Women′s view of pubs: a study of methods

Customers′ experience of service encounters remains an area blessed with a rich folklore but little fundamental understanding. Reports on a pilot study for an exploration of women′s experiences of public houses, which used idiographic methods on a small sample of middle‐class women: role repertory grids, “critical‐incident” questionnaires, individual comparatively unstructured interviews and group “focus” interviews. Group interviews were most useful for coming quickly to a consensus picture, and the critical incident questionnaires allowed extreme examples of good and bad practice to be explored. The other two methods produced rich data on the variations within and between women′s experiences. Concludes that there is considerable variation in what women are looking to find in pubs, but that they agree on their dislike of male‐dominated atmospheres in which they are harassed or made to feel unwelcome.