Review article

Learning by sharing: waiters and bartenders experiences of service encounters*

Christine Lundberg* and Lena Mossberg
*School of Business and Informatics, University College of Bors, Jarnvagsgatan 10, 501 90 Bors, Sweden; BI Norwegian School of Management, Department of Innovation and Economic Organisation, Nydalsveien 37, 0484 Oslo, Norway

Abstract
Correspondence: Christine Lundberg, School of Business and Informatics, University College of Bors, Jarnvagsgatan 10, 501 90 Bors, Sweden. Tel: 46 33 435 40 88; Fax: +46 33 435 40 07; E-mail: Christine.Lundberg@hb.se Keywords: critical incidents, employee, restaurants, service encounter, skills, training

This paper aims at understanding what happens before, during and after critical service encounters, which gives an insight into which employee skills are central for coping with such encounters in hospitality. Furthermore, the study seeks to understand how education, vocational training and informal training affect front liners experiences of critical service encounters. Findings show that there are three categories of skills that are central to employees when dealing with critical service encounters: technical (hard), social (soft) and aesthetic (appearance) skills. These skills are mainly learnt by formal education (technical), informal information sharing among employees (social) and interaction with guests (aesthetic).

Introduction
Front-line hospitality workers importance for the creation of successful service encounters has been emphasized in numerous studies. Despite the fact that guests experiences of service encounters in hospitality are inuenced by a number of aspects (e.g. restaurant interior, cuisine, company, other guests and service; see e.g. Andersson & Mossberg 2004), it has been suggested that the interaction between front liners and guests poses as the most important factor for guests perceived service quality: the contact employee plays a major role in creating a positive impression for
*This study is part of a project on service encounters in restaurants run by the Department of Restaurant and Culinary Arts, rebro University in Sweden. The main collaborators are the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Association and American Express. The project is nanced by American Express.

the customer, as contact employees are responsible for satisfying the needs and expectations of customers (Wong & Sohal 2003). The knowledge, skills and motivation of front-line workers are shown as important prerequisites for the creation of successful service encounters (Grnroos 2006). By using these attributes, employees may be able to understand and satisfy guests expectations of service encounters and thereby enhance the guests overall perceptions of the company in question (Zeithaml et al. 1988). The contact personnels role in increasing sales in hospitality has been pointed out by Bowen & Morris (1995). Their study has shown that menu design alone does not increase sales; however, it could be used by front-line workers in order to increase sales. It is also suggested that increased guest satisfaction results in positive word-of-mouth and repurchase situations (Parasuraman et al. 1994).

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In order for hospitality organizations to be able to be successful in strategic planning and service delivery, knowledge of what happens in connection to service encounters is necessary. Earlier research on which knowledge and skills are important in hospitality has, to a large extent, focused on management (see e.g. Riley 1981; Brownell 1992; Ladkin 1999; Chung 2000). This study, however, seeks to answer this question from a front-line employee perspective.

Approaches used when studying service encounters

In many of the studies conducted regarding service encounters in service marketing and management research, the focus has been on understanding which variables may have an effect on customers perceptions of service encounters. This approach is known as the perceptions psychological approach (Mossberg 2003; Eksell 2005) and focuses on individuals subjective experiences, thoughts and information processes (Echeverri 1999; Eksell 2005). The approach has been used by many in restaurant contexts (e.g. by Andersson 1990; Oh 2000; Andersson & Mossberg 2004; Andaleeb & Conway 2006). Studies of specic service encounters using this approach have, in literature, often been discussed from a quality perspective, often based on the disconrmation paradigm (see e.g. Parasuraman et al. 1985, 1988; Mossberg 1994; Liljander 1995; King & Garey 1997; Nickson et al. 2005), and critical incident perspective (see e.g. Bitner 1990; Bitner et al. 1990, 1994). These studies have often been of a quantitative character and have a positivist outlook (Eksell 2005). The ndings from studies using this approach have generated knowledge important for the planning and execution of successful service encounters by, for example, investments in education and training of personnel (Wong & Sohal 2003). The limitations of this approach have been noted by, for example, Echeverri (1999), who argues that this approach has mainly offered explanatory categories of attributes (e.g. empathy, responsiveness, respect and personality) and that this has been done at the cost of research on dynamics and interaction in service encounters. The second approach the social constructivist approach is characterized by its use of drama or theatre as a metaphor (see e.g. Grove & Fisk 1983; Pine & Gilmore 1999; Grove, Fisk & John 2000) in order to understand service encounters. This approach has its origin from symbolic interaction. In this approach, humans use symbols (e.g. in the form of clothes, language, gestures) and interact with each other based on interpretations made of the context in which they interact (Goffman 1959), which means that the human world is socially constructed (i.e. constructed

Purpose of study
By understanding what happens before, during and after critical service encounters, an insight can be made into which skills are central for coping with such encounters in hospitality. Furthermore, the study seeks to understand how education, vocational training and informal training affect front liners experiences of critical service encounters.

Service encounters
The service encounter is often referred to as moment of truth (Normann 1984; Carlzon 1987), pointing out the uniqueness of every encounter between an organization and its customers (Edvardsson et al. 2000). The service encounter consists of interaction between individuals who do not need prior acquaintance. It has a specic purpose and focus, the participants roles are well dened and it consists mainly of task-related information (Czepiel et al. 1985; Lewis & Entwistle 1990). As earlier noted, the interaction between front liners and guests has an important effect on guests perceptions of the service encounter and on the overall satisfaction of the service provider (see e.g. Coye 2004; Keillor et al. 2004; Lewis & McCann 2004). However, studies have shown that this interaction also has an effect on employees work satisfaction and motivation, which may affect employee performance in service encounters. Despite the impact of the interaction in service encounters on all participant parties, it has been suggested that many organizations leave much of the process to chance (Lewis & Entwistle 1990, p. 43).

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through human activity in relation to other human beings) (Mossberg 2003; Eksell 2005). An often used approach for studying service encounters within The Nordic School of services marketing and management is the relationshipbased approach. This approach treats service encounters as central for building relationships between customers and companies. The focus of the approach is interaction, relationships and the creation of value (Eksell 2005). Examples of studies presented using the approach are critical incidents and their effect on customers switching behaviours (see e.g. Roos 1999, 2002) and service encounter behaviour (perceptions of processes, see e.g. Echeverri 2005), verbal (see e.g. Echeverri 1999; Salomonson 2005) and non-verbal behaviour (see e.g. Echeverri 1999).

to the technical performance of hospitality work such as wine knowledge and serving skills. These skills have been the focus of earlier studies of competencies in hospitality (see e.g. Burns 1997; Pratten 2003). More contemporary studies of skills have shifted focus on the so-called soft skills which are composed of attitudinal aspects of work and emotional labour (Hochschild 1983; Hallier & Butts 1999; Guerrier & Adib 2003). Examples of such skills are responsiveness, courteousness, understanding (see e.g. Burns 1997). Furthermore, these studies have also emphasized the so-called aesthetic skills/appearance which are made up by the ability to look good and/or sound right (see e.g. Nickson et al. 2001, 2003, 2005).

Learning in the workplace Education, training and skills for successful service encounters
There has been an increased interest in education and training of front-line employees in recent years among hospitality practitioners and academia (Ladkin 1999). This growing interest comes from two connected phenomena. Firstly, it has been suggested that the economic success of companies is dependent upon the training, development and retention of employees. Furthermore, it has been argued that there is a relationship between investments in education and training and enhanced service quality (Baum 1990; Christou 1999). The relationship between service quality and higher education among hospitality front-line employees has been emphasized in research (see e.g. Gustavsson et al. 2006). Traditionally, a large extent of the research conducted on competency in hospitality has focused on management competency (see e.g. Ladkin 1999; Chung 2000). Competency has, in this context, been dened as those activities and skills judged essential to perform the duties of a specic position which are based on ones ability to accomplish specic job-related tasks and assume the role connected to the position (Tas 1988, p. 42). In recent years, several studies have been published on which employee skills are central for the creation of successful service encounters. These skills have been divided into three categories. The rst of these are the so-called hard skills relating One form of individual learning in the workplace is the so-called experiental learning (Kolb 1984). According to this theory, learning is seen as a process under which knowledge is produced. The starting point for this process is the individuals experiences, which are made up of his/her own experiences as well as conceptual learning (Andersson 2000). However, in order for these experiences to be transformed into knowledge, the individual needs to reect on these experiences (introvert activity) or to actively experiment (extrovert activity). Andersson (2000) argues that employees who are motivated to learn in their workplace have a selection of opportunities to do so, from social contacts such as interacting with customers and knowledge exchange between colleagues, for example between inexperienced and experienced co-workers.

Methodological considerations
The chosen approach is the social constructivist perspective in order to understand the interactions between front-line personnel and guests in a restaurant context. A critical incident technique (CIT) was employed (Flanagan 1954) in order to understand what happens before, during and after service encounters and their subsequent learning effects for front-line workers. A critical incident has been dened as a memorable, specic

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and unexpected incident which a respondent is able to recall and describe in his/her own words (Edvardsson & Strandvik 2000). CIT has been used in numerous studies of service encounters from a customer perspective (see e.g. Bitner et al. 1990; Kelly et al. 1993) and from an employee perspective (see e.g. Bitner & Booms 1994; Lewis & Clacher 2001). These incidents are often classied into positive and negative categories, which result in insights into how such incidents may affect the attitudes and behaviours of involved parties (Edvardsson & Strandvik 2000). In this study, a process approach to critical incident was employed by using in-depth interviews, focusing on the cause (What caused the incident?), course (What happened during the incident?) and result (What did the incident result in?) (inspired by e.g. Bitner et al. 1990, 1994; Edvardsson 1992; van Dolen et al. 2001).

with daily guest contact situations. A majority of the respondents had a high school diploma in hospitality, and a small number had participated in a shorter further specialist training on an industryrelated eld.

Findings
The respondents described hospitality workers as different than employees in other industries: one has to be special to work in hospitality/ . . . / some people are just like that. They described themselves as open . . . fairly easy to get along with/ . . . /are pretty much all alike/ . . . /like to be among other people/ . . . /love to talk and meet new people . . . and need to keep busy. The waiters and bartenders described themselves as proud of working in the industry: I try to enhance the experience for the guest, to go the extra mile/ . . . /as a real waiter. According to the respondents, hospitality workers could be divided into two categories: those who worked with customer contact situations and those working behind the scenes. The former group described themselves as extrovert individuals who were extremely sociable, while they described their counterparts as introvert individuals. One of the respondents described the difference between these two groups in the following way: they [the chefs] work with ingredients for raw material while we work with guests . . . or . . . so that a meat dish doesnt get burned . . . and we avoid upsetting the guest . . ..

Sample
The studys objective was to understand waiters and bartenders experiences of what happens before, during and after critical service encounters, and the education, training and skills required to cope with such encounters. The included respondents were waiters and bartenders at restaurants of major hotel chains in Sweden. The selection of respondents was made on the basis of achieving a variety regarding the degree of implemented training investments at their workplace. The total number of hotel restaurants was three, and the number of respondents was eight (see Table 1). All of the respondents were within the age bracket of 2030 years and held full-time positions at their places of work. They had several years of work experience in the hospitality industry and worked

Informal information sharing among workers the necessary gossip

During a large proportion of the time the employees spent together, on and off work, they

Table 1 Overview of the selection of respondents Company A Induction (introduction to workplace, policy, routines, work tasks, colleagues) Vocational education (shorter further specialist training) Standards on customer contacts Number of male respondents Number of female respondents 1 week Implemented Implemented 1 2 Company B 1 week Implemented Not implemented 2 0 Company C 2 days Not implemented Not implemented 2 1

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discussed experienced positive and negative critical service encounters. The phenomenon has been described, from a management perspective, as the useful gossip (Ekman 2003) and from a marketing perspective as internal word-of-mouth (IWOM). Often referred to motives for employees to engage in such activities are an experienced need of information on how to handle a service encounter and to reduce risk. Furthermore, employees engage in IWOM in order to lend a helping a hand to a fellow colleague, for socialization and to release tension built up during an encounter with a customer (Lundberg 2008). One waiter described his reasons for engaging in IWOM as . . . then youll get the nodding saying . . . I have been there too . . . [one does it in order to] move on . . . youre angry and you want people know that . . . you want someone to recognize this and to let you know that it is okay to feel the way you felt . . . or did what you did. According to the respondents, a large part of this knowledge exchange consisted of discussing how to handle critical service encounters between more experienced employees and those less experienced. One part of this exchange consisted of the sharing of colourful stories told by the older, more experienced colleague in order to help the younger, less experienced colleague. One employee described it as I do it just to let them know that it isnt so bad [referring to the experienced critical service encounter]/ . . . /that it was okay to do it like that . . . or that it was okay to feel like that/ . . . /that youll survive (laughter) . . . a little protective . . . you remember how it was [referring to when he was inexperienced] . . . the uncertainty . . . didnt know how to handle it . . .. From the less experienced colleagues point of view, a similar situation was described as follows: you ask your colleagues [referring to a service failure situation] . . . just so you dont get into trouble later . . . usually we talk about it/ . . . / talk to those more experienced . . . or those who can offer a different view. Another employee described a similar exchange between himself and a less experienced colleague in the following way: She [his colleague] didnt know what to do . . . I told her how to handle it [a difcult service encounter]/ . . . /then I went out [into the kitchen] and told everybody who worked that night . . . I

thought it was hilarious . . . we [him and his less experienced colleague] went out into the kitchen and laughed. A majority of the critical service encounters shared between colleagues were negative incidents: when I experience a ow . . . thats just the way it should be/ . . . /the negative incidents are often much more fun to talk about/ . . . /one tends to discuss annoying guests. When employees discussed positive critical service encounters, it often concerned large tipping: if I am to be really honest . . . usually when I talk about guests with someone else, its when I have received a lot of tip (laughter) . . .. Another category of positive critical service encounters discussed among waiters and bartenders was when someone was able to turn a service failure into a service recovery situation: if you have sorted it out without the customer noticing it. They also tended to discuss positive feedback which they had received from guests: everybody wants to do well/ . . . /one tends to talk about it [referring to the positive feedback] a bit . . . during coffee breaks. This kind of information sharing activities does not only affect the employee who experienced the incident. It also affects the listener of the story and, in some cases, a third party who either heard about the incident from the listener or witnessed the incident per se. This phenomenon has earlier been described as the ripple effect of IWOM (Lundberg 2008). An employee described this phenomenon as it was a colleague who caught a guest with a non valid credit card/ . . . /I didnt see it myself but heard about it from a colleague who witnessed the incident/ . . . /it was something special so we talked about it.

Learning and tolerance zone

Many of the employees stated that it was primarily by experiencing and discussing critical service encounters that they learned how to handle service encounters: I have probably learned most [by discussing with colleagues] . . . not in school. They stated that the starting point for learning how to create successful service encounters was contact situations with guests and colleagues before, during and after service encounters. These situations consisted of direct experiences (i.e. workers own experiences) and indirect experi-

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ences (observed incidents or by word-of-mouth). These experiences were thereafter transformed into knowledge by an active experimentation in accordance with Kolbs theory on experiental learning: you try something . . . and if it doesnt work, you wont do it again/ . . . /if it works, you do it again. The employees described their experiental learning as a tolerance zone which expanded as they collected new experiences: when youre new in the game youre afraid to make mistakes . . . now you still make mistakes by usually youre able to sort it out without the guest noticing it / . . . /back then . . . [when he was inexperienced] it was critical/ . . . /then you just get used to it. The learning process was often described as a continuous experimentation, which was a result of the uniqueness of every single service encounter: every incident is unique . . . you sort out the problem from one situation to another/ . . . / youll have to take it from one situation to another . . . how to handle guests . . . because everyone wants to be dealt with in their own way.

Necessary knowledge and skills

The ndings presented earlier can be related to the types of skills the waiters and bartenders stated as important when working within the industry. They suggested that the knowledge and skills necessary for the performance of hospitality work can be divided into three categories: technical (hard), social (soft) and aesthetic skills. The hard skills consisted of technical aspects concerning the performance of the job such as serving technique and wine knowledge. These skills were acquired mainly by formal training (i.e. high school diploma in hospitality), vocational education and to a limited degree, through performing the job. The workers stated that these skills were related to the their specic place of work: sure . . . it is good if you know [referring to technical skills], but you can always learn the technical part of it/ . . . /the technical part of it differs from one restaurant to another, different drinks and different meals/ . . . /you learn this while working. It is often a lack of these skills that results in negative critical incidents for the inexperienced employee. One employee stated that it

was her inexperience working as a waitress that caused a critical incident I remember . . . it was in the beginning of working as a waitress . . . a horrible feeling . . . I was serving a beer and I spilled it all over the guest/ . . . /thats the kind of thing that you do when youre not used to it . . . and it is not a pleasant feeling. The employees stated that soft skills are most important for performing the job: the social aspects of our work are the most important in our profession/ . . . /how the person interacts with the guest/ . . . /the social part of is, is more than half in my view. These skills are, according to the employees, inherited within the person and are necessary for working within the industry: something that you have, nothing you can be taught. However, the employees suggested that these skills can be further developed and nely tuned by engaging in IWOM, observing colleagues service encounters and meeting guests: you meet so many people every day/ . . . /you learn how to read all of the different categories of guests . . . when they arrive you can see what theyll want to eat, almost what they will drink/ . . . /you learn a lot by watching what others [colleagues] do/ . . . /you talk about it. A third category of skills put forward as important for performing the job was aesthetic skills. As earlier mentioned, these skills concern looking good and sounding good. One employee described these skills as a combination of how you talk to a guest and how you act and look. Several employees compared these skills to acting in a play: its like acting in a play . . . thats how it is . . . but with real people as guests . . . who are unaware of them being in a play . . . thats how it is. Another employee emphasized the different roles he was expected to play while performing his job: it is theatre all the time . . . you walk in and start acting as soon as you start working . . . immediately . . . in front of the guests . . . you play different characters in one night . . . it is a bit schizophrenic really . . . if you have four [referring to number of tables] you can be completely different . . . you interact with them in different ways . . . you play different characters . . . you learn how to do it . . . then you do it without thinking. A third employee described it as it is acting, thats what it is . . . I guess that you, to some extent, are the same

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person as you really are . . . but you might not interact with people in the same manner. These were skills that, according to the employees, they learned by interacting with guests in service encounters.

Discussion and conclusions

The objective of the study was to give an insight into what happens before, during and after critical service encounters in order to understand which skills were central for hospitality employees to cope with such encounters. In addition, the study sought to understand how education, vocational training and informal training affect employees experiences of such encounters. The ndings suggest that education and training affect employees experiences of critical service encounters. The employees stated that there were mainly technical (hard) skills that were being taught during their formal training (i.e. high school and shorter specialist training). Vocational training in the form of induction, specialist training and standards on customer contacts helped the employee to further develop technical and to some extent social skills. Employees who had participated in education and training stated that they felt more secure when encountering a critical incident. As a result of this, they mainly experienced critical service encounters, positive as well as negative, when going outside of their knowledge base. These encounters often had a strong inux (i.e. positive incidents) or a lack (i.e. negative incidents) of social interaction between employees and guests. Employees who had participated in several education and training programmes exhibited a larger tolerance zone for what constituted a critical incident than their counterparts (i.e. the latter group experienced more critical incidents). A majority of the employees emphasized social and aesthetic skills as most important for performing their job. Social (soft) skills were mainly learned by engaging in IWOM, and to some extent by observing colleagues and interacting with guests. These are noteworthy ndings because IWOM activities are not planned or controlled by management but arise as a spontaneous activity among fellow colleagues. An increased awareness regarding this form of information sharing among

management may result in better suited conditions and platforms for such activities (e.g. monetary and emotional incentives for more experienced colleagues to engage in IWOM with less experienced workers). Aesthetic skills, on the other hand, were mainly learned by interacting with guests in service encounters. When mastering these skills, employees described it as acting out different characters in a play, much like Pine & Gilmores (1999) line of reasoning on work is theatre. The fact that employees stated social and aesthetic skills (which are mainly learnt by engaging in IWOM and interacting with guests) as most important for creating successful service encounters can be explained by the fact that none of the employees had studied at a university. Their educational background could explain why they do not emphasize higher education (and technical skills) as important for the creation of successful service encounters. The use of a social constructivist approach and CIT resulted in useful insights on employees experiences of their interaction with guests in service encounters. These insights could not have been reached by using a perceptions psychological approach. The latter approach was preferred when attempting to understand the average guests perceptions of, for example, a service provider. The relationship approach was not considered either as suitable, because restaurant guests often visited many different establishments and did not develop lengthy relationships with a single provider. From a management perspective, it is important to create an awareness of which skills are central for employees to cope with critical service encounters and how these are assimilated. The ndings suggest that employees who have participated in several education and training programmes and have accumulated experience on how to cope with critical service encounters have a larger tolerance zone for such encounters and feel more comfortable in their role as hospitality workers.

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