Service Encounters

As noted in the previous chapter, every time customers come into contact with any aspect of the service delivery system they are presented with an opportunity to evaluate the service provider and form an opinion of service quality. A customer may form an impression about the quality of a dentist’s work, for example, from a brief conversation with another patient in the waiting room, or simply from a glance at the wallpaper in the surgery. Irrespective of the nature and length of the contact, each ‘encounter’ represents an important ‘moment of truth’ for the customer. The latter term, originally introduced by Normann,1 has more recently been termed the ‘bullfight metaphor’ by Mattsson,2 as it underlines strongly ‘the uniqueness and the importance of every encounter between the customer and the service provider’.