Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(Warhurst
et al.
, 2000) or performative work (Bryman, 2004). These authors all argue that
there is a theatre-like character to front-stage service encounters and that 'good' service
requires managerial scripting and skills of 'acting', both by following a script and through
improvisation. Servicing is a performative
doing
often taken place within a themed
environment.
In her classic study of airline cabin crew, Hochschild coined the term 'emotional work'. By
this, she refers to the products 'in which the emotional style of offering the service is part of
the service itself, in a way that loving or hating wallpaper is not part of producing wallpaper'
(1983: 5-6). Drawing upon Goffman's notion of 'impression management', Hochschild
argues that service work requires the 'management of feeling to create a publicly observable
facia l and bod i ly d isplay' (1983 : 7). W hat is required of good fl ight attendants is the emotiona l
skill of showing positive emotions and looking happy even when faced with rude customers
and situations of stress. Training brings this about, resulting in a 'commercialisation' of human
feeling.
The 'choreographed smile' also typifi es the 'smile factories' and themed environments of
Disney theme parks (van Maanen, 1991; Bryman, 2004). The Disney Institute instructs staff
to: 'Start and end every Guest contact and communication with direct eye contact'; while
Walt himself told staff always 'to smile' and 'turn the cheek to everybody, even the nasty
ones'. In this sense, 'smiling staff ' are aware of being objects of the gaze of tourists and poten-
tially managers. The 'smiling body' is a disciplined, docile body fi ghting for consumer satis-
faction within a battle of 'smile wars': 'the power of the smile can only be co-produced with
the client; it requires a satisfi ed customer' (Veijola and Valtonen, 2007: 19).
In Disney theme parks 'emotional work' becomes explicitly performative, discursively and
spatially organised as if undertaken in a Goffmanesque theatre (Bryman, 2004: 103). The
language of Disney speaks of guests rather than consumers, cast members rather than
employees, host(esses) rather than frontline employees, onstage rather than public areas,
backstage rather than restricted areas, casting rather than hiring for a job, role rather than job,
costume rather than uniform, audition rather than job interview, audience rather than crowd,
pre-entertainment area rather than queue, imagineer rather than attraction designer, and so
on (Bryman, 2004: 11).
Phil Crang (1994, 1997) utilises Goffman's framework to discuss how working as a waiter
in a diner-style restaurant is a form of conscious acting that is simultaneously scripted and
creative taking place before the dining audience. Due to a subtle combination of training and
detailed in-house scripts for appropriate waitering, on the one hand, and pre-scripted,
personal skills of improvising on the other, a Goffmanesque universe of eagerness to please
and friendliness is mostly enacted.
The importance of remembering and greeting guests by name is seen in a Goffman-
inspired study of impression management at the Ritz-Carlton (Dillard
et al.
, 2000). At this
high-class hotel, front-stage staff are taught dramaturgical discipline so that they foster the
right impression and follow the moral standards that the hotel strives for. One aspect of this
'scripting' is 'the three steps of service: (a) A warm and sincere greeting. Use the guest name,
if and when possible; (b) Anticipation and compliance with guest needs; (c) Fond farewell.
Give them a warm good-bye and use their names when possible' (Dillard
et al.
, 2000: 408).
So one 'moment of truth' is whether the front-line staff can convey a
personal
service by
greeting the guest by name or remembering their specifi c needs and preferences. Other
'moments of truth' are whether the staff succeed in complying with the guest's idiosyncratic
needs (especially when dramaturgical contingencies arise) and deliver 'deep enough apologies
for disruptive events'.
