People in online spaces: the social e-servicescape

The "Servicescape" concept (Bitner 1992) has become an established holistic taxonomy of ‘atmospherics’ that directs managers to relevant issues and questions when designing a service environment. However, it has been criticised as constituting a physical container controlled by the organisation and not as an environment that is inhabited and shaped by individuals. A second weakness is the focus on discrete goal-directed interaction that is temporally constrained within the physical space so that the nature of ongoing social interaction, such as that within the social media, is not addressed. This conceptual paper argues that the Servicescape can be extended and proposes formulations for the website and social media environments. The extensions involve updating rather than reformulating the original framework and thus provide an holistic analytical framework which can be used to examine both online and offline services delivery. The proposed extensions of the Servicescape to the online environment offer a foundation for further research into how the manipulation of online atmospherics influences firm to customer and customer to customer interactions.