Oral participation in retail service delivery: a comparison of the roles of contact personnel and customers

Explores observable oral participation (OOP) of customers at the front stage of the service delivery system within a retail store setting. Spoken interactions between a customer and a sales assistant are denoted as OOP1, and those between one customer and another as OOP2. The respective front stage roles of customers and sales assistants are examined through an analysis of the content of OOP1 and OOP2 as described by a large sample of customers of a particular store. A process and structure of classification of OOP1 and OOP2 interactions is described and proposed. Results show that, while overall patterns of OOP1 and OOP2 activities are significantly different, the proportion of products‐related interactions for each is very similar. OOP2 interactions were predominantly positive and there is evidence that, for some customers, product‐related conversations with other customers replace or reinforce those with sales assistants. Discusses the actual roles enacted by persons at the front stage in the context of the management of the service encounter.