Exploring the role of the service environment in forming customer's service experience

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to identify and describe important dimensions of the service process as defined by customers, and to compare the results from a specific use context with the recent conceptualization of the experience room. Design/methodology/approach – Public transport travellers were provided with a public transport travel diary and were encouraged to make detailed notes about their service experience during their journey. The diaries were than transcribed and coded in NVivo8 using a constant comparative method. Findings – The qualitative analysis of the public transport travel diaries revealed six emerging themes of service experience: customer processes, other customers, physical environment, contact personnel, provider processes and wider environment. The interplay between these themes is what forms the service experience of customers. The inductive analysis of the empirical material contextualizes the experience room model in a utilitarian and facility‐driven service. This deductive analysis of 100 customer experiences shows that the dimensions customer involvement, customer placement and physical artefacts are most important for the customer's service experience in this context. Originality/value – This paper offers a set of important empirically based customer experience dimensions with public transport. The paper also provides a contextualization of a theoretical model, the experience room model. The contribution results show the importance of interactions with other customers and the physical environment for the customer's experience.