Interpersonal Dimension of Services

Unlike goods, in most services customers are part of the production process. As a result, interpersonal interactions that occur during service production influence on the service outcome. Although evidences of the influential role of human interaction in services are often found in previous studies, the focus has been on the interactions between service providers and customers, and how to serve customers to provide satisfying user experience. This paper pays more attention on the interactions among customers. The rationale is twofold. First, not only interactions between service providers and customers, but also interactions between customers influence on the service outcome. Second, in case of certain types of services, such as ‘collaborative services’, service outcome is highly dependent on interaction between customers. As an example of collaborative services, online-based carpooling services were analyzed. The result of case studies shows a positive correlation between the degree of sociability of services and the success of the service.