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

Abstract

Purpose: Since 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 signalling theory with servicescape elements so as to provide guidance for service providers to assist in their recovery. Design/methodology/approach: We 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 take..