ABSTRACT
An increasing number of scholars are acknowledging the growing role of service marketing (Bitner, 1990; Bitner, Booms, and Tetreault, 1990; Koepp, 1987; Shostack, 1977) in our economy. Unfortunately, however, until recently, marketing’s understanding of service encounters has remained a largely “uncharted frontier” (Shostack, 1977) compared to more traditional work with products. This is disquieting when one considers Koepp’s (1987) findings that consumers perceive service quality to be on the decline.
