purpose or motives behind people’sbehaviour

Linguistic scholars believe that this structure lies hidden in the way we alllearn to use language. These thoughts form the basis of a model that is used forthe analysis of communication (Allwood, 1979). Communicative activityanalysis regards the meaning of linguistic expressions as determined by aninherent meaning potential of the expression and its communicative functions.The expression’s communicative functions are determined by its social activitycontext. A social activity is said to occur if two or more individuals performmental acts, exhibit behaviour, or engage in action in a co-ordinated way whichcollectively has some purpose or function. Individuals engage in activities by

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occupying activity relevant roles and by jointly pursuing the purpose of theactivity.

We will use the concept of social activity in service contexts to characterisethe structure of role relationships. Face-to-face communication is thereforebelieved to be influenced by characteristics of the communicators, of theirrelationship, and by characteristics inherent to the social activity that is beingpursued. Encounters in service environments are considered to constitute aspecial form of activity context that affects relationships between serviceproviders and clients. The relationships are thought to be purposeful, limited inemotional scope, and based on clearly defined roles. Since such relationships arecontinuously reproduced by service providers, communicative patterns emerge.Each specific encounter may be described in terms of characteristic contextualelements that can be analysed with regard to their influence on communicativepatterns. Consequently, the dynamics interplay between individuals in serviceencounter communication is not merely dependent on achieving a certainpurpose, it is also affected by instigating both individuals with a sense ofmastery over the course of the interaction. This can be achieved by efforts thatencourage service providers in dyadic relationships to influence clients’appraisal by evoking the “correct” communication patterns and by givingrelevant feedback on strategic behaviour. We suggest that relationships areconstantly appraised by participants through evaluative processes that aredetermined by person and situational factors. Service encounters constitute anenvironment for specific dyadic relationships. They are exposed to certainexpectations or “ready” cognitions about the exchange of behaviour in them.

Each communicative utterance in interaction carries with it a set of implicitdemands for response. The most basic among such demands are:

• that the other respond;• that the response addresses the content of one’s own preceding

communication; and• that the response be characterised by a particular degree of elaboration.

The extent to which these demands are satisfied is defined as responsiveness(Davis, 1982). Moreover, responsiveness is affected by:

• the attention that is devoted to one’s partner;• the range of cues in his/her behaviour that are attended to; and• the specific cue content that is selectively attended to.

Both the range and specific nature of cues attended to might be affected by rolerelationships. The effects of selective attention will depend on the nature of thecues focused on, and the context of the interaction. It is here then that the core ofour theoretical framework is materialising. “Attention is often prescribed by therole relationships within the dyad” (Davis, 1982, p. 86). We ask ourselves whatcommunicative cues different communicators attend to, or focus on. For thispurpose we have studied what particular verbal and non-verbal features of one

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communicator’s utterances attract the attention of the other communicator. Weshall speak of topics and images. The notion of image has been taken from thework of Bales and Cohen (1979), who define image as “a picture of an emotionallyloaded focus of attention”. An image will, therefore, be regarded as an emotionallyloaded, either positively or negatively, cue in a person’s communicative behaviour.On the other hand, we define a topic as an emotionally neutral cue.

When the focus of attention in communication is set off by emotionallyloaded cues, so-called images, these instances should have an important effecton customer perceptions of the encounter. It is believed that emotions areproducts of how people interpret the changing, moment-to-moment fates oftheir most cherished values and commitments. Emotions are said to be the“royal road” to understanding a person’s most important agendas, and how wellthat person believes these agendas are being realised (Lazarus and Folkman,1984). It follows that responses to emotionally loaded cues in utteranceexchanges should be important elements of communication

We have analysed transcriptions by linking together the concepts ofresponsiveness, service provider responses that are relevant in content to thepreceding communication of the client, and attention, the cues in the client’scommunicative behaviour that are attended to. They are, as it were, physicalevidence of the outcome of a person’s evaluative process. By studying utteranceexchanges during an encounter, it becomes possible to observe what cues in thatcommunicative process are attended to. An utterance reflects onecommunicator’s verbal and non-verbal expressions until he is interrupted byanother communicator, or until the communication is ended. If the speakerpauses, it must not be so long that it is more reasonable to regard renewedactivation as a new utterance. An utterance can vary from a single word, aclause, or a complete sentence. It can contain both a reaction and/or an initiative.

Method and procedureRecordings and interviewsThe empirical data used in the study consist of audio and video recordings ofinteractions in a Swedish hotel. For a combined period of ten days the dailyencounters between staff and customers were recorded. The data comprise 54hours of audio and video recordings. In a first selection of the data, recordedencounters that were clearly audible and actually featured both service providerand customers were edited and copied onto a master tape.

The conference department help desk was selected because of its activitycharacteristics: it is limited in scope, has a clear-cut functional purpose, anddisplays obvious role behaviour; making it possible to clearly discerncommunicative patterns. A VCR camera was discretely mounted at theencounter locality and connected to a VCR recorder. This was done to increasethe uninterrupted recording time of each tape to at least 180 minutes. Amicrophone transmitter was rigged on some stationary object in the desk area,and connected to the recorder. Efforts were made to keep all equipment from

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interfering with normal interaction. The duration of the encounters differsgreatly from a minute to over 20 minutes.

The customers were never explicitly told that they were being recorded. Thiswas decided in consultation with management. Instead, a small informationnote indicating that a research project would be taking place in the hotel wasput up at the front desk. There where two reasons for this. First, managementwere not happy about having to explicitly inform all their customers about therecordings. Second, such an awareness on the part of customers would haveseriously affected our objective to record “natural” communication. Since anencounter at the hotel does not last for many minutes, it is impossible to letcustomers “get used to” the fact that they are being recorded. For the samereasons, customers were not specifically selected for this study, nor were theyasked to participate in the self-assessment interviews. Customers wouldrandomly show up in the recording settings to ask for the assistance of serviceproviders, as we recorded them. The days of the recordings were chosen on thebasis of the number of bookings at the department. We wanted to recordactivity at the setting during times when there were both many and fewbookings made. Informed consent was obtained from all staff-members a coupleof months prior to the recordings. Together with the employees we then went onto select a number of episodes of which the outcome in terms of client oremployee dis/satisfaction was clearly ascertainable. The reason to selectepisodes that deviated from the routine was that we presumed them to be moreinteresting for analytic purposes. However, any episode could have beenselected for the purpose of illustrating the procedure. In other words, the degreeof customer satisfaction was not an issue. The employees either rememberedwhether a customer was dis/satisfied from post-conference surveys or theythemselves valued the episodes after carefully viewing the video recordings.

In order to grasp the linguistic features of the recorded communication alltapes were transcribed. This basically means that everything that is said or doneon the tapes is systematically written down. Here, the tapes have been transcribedaccording to a format developed by the department of linguistics at GothenburgUniversity in Sweden (Nivre et al., 1996). This format is primarily developed fortranscriptions of linguistic features in communication, although the transcriptionformat also can be used to capture certain non-verbal features. It gives a verbatimaccount of what has been said and done, utterance by utterance. Audio copieshave been made of the VCR-tapes to help enhance the accuracy of thetranscriptions. All transcriptions have been checked by two transcribers.

Because of the inconvenience and difficulty in approaching hotel guests(mostly foreign business people) in retrospect in their home country nointerviews were carried out with customers. If the focus of the study had beento map customer quality perceptions per se this would have been necessary. Inthis study, however, we focus on the dynamic aspects of verbal exchanges thatactually took place. We use provider interviews to underpin interpretation. Allin all, we believe that the data set used here is comprehensive and rich enoughfor our purpose.

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Two types of interviews were conducted with service providers in therecordings. First, a semi-structured interview was carried out during whichproviders were asked to comment on themselves, other participants, and ontheir professional duties. Second, self-assessment interviews were also carriedout with service providers. These interviews presented a valuable opportunityto combine further data gathering, validation of coding and individual feed-back to participants in the study. A summary of the practical aspects of ourstepwise method is given in Table I.

Coding and analysing the transcriptions By following the procedures of the constant comparative method (Glauser andStrauss, 1967) it is possible to perform so-called open coding of utterances.Transcriptions will be studied with regard to the content of an utterance asreflecting the purpose of the underlying activity. We developed a coding schemethat makes it possible to study each utterance and its assigned codes in thesame format. It also gives us the ability to analyse the actual interplay ofutterances and thus the dynamics of communication.

Each encounter was first coded separately, then the codes from severalencounters were compared with regard to their content in order to confirm thatthey were grounded in the data. This work provided material to sort out thecodes into preliminary categories. The scheme, which we choose to call themolecular coding scheme, is literally attached to the transcription format. Twocoding classes have been allocated to the utterance of each speaker. One marksthe function that we have assigned to the coded utterance of the respectivespeaker, and the other reflects the content of the coded utterances. The principleof dual coding to reflect both an utterance’s function and its contents is not new.For instance, the general-purpose taxonomy of verbal response modes withinthe so-called verbal exchange structure approach (e.g. Stiles, 1985; 1996) is awidely acknowledged method for measuring and analysing the verbalbehaviour of clients and service providers.

The scheme consists of two halves, see Figure 1, each half representing a rolein the dyad. The codes that have been assigned to utterances of clients aredisplayed in the left half. The right half reflects the codes that are given toutterances made by the service provider or some other third person. By

1 Recording of incidents on video2 Selection of incidents to be examined3 Transcriptions of what is said and done on video4 Semi-structured interviews with service providers5 Preliminary coding of function and content of utterances6 Showing of video and transcripts of running text to providers7 Self-assessment interviews with providers8 Analysing additional data from providers9 Completion of the molecular coding scheme

Table I.Summary of

stepwise method

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presenting the codes on the same line as the contents of each utterance and indifferent halves, the coding scheme becomes an effective instrument to reflectdynamic relations in communication. Furthermore, two coding classes havebeen allocated to the utterance of each role: class (A) and (B) for clients, andclass (a) and (b) for service providers and others. These classes, in turn, aremirrored across the roles. Class (A) and (a) are identical as to the underlyingaspect of the utterance that has been coded. In fact, both mark the “function”

Figure 1.Briefing

LineNo.

Spea-ker

Contents Code Class

Briefing§

S2: hi

C: hi

C: <ab> products

@ <abbreviation>

S2: ab products

C: yes

S2: welcome

C: thanks

S2: let me see you’re supposed to be in the<salmon>

@ <name of conference room>

C: the salmon all right

S2: and you are benny

C: yes

S2: yes / m do you want to have a coffeebreak or

C: no we don’t

C: mm what do you serve for lunch

S2: <> I cannot really say / I could call downand ask what they are serving for lunch

@ <gesture: looks away and sighs>

C: eh (...) // do you have any special offers

S2: the line to the restaurant is busy

C: m

S2: would you like me to go and fetch you amenu downstairs

C: yes would you

S2: (I’ll) just open up first

C: mm

customer s-prov/other

(A) (B) (a) (b)

ET

IT

ET

ET

ET

ET

ET

ITD

DT

ET

ET

ET

IT

DT

ET

IT

DT

ITD

ET

ET

DT

ET

ECO

CON

INF

INF

INF

DES

HES

HES

DES

INF

CON

INF

CON

CON

HES

CON

EXP

INF

INF

HES

EXP

HES

32

33

33a

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

43a

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

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that we have assigned to the coded utterance of the respective speaker.Similarly, class (B) and (b) both reflect the “content” of the coded utterances.

By coding utterances with these functions we are able to show whenutterances contain cues that another speaker has attended to, and in whatway these cues are attended to. Studying sequences of utterance exchangesthat go from one focus of attention to another will yield insight into thecommunicative patterns that each context creates. We must ask ourselveswho introduces the cues that are attended to, who chooses to elaborate onthese cues and who does not, and why? What causes a focus of attention toshift or to terminate altogether? These issues can be addressed by ourmolecular coding scheme. Moreover, the content message of an utterancereflects the contextual meaning that an utterance has been interpreted to havein the communication. Based on information from the self-assessmentinterviews, participants’ behaviour can be explained with regard to intentionsand contextual influences.

Moving from single utterance codes to looking at pairs or sequences of codeswill render us insight into the dynamic nature of the communication. This isillustrated in the excerpts by linking together the circled content codes of anutterance exchange which we have referred to as communicative cues (seesection on theoretical foundation above). Each circle is thus meant tocorrespond to an “atom” in the molecular scheme.

We consider an utterance exchange to begin when one speaker is trying tofocus attention by introducing a topic or image (a neutral or emotionally loadedcue in a person’s communication). Utterance exchanges that are initiated byservice providers are referred to as an S-focus. Those that are initiated bycustomers are termed C-focus. When a speaker tries to focus attention but hisutterance is not attended to, this is termed a 0-focus (or zero focus). Theutterance exchange in Figure 1 contains several different foci. First, an S-focusto establish communication is initiated by “hi”. Then a C-focus that introducesnew information, the company name, into the encounter. Thereafter, the focuschanges back and forth a couple of times. The exchange ends when a topic orimage is no longer elaborated on, meaning that the focus of attention has shiftedor that communication has terminated altogether. The molecular structure ofthe connected atoms will thus be disrupted as soon as a new topic or image isfocused on. Instead, a new sequence of atom connections will commence.

Since utterance exchanges are marked by clear beginnings and endings it ispossible to analyse entire communicative processes in service encounters bystudying:

• who focuses attention on certain topics or images;• how these topics or images are attended to;

• why the focus of attention shifts or ends;

• how often the focus of attention in the communication shifts;

• how many utterances each exchange consists of.

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How to read the transcription excerpts (Figures 1, 2 and 3)The presentation format of our transcriptions consists of seven columns (seeFigure 1). The first column displays a sequential line number that has beenawarded to each utterance. This is to provide a system for reference. It isfollowed by an indication of the speaker in the next column. Each speaker hasbeen designated a letter that corresponds to the role they have in the activity,followed by “:”. All customers are labelled “C”, while service providers areindividually marked “S1”, “S2”, and “S3”. Moreover, the same column is used toannounce additional comments, which is marked by “@”. In the transcriptions,this column sometimes features the character “§” to announce the title of aparticular short episode.

The third column gives an account of the actual verbal and non-verbalcontents of the communication which has been transcribed. The language thatis spoken on the tapes is mainly Swedish. However, the excerpts that we will useas examples have been given an idiomatic English translation. Parts ofutterances or words that have been marked between “()” are not clearly audible.When the symbol “(…)” is used, then that part of an utterances is not audible atall. Furthermore, the use of “/” indicates a small pause, “//” and “///” are longerpauses (not included in excerpts). The use of capital letters in the transcriptionsindicates that this part of the utterance is being stressed in accordance with theparticipant’s voice level (not included in excerpts). When a certain part of anutterance is commented on, that part is marked between “<>”. The commentsare printed below and are also indicated between “<>”. Comments indicatewhen a person uses body language, whether a person is laughing, coughing,joking, or appears sad. They can indicate when a certain word is anabbreviation or stems from a foreign language. Moreover, comments have beengiven labels that indicate what particular feature of the communication thatthey report on, for instance, the labels are termed gesture, mood, loan (foreignwords), name, and so on.

The communicative settingConference departmentThe hotel in our study is a hotel for business travellers. It has its own conferencefacilities. The office space of the conference department is located in the middleof the conference facilities and includes a help desk for conference guests. Wehave recorded the office space that includes the actual help desk. The conferencerooms vary in capacity, they fit everything from ten to more than 100 guests. Allrooms have been named after fish. Apart from conference rooms, this floor alsoincludes a couple of lounges where guests are served coffee and snacks duringbreaks. Meals, however, are served in the hotel’s restaurant, which is situated onthe second floor. The department has been organized in such a way thatcustomers are served directly by conference staff, from the time that thefacilities are discussed and ordered until the order has been paid for.

The service provided by the staff during actual conferences can be dividedinto several sub-activities. At the beginning of each conference the customer,

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who usually is the organizer of the conference, will be briefed on the agreementsthat have been made. During these briefings, the staff and customer willtypically run-through information such as: which room has been booked, howmany people will participate in the conference, whether or when coffee-breaksare planned, whether lunch has been ordered in the hotel restaurant and otherparticular arrangements.

These briefings are actually the only time that both parties meet and discussthe preconditions of the service process; they present a rare opportunity forservice providers to influence customer expectations. Other service encountersat the department are more unidirectional in the sense that customers come tothe help desk to express certain requests. Such service encounters are triggeredby the activities in the various conferences. During breaks, some conferenceparticipants come to the help desk for personal matters, e.g. to buy cigarettesand beverages, to book flights or taxis, or to send faxes. Others need to makephotocopies of documents, use the department’s computer, or make reservationsfor lunch.

ParticipantsThe staff of the department consists of three employees, one manager and twohostesses, all female. The manager has worked at the hotel for five years and is27 years old. Her job is based on a nine to five schedule. The main duties includemanagerial work, therefore she only occasionally works directly with customersduring conferences. In her own words:

Good communication with guests means uninterrupted communication. Guests shouldalways get our undivided attention and feel that they are being taken seriously. That is not thecase at our department all the time. Our staff is not large, and we are needed at many differentplaces at the same time. A stressful environment, with telephones ringing all the time, can beperceived as inconvenient.

The two hostesses, however, are responsible for providing all the services thatthe department offers to clients during conferences. They work on a schedulethat is made up of a morning and an afternoon shift. The hostesses work everyother morning shift. One of the hostesses has worked at the hotel for almostfour years, is 25 years old, marked (S1) in the transcriptions, and signals herview on communication:

Good communication with guests means that we have time to spend. Whenever you feel thatthe customer wants your time, you should never appear to be in a hurry and just rush off. Nomatter how stressed you are, you always have a few minutes to spare. When one asks acustomer if everything is well, one should have the time to listen to their answer and to whatthey have to say.

The other hostess (S2) began to work at the department just a few months priorto the recordings and is 22 years of age. This hostess has the same professionalduties as her colleague. On a private level she is clearly bothered by the fact thatshe stutters, and in her work she appears to make a big effort to hide it fromcustomers. She adds:

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Good communication to me is when I don’t stutter at all during a conversation with acustomer. Then I’m really proud! When I get to say what I want to say instead of justdrivelling. So I guess good quality is when I get my message across. I can see that from thefeed-back people give me.

The relationship between customers and service providers at the department ischaracterised by the providers’ role of trying to satisfy customers’ “wants”. Inorder for providers to achieve this goal, communication must be effective in thesense that the right questions must be asked and/or answered. Providers mustfind out exactly what it is that their customers want. Consequently, thecharacter of the communication at the conference department is that of acontinuous information exchange. The hostesses either ask or listen tocustomers’ requests, inform them of the department’s ability to meet thoserequests, and serve customers as best as they can. This pattern of informationexchange is then repeated in various formats in most of the encounters. Inbetween tasks, they also try to indulge individual conference guests whoserequests vary from taking photocopies and sending faxes to ordering taxis andbooking tickets. This has the effect that hostesses have developed a veryefficient, brief and to the point, style of communicating with their clients. Wewill illustrate the contextual influences on communication by describing threeservice encounters. First, we give a brief outline of events and proceed byanalysing emerging communicative patterns.

Findings: communication dynamics during service encountersBriefingThe activities in this encounter (see Figure 1) took place early in the morning,just before the designated conference was about to begin. The customer (C) andconference hostess (S2) go through some final practical details for theconference arrangements. This encounter is a typical standardised activity atthe conference department that takes place before almost every conference, asdiscussed above. Despite the fact that most arrangements for conferences areagreed upon with the customer in advance, the staff make sure to run-throughthe schedule with customers to confirm prior agreements and to work outremaining details. In this way, both the customer and service provider shouldcome to an understanding of the provisions that conference guests can expectduring the day.

The staff characterise the client in this episode as a first time customer,which means that he is not familiar with the routines of the department. Thehostess in this episode is the youngest and least experienced of the conferencestaff. From the self-assessment interviews we also know that she works hard toconceal the fact that she stutters. After establishing communication, theinformation exchange starts. The customer indicates the name of the companyhe represents, in line 34. While the hostess is looking for the file of theconference booking, she confirms that she has understood the name of the clientcorrectly and welcomes him. In line 38, the hostess indicates that the conferencewill be held in “the salmon”. The customer’s response is rather hesitant, which

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causes the hostess to ask him whether his name is “Benny”. That is the nameindicated in her file to be the conference organizer. The hostess proceeds byasking him whether he is planning to have a coffee-break, which he obviously isnot. Instead, the customer inquires about the lunch menu, which seems to comeas a surprise to the hostess. She cannot answer the question immediately, buttries to phone the restaurant. The line is busy so the hostess suggests that shegoes to fetch a menu in the restaurant.

We find this encounter a little jumbled for a briefing that more or less shouldbe standardised. During the encounter, this results in hesitant responses fromthe client who does not seem to follow, what should be, the hostess’s briefing tothe client. He becomes the one who is asking for information instead of listeningto information from the hostess’s checklist. Normally, when a new guest arrives,he is given the key to the conference facility, shown the way to it, and briefed onthe arrangements that have been made. In this case, the communicationappears to be somewhat vacillating. This is echoed by another hostess whowatches the episode. She finds her colleague in this episode very incoherent.Our point is illustrated by the customer’s hesitant response at the end of thisencounter, see line 51.

Air tickets and taxi (Figure 2)In contrast to the previous encounter this information exchange is not a typicaldaily activity. One of the conference guests has asked the help desk to try andreschedule his flight. When this encounter begins, the customer wants to knowif the hostess managed to change his flight plan. The hostess at the help desk

Figure 2.Air tickets and taxi

LineNo.

Spea-ker

Contents Code Class

Air tickets and taxi§

C: how did the re-booking go

S2: m it was ulrika who worked on that shehas written I think it was okay / let’s seewhat she has written down

S2: / tickets re-booked

C: great

S1: four thirty

C: great

S1: check-in // taxi ordered for three thirty

C: yes super

S1: m

C: (thank you)

S1: here you are

C: (thank you)

customer s-prov/other

(A) (B) (a) (b)

ET

II

RI

RI

RI

ET

ITD

ET

ET

ET

ET

ET

INF

INF

INF

INF

SUP

INF

HES

POS

POS

POS

POS

CON

359

360

360a

361

362

363

364

365

366

367

368

369

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cannot answer him immediately, because it was her colleague who handled thematter. However, she quickly finds a note from her colleague indicating that theflight has been rebooked, see line 360a. The customer appears to be very happy,which we derive from his positive image. The hostess continues to read from thenote that contains his new flight schedule and a message saying that a taxi hasbeen ordered at the time that was requested. In summary, we here see anexample of how the output of a previous information exchange is presented tothe customer. As it were, the customer is confronted with the result of hisprevious request. Several client utterances indicate positive images. The hostessmanages to support those images and concludes the encounter on aconfirmative utterance from her client.

Where to print? (Figure 3)The following excerpt (see Figure 3) reflects the final part of a very long serviceencounter. We will therefore give a brief account of the entire encounter’soutline. The events occurred on a Monday morning and involve a client whohad booked the conference facilities until the end of the week. The objective ofthis conference was to produce a document. During this particular encounter, atthe beginning of the week, the customer wants to make sure that arrangementsare made to have the document printed-out and put into a binder at the end ofthe week. It is so important to him that he already had asked his secretary tocall in advance to make arrangements with the hostesses. The problem is thefollowing. The conference department does not have a word processor that iscompatible with the client’s computer, and the client needs a specific bindingsystem, since he has already brought the necessary materials for it. At first, theclient explains the entire matter to one of the hostesses (S1) who obviously is notinformed about it. After a while another hostess (S2) joins the discussion. This

Figure 3.Where to print?

LineNo.

Spea-ker

Contents Code Class

Where to print?§

S1: what do think about it

C: well it might work

S1: yes otherwise you just tell us (...)

C: yes no (...)

S2: then we will help you find another way

C: yes right m m no but so far it’s ok

S1: ok

C: m thank you

S1: yes <bye>

@ <laughing>

customer s-prov/other

(A) (B) (a) (b)

DI

ET

ET

ET

ET

ET

ET

DT

ET

HES

INF

INF

CON

CON

ACT

HES

HES

HES

320

321

322

323

324

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hostess is the one that has attempted to find a company that can provide thetask. She gives the name and address of a few companies to the customer, andexpects him to make the final arrangements himself.

The customer has a very “slow” style of communicating. He is asking thesame questions over and over again, and does not seem to be getting anywhere.Both hostesses are communicating with him. They seem to be getting a little fedup with this customer who will not let go. In the end, the hostess asks the clientwhat he thinks about it, line 320. She clearly wants the client to give some sortof indication if he is satisfied or not. The customer is hesitant in his response.When the hostess continues to focus on the question if he is happy, theresponses from the customer remain hesitant. It is almost as if he is waiting forthe conference hostess to say: “give the disc to me when you’re done and I’llarrange the rest for you”. One hostess (S1) had this to say about the episode inthe self-assessment interviews:

It really looks bad when you read it on paper. The communication is poor. It seems as if we arenot talking the same language. The customer finally gets what he wants, but not in a goodway. Perhaps I should have let my colleague handle the entire matter since she knew all aboutthe arrangements.

The first time her colleague (S2) watches the encounter, she says: Oh it’s him, he was being really difficult! Do you understand how somebody can be so anxiousabout the way a document is put into a binder? I’ve told him three times now already, and hestill won’t give in.

But after reading the transcriptions as running text (and not the entire codingscheme as outlined in Figure 3) she changes her mind:

Oh God, I didn’t get the impression that he kept nagging about this so many times! It appearsthat he didn’t really believe that we knew what we were doing. The fact that my colleague didnot know much about this arrangement may have confused him. I understood quite well whathe wanted, but he didn’t seem to trust me either. This document must have been extremelyimportant to him.

After watching the recordings she is convinced that her own performance andthat of her colleague were not satisfactory. It appears as though both hostesseshad begun to dislike the customer’s attitude, and therefore, focused too much onhis personal style of communicating. They never explicitly addressed theurgency of his request. Instead of offering the customer to help him at the end ofthe week, they explain in detail how the customer can go about solving his ownproblem. The fact that two hostesses got involved in the encounter was not veryuseful either, since one of them knew very little about these particulararrangements.

All in all, the communication in this encounter displayed several flaws.However, we want to stress that we had no experimental intent to exposeparticipants to different kinds of verbal or non-verbal stimuli to gauge ex postreactions to recordings. Self-assessment interviews were expressly used tosubstantiate coding. Therefore, although interesting, these findings of changedreactions of participants will not be elaborated further.

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Emerging communicative patternsThe open coding of utterances has resulted in a number of content categories(see Table II). The first column contains information about the utterances’function and content categories that have been found in the transcriptions. Thesecond column shows abbreviated codes that have been assigned to thesefunction and content categories in the molecular coding scheme. Moreover, theso-called coding classes in the third column correspond to the location eachcode has received in the coding scheme. As we explained earlier, functions andcontent categories of client utterances are termed class (A) and (B) respectively,while the corresponding classes of service provider utterances have beentermed (a) and (b). The last column shows which combinations, in total, offunction and content codes we have discovered in the transcriptions from thestudy of the conference department. To exemplify, customers’ utterances thatintroduce topics (IT) have been found in combination with the content codes(INF), (ACT), (SOC), and (ECO); the customer’s utterance content termed“positive image” (POS) has been found in combination with utterance functioncodes (II) and (RI).

The content categories match those that were found in another study (Den etal., 1997): hesitation, confirmation, negative confirmation, and direct follow-upmessages. However, in contrast to the results of that study, the contentcategories that reflect general responsiveness are more predominant here.Communication at the conference department contains a flow of informationbetween the client and service providers. As information is given or requested,these categories of responsiveness become important indicators of howutterances have been perceived by the other person. The feedback fromcommunicators will e.g. indicate whether or not the content messages have beenunderstood. Confirmation (CON) and negative confirmation (NON) signal adefinite feed-back. Hesitation (HES) and direct follow-up (DIR) utterancesindicate an unsure response.

Moreover, we have identified content categories that are specific to theactivities at the help desk. In the case of customer utterances these include fivetopics: informative topics (INF), expression of desire (EXP), general activitytopics (ACT), socialising topics (SOC), and expressions that establish thecommunicative process (ECO). The occurrence of negative (NEG) and positive(POS) images confirms the emotional involvement of customers in theseutterance exchanges. Utterances of service providers have been found tocontain the following categories: informative topics (INF), inquiring aboutcustomer desire (DES), general activity topics (ACT), socialising topics (SOC),and expressions that establish the communicative process (ECO). We have alsodiscovered a category that we have chosen to term “supporting images that areintroduced by customer” (SUP). This content category is found when serviceproviders respond to their customers’ positive images. These utterances ofservice providers maintain a focus on customers’ appreciative contentmessages.

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Code Found combinations of utterance Utterance categories Code class functions and contents

Customer utterance functionsIntroduction of topic IT (A) INF, ACT, SOC, ECOIntroduction of topic with

demand for elaboration ITD (A) INF, ACT, SOC, ECODemand for elaboration on topic DT (A) INF, EXP, ACT, SOC, HES,

CON, NON, DIRElaboration on topic ET (A) INF, EXP, ACT, SOC, HES,

CON, NON, DIRIntroduction of image II (A) POS, NEGReintroduction of image RI (A) POS, NEG

Customer utterance contentInformation INF (B) IT, ITD, ET, DTExpression of desire EXP (B) IT, ITD, ET, DTGeneral activity topic ACT (B) IT, ITD, ET, DTSocialising topic SOC (B) IT, ITD, ET, DTEstablishing communication ECO (B) IT, ITD, ET, DTPositive image of activity POS (B) II, RINegative image of activity NEG (B) II, RIHesitation HES (B) ET, DTConfirmation CON (B) ET, DTNegative confirmation NON (B) ET, DTDirect follow-up to maintain

communication DIR (B) ET, DT

S-provider utterance functionsIntroduction of topic IT (a) INF, ACT, ECOIntroduction of topic with demand

for elaboration ITD (a) INF, DES, ACT, ECODemand for elaboration on topic DT (a) INF, DES, CON, HES, DIRElaboration on topic ET (a) INF, SUP, CON, HES, DIRDemand for customer image DI (a) ACT

S-provider utterance contentInformation INF (b) IT, ITD, DT, ETEstablishing communication ECO (b) IT, ITD, ET, DTGeneral activity data ACT (b) IT, ITD, RT, DT, DIInquiring about customer desire DES (b) ITD, DTSupporting image introduced

by customer SUP (b) ETHesitation HES (b) ET, DTConfirmation CON (b) ET, DTNegative confirmation NON (b) ET, DTDirect follow-up to maintain

communication DIR (b) ET, DT

Table II.Coding scheme of the functions and

contents of utterances

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Contextual influences on communicationWe earlier described the communicative pattern of the activities at the help deskas a process of information exchange. Since the purpose of the activities is tosatisfy customer requests with regard to conference arrangements, it followsthat the most relevant utterance exchanges are those that concern expression ofcustomers’ requests (EXP), inquiries about their desires (DES), and informativetopics (INF). By studying individuals’ responses to these utterance categorieswe should be able to grasp the dynamics of communication. We believe thatwhenever information is given or requested, the general content categories ofutterances become important. After all, feedback will e.g. indicate whether ornot the meaning of the informative message has been comprehended or not.

From the excerpts that we have shown above, it becomes clear that hesitant(HES) responses to content categories (EXP) and (DES) often are an indicationof the fact that communicative difficulties are developing in the utteranceexchange. We have found hesitant customer responses to be caused by serviceproviders’ misinterpretation of customer desire, unclear or insufficientinformation, and unfamiliarity with procedures. Conversely, confirmative feed-back messages are regarded as indicators of good communication (CON) and(POS). They indicate various degrees of acceptance on behalf of thecommunicating individuals concerning the information they have received, orthe agreements they have made. They show that customers’ evaluation ofquality in this service environment is related to the output of the communicativeprocess.

Communication at the help desk takes place in a stressful office environment,where the phones are constantly ringing, staff have many different assignmentsto carry out, and guests arrive to ask favours. This means that the hostessesoften feel they do not have the time to listen to their customers. The encounterillustrated in Figure 3 appears to be the result of service providersmisinterpreting customer intentions due to stressful circumstances. Had therenot been much to do at the office, then one of the hostesses might have offeredto make the necessary arrangements for the customer. Instead, the customerwas asked to do it himself. One of the hostesses (S3) explains:

Sometimes, you don’t actually perceive what it is the customer wants, because you don’t takethe time to listen to them. It could be that one has a lot of paper work on one’s desk andhonestly one doesn’t have the energy to take on another assignment from the customer. Onthose occasions you just want the customer to leave!

Summary and conclusionsRevisiting our theoretical foundationsThis study has focused on the dynamics of communication between serviceproviders and their clients. We argued that service encounters, because of theirspecific and purposeful nature, are particularly suited for evaluating thecommunicative process. Prior research in this area has primarily focused on roletheory as a framework for explaining communicative behaviour (Solomon et al.,1985).

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We now believe that role theory alone does not provide enough insight toevaluate the quality of communication. Role theory views communicativebehaviour as an enactment of standardised sets of behaviours. However, everyhuman being has a unique perspective on themselves, others, and on the eventsthat influence their interaction with others (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Inservice encounters, service providers and their clients have differentperspectives on the interaction they are part of. Communication is influenced bythe activities that clients and service providers jointly pursue, and,consequently, these activities give rise to communicative roles that are “acted”out again and again.

We suggest that individuals, in communicating with each other, interpret themeaning of utterances in relation to the activity that is being pursued. Attentionis focused on behavioural cues that are considered to be relevant to the activity.This notion is supported by evidence from our empirical studies, indicating thatactivities create a sort of cognitive readiness for certain cues while it causesindividuals to disattend others. We suggest that an individual’s interpretationof, and response to behavioural cues is managed by his cognitive appraisal andcoping processes, which become accessible through communication.

Evaluating our approach to study communication dynamicsCommunication at the conference department in our hotel study resembles anexchange mechanism, in which customers express their desires and serviceproviders inform them to what extent those desires can be met. The core servicethat is being delivered is the actual conference itself including additionalfacilities, meals and accommodation. Customers arrive at the help desk becausethey wish to change their lunch-order or because they wish to makephotocopies, the tangible meal and photocopies are the outcome of thecommunicative process, and as such, must be taken into consideration when thequality of communication is evaluated.

The outcome of communication is evaluated by analysing service providers’statements in self-assessment interviews. Their indications as to what isperceived in terms of “good” or “poor” attributes of communication arevaluable. These statements then influence how utterance exchanges are coded.Therefore, our approach is based on analyses of utterance exchanges.Utterances are not considered to be prescribed by systematic professional roleplay. Instead, activities are believed to influence participants’ expectations andprovide rules for permissible behaviour through the formation ofcommunicative roles. Each activity generates communicative patterns thatindicate how the purpose of the activity is usually pursued by its participants.We have argued that by studying these patterns (as modelled by our molecularcoding scheme) it is possible to link perceptions of good and poorcommunication to sequences of particular verbal and non-verbal expressions.

We believe that the methodology developed here can make service providersmore aware of how their behaviour influences the outcome of communication ininstances that are most crucial to achieving the purpose of the service

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encounter’s underlying activity. The methodology consists of a number ofdifferent features. First, we have advocated the use of audio and videorecordings in obtaining dynamic data from real service encounters. Sincegrasping communicative processes is a prerequisite for being able to study theservice experience, we have explored a linguistic approach to process verbaland non-verbal communication. Second, we have developed the “molecular”coding scheme as a model to make visible the dynamic interplay between thefunctions and contents of participants’ utterances. Utterance exchanges arebelieved to display what communication cues individuals focus on, respond to,and elaborate on in particular activity contexts. The functions that an utteranceis coded for thus reflect its task in the exchange. Moreover, the content codeindicates the meaning that each utterance is interpreted to have had during theactual exchange. Third, the content of each utterance should, therefore, becoded after the self-assessment interviews had been carried out.

However, there are a number of limitations with our approach. It is time-consuming and resource-demanding both with regard to planning andimplementation. Technical issues related to audio and video recordings need tobe considered in detail. Moreover, ethical questions must be taken into accountso that full consent and support from participants are secured in advance. Thiswill enhance the ecological validity which is of prime concern for the groundedtheory approach advocated here.

The selection of the service encounter and its participants also need carefulconsideration. A limitation in this study is that customers were not included asfull participants because of practical reasons (foreign travellers). It is preferableif all participants who figure in recordings also can take part in the self-assessment interviews to enrich and further validate interpretation.

Nevertheless, a great benefit of the method advocated here is that it allowsthe communication to be “deconstructed” into a sequence of interconnectedfunctional and content categories (codes) that form the essential elements ofhow the encounter is experienced contextually. This allows for deeperunderstanding of how the service encounter is mentally structured and shouldbe of great value for developing service operations. We believe that theapproach may be particularly useful for managers of service operations inwhich the quality of communication is paramount. Examples of this may be air-traffic control and the servicing of complex and important installations such asnuclear power plants.

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