A multilevel investigation into the impact of servicescapes on the service encounter

The majority of studies on servicescapes focus on the customer side neglecting the important impact on the employee side. Furthermore, no study has ever empirically validated the notion that service atmospherics can enhance or constrain the employee-customer interaction. This is the first study to introduce a multilevel framework examining the impact of servicescapes on both sides of the service encounter and their interaction and involving data collection from both customers and employees. The SEM and HLM analyses demonstrate that customers' interaction quality perceptions can be both directly and indirectly affected by servicescape perceptions. In this context, employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors impact is examined and found to be affected by servicescape perceptions.