Restrict, clean and protect: signaling consumer safety during the pandemic and beyond

Abstract

PurposeSince the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, customers fear for their health when interacting with service providers. To mitigate this fear service providers are using safety signals directed to consumers and other stakeholders who make organizational assessments. The purpose of this article is to synthesize the range of safety signals in a framework that integrates signaling theory with servicescape elements so as to provide guidance for service providers to assist in their recovery.Design/methodology/approachThe authors extracted examples of how service providers signal safety to their consumers that the risk of infection is low in exchanging with their service. These examples were taken from secondary data sources in the form of trade publications resulting from a systematic search and supplemented by an organic search.FindingsIn total 53 unique safety signals were identified and assigned to 24 different categories in our framework. Most of the signals fell into the default and sale independent category, followed by the default contingent revenue risking category.Originality/valueThis study builds on signaling theory and service literature to develop a framework of the range of safety signals currently in use by service providers and offers suggestions as to which are likely to be most effective. Further, a future research inquiry of safety signals is presented, which the authors believe has promise in assisting recovery in a post-pandemic world.

The transformative service paradox: the dilemma of wellbeing trade-offs

“…The quality of daily social interactions depends on perceptions of support, feelings of loneliness, or distress resulting from negative social exchanges, and in turn, they influence physical health and well-being (Cyranowski et al, 2013). During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing policies may help protect people's physical well-being, by hindering the spread of the virus (Greenstone and Nigam, 2020), but it also creates a powerful global risk of loneliness among citizens (Bavel et al, 2020). Russell et al (1984) distinguish social loneliness from emotional loneliness.…”

“…In the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, countries worldwide implemented social distancing (Tuzovic and Kabadayi, 2020) measures to prevent the spread of the contagious and even lethal virus. However, social distancing, conceivably resulting in social isolation, is in stark contrast with the deep-rooted human instinct to connect with others and therefore resulting in feelings of loneliness (Bavel et al, 2020). In this sense, the already existing global societal challenge of loneliness has been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and is even referred to as the global loneliness virus (Newmark, 2020) or loneliness epidemic (Courtet et al, 2020;Kiron and Unruh, 2019) representing an unspoken toll of COVID-19 (David, 2020).…”

“…From a psychological perspective, loneliness is defined as the subjective state that one is not experiencing enough social connection while social isolation is seen as an objective lack of these social connections (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008;Bavel et al, 2020). Loneliness can be seen as social pain, and in the same way that physical pain serves as a prompt to change behavior, social pain (i.e.…”

Social distancing and wellbeing: conceptualizing actor distance and actor safe zone for pandemics

“…Their notion is that it is vital to establish safe value co-creation spheres and service systems, which make the frontiers of behaviour evident (May et al, 2004), so that safe service encounters amongst actors can transpire. This is particularly important in the wake of contamination concerns (Hazée & Van Vaerenbergh, 2020) and providers having to signal consumer safety (Bove & Benoit, 2020) to ensure continued engagement in an appropriate servicescape (Ou et al, 2020).…”

COVID-19 and Supply Chain Disruption: A Conceptual Review

“…Retail operational processes, or retail logistics, have attempted to respond to the pandemic by moving from a focus on store image, satisfaction, and loyalty intentions [37] to minimising exposure risk, from shifting shelf-restocking to off-hours. Also, retail stores manage the flow or volume of customers at a time and directional movement within the stores by putting safety measures through floor markings, in-store signage and sanitation stations throughout the store [38]. In addition to these, they separate employees from customers, make contactless payment options, implement store operating procedures such as opening hours and dedicated shopping hours for vulnerable consumers and to protect both employees and other consumers [39].…”