The three stages of service consumption are called - Pre-Purchase Stage, Service Encounter Stage, Post-Encounter Stage. These are different from product consumption stages.

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In the pre-purchase stage, the first thing we have is the awareness of need. You will feel the need to purchase or experience a certain service. There can be a lot of service examples, but for simplicity, let’s just talk about eating at a restaurant.
After you recognize the need, you will look for different alternatives to choose from.
There are some options that will come into your mind as soon as you think about that specific service.
The collection of those brands are called the evoked set. These are the brands that come into your mind as soon as you think about a product or service.

You are going to make a choice. You will pick one out of your evoked set. You are likely to evaluate the benefits and risks you will have from all of the options, and then make a decision. There are a lot of ways you can evaluate different services. Checking the reviews from people is a great way to do that. You will see what they are good at and what they are not good at. Then you will make the decision to go there, or order from them, after setting up an expected service delivery.
We all have our own expectation before buying anything, not even service, products as well.
There is a desired level of service, then there is an adequate level of service.
The desired level will be that after going to a restaurant and placing an order, maybe the food will be ready within 10 or 15 minutes. Does not always happen. not fast food. That’s a different case. That’s the desired level. Then you will have the adequate level of service. That will be let’s say a 45, or 50-minute wait, if the order is big enough and the staff lets you know about the progress and whatnot.
That section in between the desired and adequate level of service is called the zone of tolerance.
Your set expectation is none of these two. That is called predicted service. What you expect from the service you are purchasing from.
At the end of the pre-purchase stage, you are going to make the purchase decision. And after you make the decision, the service encounter can be right after the decision, or there can be a long wait while you have to make a reservation and wait for your time to come.

Service encounter stage.


The service encounter starts as soon as you enter an establishment. Or talk to a representative of the service provider.
That is because sometimes, you don’t have to go anywhere to get a service.
There are high contact services and there are low contact services.
And while in the service encounter stage, the core service and the supplementary services are all important to create a positive and memorable experience for the consumers.

The service design can often create and impression of the consumer being the one in control of everything.
That is perceived control. If The consumers think they are in control they will feel better. This is mostly done by giving the people more and more options and customization.


Then you have the post encounter stage. What will happen after you have experienced whatever service it was. Well, you will either feel satisfied or dissatisfied. Or something in between.

It has something to do with your expectation and the perceived service performance. If the performance somewhat matches the expectation, the customer is likely to be satisfied. Why perceived, well, sometimes your experience can be enhanced by complementary services and the attitude of the service providers and you will not even realize that the core service was not really that good.

If the performance matches and exceeds the expectation by a lot, then the customers are likely to be delighted and the likelihood of them getting back to the same service will be much higher. Exceeding expectation is not the only thing when it comes to customer delight.
Invoking positive emotions in the customers mind is also a good way.
The last thing is, the service provider needs to be consistent with the service experience if they want loyal customers. A positive experience once and a so so experience a second time is likely to make the customers go look out for another option from their evoked set.
The overall quality of the service is judged by the consumers based on a lot of different factors. But that is for another video.


Timestamps –

Introduction – 0:00
Pre-Purchase Stage – 0:50
Service Encounter Stage – 4:25
Post Encounter Stage – 6:20
Bonus – 8:20
Outro – 8:52