| dc.description.abstract | Customer experience is one strategic option for organisations wishing to differentiate their service offering. Little research however has been conducted to explain how service design and management practices influence customer experience in non-hedonic contexts, settings in which the objectives for the design of the delivery system are not experiential. The objective of this research is to address this gap in academic knowledge.
The conceptual framework used as the basis of the empirical research demonstrates how four experience mechanism constructs, incorporated into the design of the delivery system, facilitate the customer’s involvement in the delivery of the service and influence how they perceive the experience that emerges as a result. To explore the relevance of the framework two case studies were conducted. Data was collected principally through interviews with employees working at various levels throughout the organisations hierarchy and with customers. Observations and secondary source material also provided additional evidence.
The thesis provides an original and distinct contribution to knowledge, through three main findings: Firstly, the research found evidence that the conceptual framework was relevant to the design of the delivery system and in customers’ perception of their experience. This challenges assumptions in existing literature that experience might not be a relevant design consideration in non-hedonic service contexts. Secondly, the findings provide a point of distinction between experiences in hedonic and non-hedonic contexts. Finally the study extends experience design theory demonstrating how in the contexts studied, the experience mechanisms act as antecedents for the experience a customer perceives.
Whilst conducting only two case studies limits the impact of the findings, the propositions formulated to explain the key themes identified, can be used as a vehicle through which future quantitative research can be carried out, therefore extending the generalisability of the study beyond the contexts studied. | en_GB |
