Service Climate has been embedded in the research of social climate (see also:

Social environment The social environment, social context, sociocultural context or milieu refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develops. It includes the culture that the individual was educate ...

) which relates to the overall group influence of individuals who partake in certain within-group activities (i.e.

Waiting staff Waiting staff (British English), waitstaff (North American English), waiters (male) / waitresses (female), or servers (North American English), are those who work at a restaurant, a diner, or a bar and sometimes in private homes, attendi ...

). The group aspect of service climate has been compared to atmospheric climate in a way to illustrate its inner distinctive characteristics between different groups of individuals. The social environment has also been related to entrepreneurial leadership within

business management Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of managemen ...

and how organizing a group of people can be done to achieve a common goal. Evidence also leads to a rise in research beginning with early social experiments in the 1960s. "Like

meteorological Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

or atmospheric climate, social climate is relatively distinctive across groups (as the

Tropics The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also refer ...

differ from the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

); is dynamic or changeable within groups (like the

seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

); and can influence behavior (like an individual’s choice of clothing). Social climate research has grown considerably since White and Lippitt’s (1960) early experiments comparing democratic,

autocratic Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except per ...

, and

laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups ...

leadership in small groups of children. The concept and measurement of social climate have since been applied across widely diverse disciplines both within and outside the field of psychology." Climate for service refers to

employee Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any ot ...

perceptions of the practices, procedures, and behaviors that get rewarded, supported, and expected with regard to

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those people who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but in the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that ...

and customer

service quality Service quality (SQ), in its contemporary conceptualisation, is a comparison of perceived expectations (E) of a service with perceived performance (P), giving rise to the equation SQ=P-E. This conceptualistion of service quality has its origins in t ...

. For example, to the extent that employees perceive that they are rewarded for delivering quality service, their organization's service climate will be stronger. Additionally, perceptions that

is important to management will also contribute to a strong service climate. "A set of foundation issues that support employee work and service quality is conceptualized as a necessary but not sufficient cause of a climate for service, which in turn is proposed to be reflected in customer experiences."Schneider, Benjamin; White, Susan S.; Paul, Michelle C. (1998) Linking Service Climate and Customer Perceptions of Service Quality: Test of a Causal Model Journal of Applied Psychology Volume 83(2): 150–16

additional text. Service climate is a collective and shared phenomenon. This climate is built in the light of organizational practices focused on customer service. The way boundary workers (employees with whom customers physically interact in the course of doing business with an organization) perceive their organizations' service climates are related to the service quality perceived by those organizations' customers.

Importance of the service climate

Research has shown that service quality is ultimately related to

customer loyalty The loyalty business model is a business model used in strategic management in which company resources are employed so as to increase the loyalty of customers and other stakeholders in the expectation that corporate objectives will be met or su ...

and retention and, eventually, to higher profits for the organization. "This skepticism about the value of service quality makes it imperative that research be undertaken to address the quantification of the impact of customer satisfaction on observable financial measures, to place programs to improve customer satisfaction and service quality on an even footing with most other business programs that must justify themselves financially.".Storbacka, J., Strandvik, T., & Gronroos, C. (1994). Managing customer relationship quality. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 5, 21–28

Antecedents of the service climate

The recent research had confirmed the previous findings regarding the positive relationship between organizational resources as an antecedent of service climate, and also showed that this relationship is fully mediated by engagement at the group level. Thus, at the work-unit level, engagement contributes to improve shared service climate among service units.Linking Organizational Resources and Work Engagement to Employee Performance and Customer Loyalty: The Mediation of Service Climate. Salanova, Marisa; Agut, Sonia; Peiró, José María Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 90(6), Nov 2005, 1217-122

additional text. As well, the research shows that when employees working in work units perceive that the availability of organizational resources (i.e., training, autonomy and technology) remove obstacles at work, they feel more engaged in work, which in turn is related to a better climate for service. Working in an organization that facilitates work for the customers exerts a powerful influence on collective engagement (i.e., the members of the work unit feel more vigorous and persistent, dedicated and absorbed in their tasks). This in turn has a very positive impact on shared service climate perceptions. The relation between the service climate and customer loyalty seems to be reciprocal, since it was found that the greater is the service climate, the higher is the customer loyalty, (partially mediated by performance) and the higher is the customer loyalty, the greater is the service climate.(Schneider et al., 1998).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Service Climate Customer service Services marketing