Building Friendships and Relationships: The Role of ... - anzmac

Background and Purpose
The service encounter is both ‘social’ and ‘communicative’ (Sparks, 1994). The social nature
of, and physical contact in the service encounter promotes intimacy (Goodwin & Frame,
1989; Czepiel, 1990; Goodwin & Smith, 1990), which encourages friendly conversation
between service employee and customer. The social nature of the service encounter can be
attributed to the physical contact required, particularly in ‘people-processing’ services
(Lovelock et al., 2007). Such services involve tangible actions directed at a person (‘high
touch’), requiring the customer to be physically present during service delivery (Lovelock et
al., 2007). ‘People processing’ is characterized by service customization, continuous
relationships and high levels of customer contact (Lovelock, 1983). Moreover, given they are
required to be physically present during the performance, there is significant involvement of
customers in the service process (Grönroos, 2000; Lovelock et al., 2007). Using a typology of
service encounters based on duration, affective content and spatial proximity, proposed by
Price et al (1995), people processing service encounters are likely to fall into the extended,
affective, intimate (EAI) category. Although Price et al., (1995) regard hairdressing as ‘low
affect’, findings in this paper suggest it is actually ‘high affect’, demanding exchange
qualities more likely to be associated with a friendship that engenders the building of a long
term relationship.
In this paper, the role and importance of conversation in eight hairdressing service encounters
is examined from a customer perspective. Analysis of these conversations sought to
understand: variations in conversation between ‘short’ and ‘long term’ customers, how
conversations contribute to ‘commercial friendships’ and; how relationships develop.
Review: Conversation, Service Relationship and Friendship
The definition of conversation used in this paper derives from a communications perspective:
‘The continuing social process (Allen & Guy, 1974) where two socialized and co-present
persons (Turnbull, 2003) engage in any interactive, spoken exchange with one another’
(Pridham, 2004). Hairdressing is a ‘people-processing’ encounter where conversation is likely
to play an important role. Solomon et al., (1985) state that hairdressing is characterized by a
high degree of person-to-person interaction and the physical contact may create both intimacy
and a closeness that decreases the perceived social distance between the service employee and
customer (Goodwin & Frame, 1989; Czepiel, 1990; Goodwin & Smith, 1990). This intimacy
often encourages conversation between the service employee and customer. Butcher et al.,
(2002) assert that the hairdresser is constantly within the customer’s personal space.
Similarly, Price & Arnould (1999) argue that hairdressing “throws two people together for a
relatively lengthy period of time… both parties are ‘held captive’ to the encounter” (p. 47). In
such a situation, discussing conversation topics unrelated to the immediate service context can
be a strategy for creating verbal ‘closeness’ or immediacy between the service employee and
customer (Ford, 1998).
Services are inherently relational in nature (Grönroos, 2000). Czepiel (1990) emphasizes that
relationships in services are important given “the social nature of service encounters, the
active and often face-to-face interaction between service provider and client [and] the