What is Service Encounter

The aims of this exploratory research are to evaluate customer and retailer perceptions of the decline of the UK High Street1 and investigate the potential of the service encounter, specifically customer service, as a means to reverse this decline. The background to this research is one where the UK High Street is in decline as a result of out-of-town retailing, the growth in the use of technology and online shopping, and high business rates and rents (Bignell & Lefty, 2013; Bamfield, 2013; Milliken, 2012; Poulter, 2012; Hall, 2011; Portas, 2011). Using interviews in 2013 across four Scottish cities (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow) with 40 retailers (national chains and independents) across the fashion, footwear, jewellery and health and beauty sectors, and 40 customers aged between 18 and 60, the chapter reveals that unlike the retailers in this study, customers are not of the opinion that an improvement in current, in some cases, “disappointing” customer service would encourage them back to the High Street. Rather customers thought solutions to the decline in the UK High Street lay in combining the appeal of online convenience and choice with the tangibility of the physical store experience.