Interaction between people can be seen as a distinctive feature of 'post-industrial society'. In this study I investigate some of the conditions for this encounter in private service work in Sweden. I start by discussing some important concepts: service, service encounter and emotional labour. Three parties in an interactional triangle can be perceived: the service enterprise, the service worker and the customer. The service encounter is embedded in organisational frames. Recruiting for social competence and training for selling interaction are two facets of these frames. In interactive service work, control is complicated by the fact that a third party, the customer, is involved and that the borders between worker, work process and result are somewhat indistinct. Indirect forms of control can be used to affect workers' attitudes and thinking, as well as behaviour. Service work can be described as a form of acting. Different service workers will identify differently with their work role. In my study I observe both positive and negative experiences of work. A majority report that they sometimes are so tired of people that they want to be alone after work. I distinguish two dimensions of interactive service work: type of interaction and sales situation. Interaction can be more or less important, and the sales situation can be more or less concealed. Based on these dimensions I suggest a typology to illustrate some differences between different service occupations. Four types are suggested: (1) Work first, and customer later; (2) Personalised services; (3) Routine selling; and (4) Persuasive selling. In the second group we find the experts of interaction, but also the strongest signs of social strain.

Business across the Internet has increased in recent years and most companies that are selling trips have increased their sales online. Many companies that are selling trips strive for customers to receive and experience a personal service online. The meeting between the client and a webpage service system on the Internet should work. Service encounters are an essential part of the contact between customer and company and play a big part in how the first impression is perceived by the customer. To understand how a service encounter works, meeting face to face, companies need to understand how customers perceive that meeting. Among other things, personnel and customers confront each other in a physical meeting and during the first few seconds is what Normann (2002) call the moment of truth. The purpose of this paper is to find out how service is working over the Internet. We also want to contribute with increased insight of the interaction between customer and provider over the Internet. To examine how service works over the Internet and how customers are treated. Theories that include e-CRM, Image concept and e-SERVQUAL have been used. Interviews took place with various actors within the tourism industry. Parasuraman, et al. (2002) and Kuo, et al. (2005) say that companies need to understand what the customer wants to do on their website and meet the needs of the customer and to exceed customers’ expectations.

[pt] Neste estudo, são analisados encontros de serviço desempenhados na central de reservas por telefone de uma companhia aérea brasileira. A análise realiza-se com base no arcabouço teórico da Sociolingüística Interacional em relação de interface com a Análise da Conversa. As interações foram coletadas no âmbito de uma metodologia de pesquisa etnográfica. Focaliza-se a manifestação de diferentes dinâmicas de enquadres e alinhamentos bem como a variação nos padrões de organização e construção de turnos de fala. Procura-se mostrar que esses aspectos (i) estão relacionados a diferentes tipos de atendimento e (ii) refletem uma realidade interacional complexa na central de reservas estudada. Tais fatos, conseqüentemente, dificultam a elaboração prévia de comportamento lingüístico na central de reservas, bem como o gerenciamento e controle desse comportamento através da prescrição de scripts de atendimento a clientes. / [en] This study analyzes service encounters held through the telephone in the reservation center of a Brazilian airline company. The analysis was conducted based on the Interactional Sociolinguistics framework interfaced with Conversational Analysis and the data collection was ethnographically oriented. Different dynamics of frames and footings are looked at, as well as the variation in organizational patterns and construction of discourse turns. This study aims to show that these aspects (i) are related to different kinds of attendance, (ii) reflect a complex interactional reality within the reservation center. Thus, these aspects make difficult the management process and as well as the previous control of sequences of linguistic behavior suggested by attendance scripts to clients.

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The hospitality industry is increasingly incorporating self-service technology, suchas online booking systems, automated check-in and check-out, and in-roomtechnology, to enhance the customer experience and streamline operations. However,there is limited research on the adoption and usage of self-service technology bybaby boomers (BB) in this industry. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring theadoption and usage patterns of self-service technology (SST) among BBs in thehospitality industry.The paper follows a deductive approach drawing upon the extensive literature on thetopic. With a proposed qualitative viewpoint, the purpose of the study is to identifythe BBs’ attitude when using SSTs in hotels, and furthermore, to understand in whatinstances consumers prefer human interactions over technological encounters. Theempirical data was obtained through interviews that were conducted among 10Swedish BBs. The findings then were analyzed through thematic analysis, towithdraw patterns, similarities and differences.The conclusion of this thesis shows BBs have different preferences when it comes toadopting SSTs. The attitudes ranged from enthusiasm, to avoidance and hesitation.However, the common theme that emerged among all three types of attitudes, wasthe fact that they all prefer to use SSTs as a complementary step to what the hotelstaff will provide. It was also proposed in order to encourage the SST hesitant orSST avoidant group, the service design should be straightforward and theinstructions must be clear.

[pt] Este trabalho investiga, sob a perspectiva do encontro de serviço, como os alunos de baixa renda - bolsistas - lidam com as diferenças e os preconceitos vividos em um ambiente acadêmico de elite. Encontro de serviço é um conceito que tem origem e importância no marketing de serviços e que trás para este trabalho o papel dos alunos como consumidores de um serviço. O trabalho, de cunho prático, introduz no encontro de serviços o que alguns autores, particularmente Sue et al. (2010), chamam de microagressões. Estuda as estratégias de enfrentamento diante das diferenças socioeconômicas e culturais e o modo como lidam com o preconceito. Foram realizadas várias entrevistas com alunos de último período de graduação de universidade privada para identificar os principais temas ligados às dificuldades de integração e de adaptação. Os resultados indicam que a agressão ocorre de forma sutil, velada e indireta e, em muitos casos, o autor sequer tem a consciência de que comete uma ação de discriminação. Após essa etapa, as principais questões foram levantadas e classificadas segundo o tipo de microagressão, seguindo o modelo de análise de Sue et al. (2010), com o objetivo de compreender o nível de consciência de quem pratica a ação, seja ele professor, aluno ou funcionário e o grau de prejuízo causado a esse grupo de consumidores. As principais questões encontradas, como exclusão e isolamento mostram a necessidade de pensar medidas gerenciais que busquem atender as necessidades deste grupo de consumidores em desvantagem, em relação aos demais. Neste sentido, este trabalho pode auxiliar as universidades e seus gestores no entendimento dos preconceitos vividos por esses consumidores e nas possibilidades de solução. / [en] This work investigates how low-income students handle prejudices in a university elite environment. To that end, it adopts two standpoints. First, it supports the perspective of the service encounter as an underlying concept for the role of students as consumers. Second, it introduces the concept of microaggressions (SUE et al, 2010) to the academic scene of service s marketing. This study also acknowledges the socioeconomic and cultural differences of students as the primary cause of the aggressions. Because of this, the study has a particular concern with how students deal with prejudice. Accordingly, it focuses on the coping strategies students adopt in the face of discrimination. This study results from several interviews with undergraduate students to identify the difficulties of integration and adaptation. The findings indicate that aggressions occur in a subtle, veiled and indirect way. In many cases, even the perpetrator is unaware of the discrimination action. Finally, the work presents a classification of microaggressions following the model of Sue et al. (2010). This model addresses two central issues. The first is the level of awareness of who does the action, be it teacher, student or employee. The other is the degree of damage caused to the consumers. Equally important is to add here the concerns with isolation and exclusion. All these questions require proper managerial attention.

<p>The subject of this thesis is interaction in the service encounter. The aim is to describe and explain the service encounter interaction with a special focus on the social and organisational context. The contextual focus is related to two overriding questions: What significance does the human interaction have for the service encounter? What significance does the organisational context have for the service encounter?</p><p>The result show that even though the communication consists of four discerned phases – salutation, the subject of the call, concluding the subject, and rounding off the call, each phase also displays contradictions. Consequently, there are both relational and instrumental utterances, as well as symmetrical and asymmetrical aspects of the conversations.</p><p>These contradictory results of the relational-instrumental and symmetrical-asymmetrical features are explained when interaction is viewed in terms of three different sets of logic – the commercial, the bureaucratic, and the social. Every logic is constituted by a number of characteristics, each contributing to the shape of the interaction and to the relationship between the customer and the employee.</p><p>Analytically speaking, the three forms of logic can be described in terms of their respective field of action and rationality, that is, what the actors talk about and what the purpose of the talk is. It is shown that the actors must prioritise between economic, administrative and personal areas within a limited time of action. It is also clear that the disparate rationalities, that is, economic, executive and recognition, all exercise influence over the service encounter, which means that acts aiming at a specific goal are restricted by the objectives of the other logics. Therefore there is a certain self-regulating function in the antagonism between the logics. The positions of the employee in relation to the customer, the organisation and the so-called collective customer mean that there are demands made from three qualitatively different directions. There is, in other words, a three-bosses dilemma for employees. The different positions of the employee also entail three different asymmetrical relationships in which either the customer or the employee has the advantage. This position constructs the hierarchy of dominance between employee and customer.</p><p>To conclude, the interaction constitutes a complex relationship between the characteristics of the logics and when these combine the interaction of the service encounter is shaped. The fact that the service encounter involves human interaction means that there is a counter balance against the organisational ascendancy.</p>

The subject of this thesis is interaction in the service encounter. The aim is to describe and explain the service encounter interaction with a special focus on the social and organisational context. The contextual focus is related to two overriding questions: What significance does the human interaction have for the service encounter? What significance does the organisational context have for the service encounter? The result show that even though the communication consists of four discerned phases – salutation, the subject of the call, concluding the subject, and rounding off the call, each phase also displays contradictions. Consequently, there are both relational and instrumental utterances, as well as symmetrical and asymmetrical aspects of the conversations. These contradictory results of the relational-instrumental and symmetrical-asymmetrical features are explained when interaction is viewed in terms of three different sets of logic – the commercial, the bureaucratic, and the social. Every logic is constituted by a number of characteristics, each contributing to the shape of the interaction and to the relationship between the customer and the employee. Analytically speaking, the three forms of logic can be described in terms of their respective field of action and rationality, that is, what the actors talk about and what the purpose of the talk is. It is shown that the actors must prioritise between economic, administrative and personal areas within a limited time of action. It is also clear that the disparate rationalities, that is, economic, executive and recognition, all exercise influence over the service encounter, which means that acts aiming at a specific goal are restricted by the objectives of the other logics. Therefore there is a certain self-regulating function in the antagonism between the logics. The positions of the employee in relation to the customer, the organisation and the so-called collective customer mean that there are demands made from three qualitatively different directions. There is, in other words, a three-bosses dilemma for employees. The different positions of the employee also entail three different asymmetrical relationships in which either the customer or the employee has the advantage. This position constructs the hierarchy of dominance between employee and customer. To conclude, the interaction constitutes a complex relationship between the characteristics of the logics and when these combine the interaction of the service encounter is shaped. The fact that the service encounter involves human interaction means that there is a counter balance against the organisational ascendancy.

The subject of this study is language use in a special type of social activity: the exchange of goods, services and information in a commercial setting. The main aim is to gain an understanding of the work that shop assistants perform using language. In the analysis, the focus is on verbal routine work. One part of the analysis thus entails mapping the typical utterances and conversational sequences related to such activities. Another part involves investigating how much non-task-oriented interaction the various activities require or “tolerate”, for instance, in the form of “small talk”. A central theme in the study is the interactants’ conversational rights and obligations, from the perspective of politeness theory, especially Fraser’s theory of the conversational contract. The service encounters are categorised as activity types, according to Levinson’s activity theory. In the comparative parts of the study, the concept of pragmeme is used as a tool to examine different realisations of prototypical situated communicative acts. The empirical material consists of authentic conversations, analysed by methods borrowed from conversation analysis. The conversations were recorded at a supermarket checkout till, a deli counter with manual service and an information desk in a bookshop. It turned out that only a few of the customer conversations were without complications. At the supermarket till, for instance, only one out of four conversations was completely routine and unproblematic. Also presented is a diachronic investigation of the norms relating to service encounters that have been taking place in shops since the 1940s. The main sources here are manuals and study materials for shop employees, together with interviews and material gathered from role playing. In this part of the study, a number of features in the historical change process are described, for instance in the manner of addressing people and the use of politeness expressions.

The main objective of this research is to examine the relationship between the internal and external service quality dimensions in Egyptian commercial banks. To achieve this objective, the thesis introduced the internal–external service quality model which proposes that the internal service quality has a positive impact on the external service quality. The research model was developed and tested empirically through three main stages. The first stage was based on the extensive review of the literature in order to identity the concepts and measures of the internal and external service quality. In this stage, the research objectives were identified. The second stage was concerned with the building of the internal–external service quality model which proposed that the internal service quality dimensions have a significant positive impact on external service quality. To identify causal indicators for this relationship, some control variables were used and a set of empirically testable hypotheses were developed. [Continues.]