Physical evidence

Customers of service organizations may be influenced by a range of factors in their decisions to purchase or use a specific service. One factor which is assuming more importance is the role played by physical evidence.

Physical evidence is the environment in which the service is delivered and where the firm and the customer interact and any tangible commodities that facilitate performance or communication of the service

Physical evidence can assist in creating the 'environment' and 'atmosphere' in which a service is bought or performed and can help shape customer perceptions of a service. Customers form impressions of a service organization partly through physical evidence like buildings, furnishings, layout, colour and goods associated with the service like carrier bags, tickets, brochures, labels and so on.

Many service marketers neglect this aspect of service design and fail to take account of how they can use such physical evidence to shape the image of their organization and its services: 'Because of product marketing's biases, service marketers often fail to recognize the unique forms of evidence that they can normally control and fail to see that they should be part of marketing's responsibilities.

Classification of Physical Evidence:-

Physical evidence can be classified into two different categories:

1) Servicescape

2) Other Tangibles.

Service Scape:

Servicescape is a concept that was developed by Booms and Bitner to emphasize the impact of the physical environment in which a service process takes place. The concept of servicescape can help assess the difference in customer experience between a fast-food franchise restaurant and a small, family-run restaurant. Whereas the quality of the food may be the same, the customer may perceive higher quality in the latter over the former based on the environment in which the service is provided.

Booms and Bitner defined a servicescape as "the environment in which the service is assembled and in which the seller and customer interact, combined with tangible commodities that facilitate performance or communication of the service".

The servicescape includes the facility's exterior and interior .The servicescape concept, once introduced, became a key factor in many marketing studies.

Facility Exterior: Anything related to the exterior of a servicescape, for example

• Exterior design of a building

• Parking signage

• Landscape

• Surrounding environment, etc.

Facility Interior

• Interior design

• Equipment

• Signage

• Layout

• Air quality/temperature

Other Tangibles

Any tangible commodities that facilitate the performance or the communication of the service are referred to as other tangibles in service marketing.

► Business cards

► Stationery

► Billing statements

► Reports

► Employee dress

► Uniforms

► Brochures

► Web pages

Types of Physical Evidence

A distinction is made in services marketing between two kinds of physical evidence.

(a) Peripheral evidence.

(b) Essential evidence.

Peripheral Evidence

Peripheral evidence is actually possessed as part of the purchase of a service. It has however little or no independent value. Thus a bank chequebook is of no value unless backed by the funds transfer and storage service it represents. An admission ticket for cinema equally has no independent value. It merely confirms the service.

It is not a surrogate for it. Peripheral evidence 'adds to' the value of essential evidence only as far as the customer values these symbols of service. The hotel rooms of many large international hotel groups contain much peripheral evidence like directories, town guides, pens, notepads, welcome gifts, drink packs, matchbooks and so on. These representations of service must be designed and developed with customer needs in mind. They often provide an important set of complementary items to the essential core service sought by customers.

Essential Evidence

Essential evidence, unlike peripheral evidence, cannot be possessed by the customer.Nevertheless essential evidence may be so important in its influence on service purchase it may be considered as an element in its own right. The overall appearance and layout of a hotel, the 'feel' of a bank’s branch, the type of vehicle rented by a car rental company, the type of aircraft used by a carrier. All are examples of essential evidence.

Ultimately peripheral evidence and essential evidence, in combination with other image forming elements (e.g. people who provide the service) influence the customer's view of the service: ' ... when a consumer attempts to judge a service, particularly before using or buying it, that service is "known" by the tangible clues, the tangible evidence that surround it.

The role of physical evidence:

Physical evidence plays an important role in service marketing. The major roles played by the physical evidence are:-

► Packaging the service

It acts as a packaging to the service similar to the packaging of a physical product.it helps in conveying the expectations of the consumer, provide information of the product i.e; service and influences the perception of the consumer, that helps in development of an image in the minds of the consumer.

► Facilitates the flow of the service delivery process

It provides the information to the customer as well as the organization about how and by what process the service has to be provided, which helps in better understanding of the service. Also it helps in managing the custopmers based on their core areas of requirement.

► Socializes employees and customers

They act as media of interaction between employee and customers. They help in easy identification of employees and hence making providing service much easier. It also provides in defining a persona about the quality of service to be provided. It also provides the objectives and goals of an organization to the people.

► Provides a means for differentiation

Physical evidence helps in enhancing the attributes of the service, like personality and intelligence of employees, efficiency, etc. in turn making services more differentiable.

► Shaping first impression

It helps in providing an image of the service even before it is being delivered. It also helps in influencing the expectations of the customer about the service.

► Managing trust

Gaining the trust of the customer is the most difficult task in service industry. This is provided by the physical evidence. It helps in gaining the trust by providing the representation of the quality of the service.

► To shape customer perception

Physical evidence can greatly influence the perception of customer abouy the service.

► Facilitating quality of service

Examples of Physical Evidence from the Customer’s Point of View

Guidelines for developing physical evidence strategy

These are the guidelines for developing physical evidence strategy:-

a. Identifying the strategic requirement of physical evidence

The evidence strategy should be linked to the organizations overall goals and mission. The goals of organizations must clearly understood so as to determine the kind of support that can be built through evidence strategy. The vision of the firm provides an understanding of the future. Most of the evidence decisions are costly and long standing. Therefore, the vision of the organization should be kept in mind.

b. Kind of physical evidence required

It is necessary to decide what kind of evidence is required and what its role in service marketing is. Accordingly it is possible to design the servicescape. Service blueprinting should be carried out to have absolute clarity over organizational service process,placement of equipments, furniture and other support material, people and other environment featurws.

c. Clarify the role employees in servicescape

The identification and definition of roles played by employees, consumers, machines and other elements servicescape will aid in identifying opportunities and deciding who needs to be consulted in making decisions.

d. Identify and assess physical evidence opportunity

All service firms need to look for possibilities of introducing changes and improvements in the forms of evidence and role of servicescape.

e. Update and modernize physical evidence

Some aspects of evidence require frequent updating and modernizing. Service firm should be prepared to introduce changes as per requirements of the market.

Benefits:

The important benefits offered by physical evidence are:

1) Increased employee productivity

Physical evidence can help in improving the productivity of the employees as it acts as a silent salesman, assisting in delivering the service to the consumer.

2) Creation of good impression among customers

It helps in improving the overall image of the firm and its services in the minds of the consumers. It acts as a representative of the firms service quality.

3) And differentiation from competitors.

As the services provided by various firms are more or less same, it becomes very difficult to differentiate oneself in the market. Physical evidence are the only and the major differentiator of the services provided by a firm.

Conclusion:

Service companies should provide physical evidence to build confidence in consumers with respect to quality, reliability and other parameters. The absence of physical evidence is likely to create doubts and suspicion in the minds of consumers. The physical environment, the social environment and the tangibles are important constituents of physical evidence. Designing a servicescape, taking into consideration all the three parameters, will have an impact on consumers as well as employees behaviour.

The nature of business, the mode of operations, the target market, the positioning strategies and the marketing objectives should be the inputs for developing a physical evidence strategy.