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

tests are a construction research technique (Papantoniou, 1992; Pearce, 2003; Malhotra &
Peterson, 2006) requiring the respondent to ‘construct’ a response to a pictorially framed
question “what did you talk about?” This selective recall was used to prompt the respondent
in the interview that followed. Each participant was interviewed in a private area of salon. The
interviews explored the preceding service encounter conversation from the client’s
perspective. The three-pronged research design allowed examination from multiple
viewpoints (Neuman, 2006).
Service conversations were drawn from encounters in an outer western Sydney hairdressing
salon, a small business employing four hairdressers, three females and a male servicing both
male and female clients. Located in an area recognised for its concentration of small
hairdressing salons, the salon offers a full range of hair services and has operated for 25 years.
Demographics of the salon’s clientele were noted and client records were examined to select
participants representing “typical” clients ranging from ‘short’ to ‘long’ term. Encounters may
vary with the type of hair salon (Lawson, 1999). These can range from large franchise chains
with a price and time focus to up-market stylists. This salon is in a middle- price range, and
full service.
In order to ensure a desirable degree of sample diversity (Patton, 1990), quota sampling
(Neuman, 2006) was used to select eight customers and their service encounters. Variables
that defined quota categories were gender and relationship length. Gender was chosen because
gender composition of the customer-service employee pairing was likely to influence the
nature and possibly role of conversation (Brotherton & Penman, 1977; Hall & Braunwald,
1981). The length of relationship between customer and hairdresser was also selected because
duration can influence conversation intimacy (Altman & Taylor, 1973). Short-term customers
(n=4) were defined as those patronizing the salon for two years or less, whilst long term
customers (n=4) were defined as patrons of five years or more. Two durations were selected
on the assumption that customers who had patronized the salon for two years or less would
have different, possibly less personal relationships with their hairdressers than those
customers who had patronized the salon for five years or more. The encounters examined
involved two long-serving employees (male and female), each servicing two male and two
female customers.
Employees were briefed on their potential inclusion in the study by both the business owners
and the researcher. Staff involvement was limited to audio-recording their conversations with
selected customers during the service encounter. When salon clients - potential research
participants - telephoned to make an appointment they were informed of the study and asked
whether they would like to participate. Consenting customers were eventually introduced to
the researcher. Service encounter conversations between hairdresser and client were discreetly
recorded using a digital audio device.
Results and Discussion
Conversation was generally present during the entire duration of each service encounter. All
conversation topics were mapped and themed. Eighty one topic categories were identified.
Service or task- oriented service conversation had the highest frequency of conversation
categories but accounted for only 7 per cent of all conversation topics. Social conversation
topics dominated the conversations of both short and long term clients. Conversations
generally progressed from a greeting and service related talk, a follow up or reference to