What are atmospherics and why are they important? The effects of physical design and decor on service users has been well studied through retailing and organizational behavioral research. For-profit organizations have spent a great deal of effort researching and understanding psychological and transactional impact physical settings have on their customers and businesses. Hotels, restaurants, banks, professional offices, retail stores and supermarkets have been subjects for many marketing research studies to determine what effects environment and decor have on transactions.

Services Research
Very little empirical research exists in the service sector and almost no research exists in higher education. Educational administrators and faculty frequently plan, build, modify, change and strive to control academy surroundings. But little, if any regard is focused on the impact their decisions have on marketing as a result of these changes. In most cases, the impact of environment, decor, colors, location, furniture, arrangements and format of service locations are not well understood. Rarely are they considered from a marketing point of view.

A warning
This article is not intended as a comprehensive review of all research findings and literature bearing on this subject. It is, however, intended to make a strong statement that physical environment has importance beyond the usual concerns of "being tidy and neat." In this time of fiscal constraint many institutions have been limited in physical plant upkeep and maintenance resources. Those fortunate to have necessary funds need to consider where those funds can be used to best advantage. One of the purposes of this article is to caution those making decisions about the application of those resources. A new consideration is necessary: marketing!

In the kitchen
The ability of physical surroundings to affect and influence behaviors, to create a perceived image, and to influence ultimate judgment about an academy are not well understood. In most cases a user of educational facilities or someone who is exposed to them for one reason or another is literally "in the kitchen." That is, in order to receive services or to participate in educational offerings, the user has to literally go into the environment, often behind-the-scenes, often into space that has not been planned for marketing transactions. The fact is that this exposure to behind-the-scenes "kitchens" cannot, in most cases, be concealed. Facilities and the people in them have an impact on a user/visitor. Often the "kitchen" is not designed as an intended marketing transactional location. But that's where it happens. Think about your campus. Where are your "kitchens?"

Sherlock Holmes?
When analyzing service locations such as those found on and off your campus, users look for clues. These clues are used to assess and form opinions about service aspects, capabilities, performance, and quality. Any physical environment is rich in such clues. These clues are influential in communicating an organization's image, its purpose, and may in fact, strongly influence a user's ultimate satisfaction with services. Many of these clues are elicited from the atmospherics of a room, office, location or facility. Research has discovered that there is a great degree of similarity in the ways these environmental stimuli are processed and stored in human memory.

Internal influences
Interestingly, in service organizations such as academies of higher education, influences physical settings have on users is also exerted on people who occupy the space. Faculty, staff, students, and administrators can be influenced by atmospherics. Their ultimate satisfaction, feeling of well-being, productivity, performance and reliability can be influenced by their environment. Only recently has research attempted to determine effects atmospherics have on internal staff (but it has been limited, for the most part, to the for-profit sector). Findings are revealing. And they have marketing implications for higher education.

Ideally an institution's environment should support the needs of both service providers and users simultaneously.

A new marketing word
This concept leads to a new word: "servicescape." "The ways a physical setting is created in an institution have barely been tapped as a tangible organizational resource." (Becker 1981, p. 130). Management of a physical setting typically is viewed as tangential in comparison to other variables that can encourage marketing transactions. These variables can affect motivation of internal employees and staff, faculty, administrators and students. The results can be evaluated in terms of pay scales, promotions, benefits, and supervisory relationships. On the user side, variables such as pricing (tuition), advertising, promotion, public relations, and other seemingly important issues are often given more attention than the setting in which users can be attracted or repelled by a physical environment.

As is true of any organizational or marketing variable, the importance of physical setting depends on the nature of the educational transaction and the nature of the service experience. In general, physical surroundings are more important in the service arena (such as higher education) since both user and provider transaction takes place in a common area (the "kitchen"). In some cases the user experiences the servicescape by her or himself (as in the case of a student). In other cases both the user and provider may experience a setting simultaneously (as in alumni events, development fund raising activities, classroom, community relations, etc.). In other cases the user or provider use the space independently.

Whether users, employees, faculty, staff, administrators, students, visitors are present within a servicescape also determines types of objectives an academy might expect to accomplish through use of its physical environment. For example, in a self-service environment, such as an unattended admissions day display, creative use of space and physical design could support specific marketing positioning and segmentation strategies. Specific marketing objectives could be enhanced by physical arrangement and design of the servicescape. Arrangement of materials, seating, carpeting, signage, visuals, sound, colors, graphics, textures, handout materials, support publications, and configuration of overall space and accoutrements can have significant impact.

At the other extreme, where a remote location is used, such as a continuing education class in a rented off-campus facility, the physical setting can greatly influence students' perceptions and conclusions (about the quality of teaching, the image of the institution, their own assessment of the value of a course, a faculty person's ability to teach, and a variety of other seemingly unrelated issues).

At a fund-raising meeting, where a key potential contributor is being met, arrangement and physical setting may play a very important part in communicating important clues. In a community college setting such as an advisory office, the servicescape may play a critically important role in eliciting responses from both user (student) and provider (counselor). Environment may exert strong influences on the social and professional interactions between user and provider. Both will be affected by the servicescape. If the influence is positive the marketing outcome has a much greater chance of being positive. If the influence is negative, the marketing outcome will most likely be negative since the experience is more apt to be considered negative.

Servicescapes and behaviors
Servicescapes influence both users and providers. These influences can be described as behaviors. The framework of the servicescape (atmospherics) needs to be studied in terms of the kinds of behaviors it elicits. What are controllable dimensions?

Behavioral studies: approach or avoidance
Only recently did researchers discover that physical settings had direct effects on the ways many people behaved. In fact studies showed one could predict human behavior based on settings models. A large and growing body of research findings and literature within the field of human psychology addressed relationships between humans and their environments. Some key findings were quite simple but revealing: individuals reacted to their environments. They either reacted positively or negatively. The positive reaction was approach (favorable). The negative reaction was avoidance (unfavorable). Approach resulted in a desire to remain, explore, work, enjoy, accompanied by expressions of commitment and a desire to affiliate and bond and in behaviors such as coming in, staying, spending money, loyalty, and carrying out the purpose for being in the organization. Avoidance resulted in a desire to leave and not to explore, affiliate or enjoy. Avoidance resulted in rejection and refusal.

Commercial application
The application of this research to commercial ventures is important. For example, if a restaurant wanted people to spend a lot of money, anticipate an excellent meal, spend a lot of time, and feel that the ambiance was quite upscale; the way seating, for example, was arranged and selection of furniture was very important. If, on the other hand, a fast food restaurant wanted customers to leave after a short amount of time, furniture and layout (and many other factors) were arranged accordingly. For the high priced quality restaurant seating was comfortable and cushioned. For the fast food establishment seats were made of hard wood or plastic. The seating had a direct bearing on the mind and on decisions to stay or leave!

Anticipation
A participant who comes to an organization with a goal or purpose in mind may be aided or hindered by the servicescape. The environment, atmospherics and servicescape confirms or denies their presuppositions. Institutions that want to encourage approach behaviors organize and arrange facilities to accomplish these ends. Those that want avoidance behaviors arrange for that result. You can see examples all around you in commercial environments. You may not have paid much attention to why things were arranged in a certain fashion before. For example, what behaviors do the betting parlors in Las Vegas want to accomplish? How do they arrange themselves to achieve those goals? What don't they do? Why? Do they want to elicit approach or avoidance behaviors? How do they do that? The next time you visit a fast food "restaurant" pay careful attention to all the factors that affect your senses. Each sense will be affected by stimulators. What behavior is the servicescape intended to elicit? What aspects of the environment are designed for approach? For avoidance? Why?

Social interactions
In addition to effects on individual behavior as described above, atmospherics have a direct effect on social interactions. The ways users and providers interact and the resultant perceptions of interpersonal service are encouraged or tempered by the servicescape. According to Bennett and Bennett (1970) "all social interaction is affected by the physical container in which it occurs." The authors concluded that servicescape affects the nature of social interaction in terms of the duration of interaction including actual progression of events.

Barker (1968) suggests that recurring social patterns are associated with particular physical settings and when people encounter typical settings their social behaviors can actually be predicted.

Research studies confirm the impact of physical settings on human social interaction. Behaviors such as group interaction, friendship formation, participation, aggression, withdrawal, and willingness to help others have been shown to be influenced by environmental conditions. Implications of these findings suggest that servicescape influences the nature of social interactions between users and providers of services.

For example, consider a typical Club Med facility and service layout. It is designed to encourage social interaction among and between guests and employees. Details such as seating arrangements in a highly complex setting are carefully planned to encourage interaction and approach.

Have you ever had a meal at a Benihana restaurant? The typical Benihana setting is designed to encourage interaction between food preparer (often, in very entertaining ways), and complete strangers (through the seating arrangement). The meal is more than a typical restaurant experience. It's entertainment and social interaction. The chef prepares a Japanese meal in full view. The chef's antics become part of the Benihana experience.

By contrast consider a typical airport seating arrangement. You will discover that most airports provide almost no place to lie down. Almost all seating is for sitting only! If you have ever been caught in an airport for a long time and wished to find a place to lie down for a while, you were probably discouraged. Airports are designed to discourage comfortable, long term stays. They also are designed to discourage social interactions.

What does all this mean for higher education?
Settings in higher education are challenges in servicescape design. They can be planned and constructed to encourage individual approach behaviors when desired. Determining the desired social interactions and individual behaviors for users and providers is the challenge. In some cases users may have different needs than providers. An environment that is conducive to a provider's needs may not necessarily be in concert with a user's needs.

How do you do it?
Research suggests that environmental psychology strongly influences behaviors in several ways. The first step, therefor, is to determine the purpose of a site. Identify desirable user and provider behaviors. What are the strategic goals that your academy seeks to achieve? How can those be influenced through a servicescape?

For example, if you're designing a space and setting that is intended to be for student self-service, you undoubtedly will be interested in predicting and understanding student behavior (i.e., coming in, exploring, staying) in the physical setting. Achieving marketing objectives such as attraction, satisfaction, and retention may be important considerations.

In contrast, if you are planing a servicescape in a remote service location you may want to focus attention on provider as well as user. Achieving organizational goals such as teamwork, encouraging social interaction, affiliation, productivity, and innovation, may be important parts of your plan. You may be concerned about both user and provider behaviors as well as effects servicescape has on the interactions between providers and users.

Types of responses
Research has shown that both users and providers respond to settings (atmospherics, servicescape) in three ways: cognitively, emotionally and physiologically. Those responses, collectively, are what influences their behavior. Some people may react more in one way than another. Therefore it may be fair to say that a servicescape does not actually cause people to behave in certain ways. But perceptions of their environment will undoubtedly lead to certain emotions, beliefs, and, in some cases, physiological reactions and conclusions. These responses, in turn, influence behaviors. These responses (cognitive, emotional and physiological) work together and are interdependent. For example, a user's belief about your academy may influence a cognitive response and that in turn may influence an emotional reaction, and vice versa.

Cognitive responses
An environment can be viewed as a form of nonverbal communicator. Ruesch and Kees (1956) called the meanings imparted by physical objects as "object language." Particular environmental clues such as type of office furniture, decor, and apparel may influence response on the part of a user. In consumer studies (Gardner and Siomkos 1986) variations in verbal descriptions of store atmospherics were found to alter beliefs about a perfume sold in the store (including perceptions of price and quality). Another study showed that a travel agent's office decor affected customer perceptions and attributions of the agent's behavior.

Variation in environmental characteristics may affect a provider's cognitive behaviors as well. For example, an office size, location, decor and ambiance is known to have a direct influence on cognitive responses of its inhabitant. How a person feels about her/his relationship to an organization can be influenced by atmospherics of the person's office environment. A person's belief about her/ his importance in a firm can be a reflection of an office and its appointments. It may influence other less directly related beliefs about a parent organization and the quality of its services as well.

Perceptions of an academy and its servicescapes, whether by user or provider, may be influenced by how it is categorized. Categorization is the process by which people apply a label to a product, academy or service. The process of developing vocabularies of references and categorizing them mentally enables a person to "file" their feelings and conclusions accordingly. So, if someone says "fast food" you undoubtedly think of a certain chain of fast food providers. If one says "community college" you probably think of one or two "top-of-mind" colleges. If someone says "Liberal Arts" you may think of a certain college. In each of these cases mnemonic or environmental clues serve to enable a perceiver to recall, categorize, distinguish and rank service providers.

An interesting note presented by Zeithami (1981) suggests that services, since they are by nature intangible and more abstract than hard products, afford fewer clues on which to form beliefs about service quality and other attributes of the service as well as about people who work in the service organization. Therefore challenges to evoke certain kinds of responses you need to achieve, in your milieu (higher education), are difficult- but not impossible!

Emotional responses
In addition to eliciting cognitive responses, a servicescape can evoke emotional reactions as well. These, then, influence behavior. A long stream of research by Mehrabian and Russell and their colleagues have measured emotional responses to environments. They have concluded that emotion eliciting qualities of environments are captured by two dimensions: pleasure/displeasure and degree of arousal (amount of stimulation or excitement). Their studies revealed that an environment can be measured on a two-dimensional plane reflecting peoples' emotional response to the location. Any environment, natural or "man"-made can be measured. A person's reaction to a place can be predicted. Obviously places that are high in eliciting responses of pleasure and satisfaction are likely to be ones where people like to spend time (and money). Arousing environments are viewed as pleasurable unless evoked excitement is combined with unpleasantness.

In 1991 Hui and Bateson found that increased personal perception of control are related positively to increased pleasure. Other environmental issues such as signage, ventilation, adequacy of space, and temperature may increase perceptions of control. As well, research showed that emotional responses to an environment may be transferred to people and/or objects in an environment (Maslow and Mintz 1956; Mintz 1956; Obermiller and Bitner 1984). Findings suggested that respondents who viewed retail products in an emotionally pleasing environment evaluated the products more positively than did subjects who viewed the same products in an unpleasant environment. Perceptions of the servicescape appear to have influenced seemingly unrelated feelings about the products. Translated to higher education, similar conclusions could suggest that emotional responses to situations, offerings, and experiences can be affected by an environment itself.

In 1987 Kaplan concluded that preference for or liking of a particular environment can be predicted by three environmental dimensions: complexity, mystery and coherence. Complexity is defined as visual richness, ornamentation, and information. Complexity was found to increase emotional arousal. Coherence is defined as order, clarity and unity. Coherence was found to enhance positive evaluation.

Compatibility, the ways a place blends in with its surroundings has an effect on emotional response. Replication of features, such as materials, forms, styles and shapes tend to elicit stronger positive emotional responses than settings interrupted with environmental "nuisances." Much work remains to be done to determine the relationship of this idea (compatibility) to a service setting (including higher education). Incompatibility produces dissonance. Saying "I love you" while sneering communicates a mixed message most apt to be distrusted. The same kind of response results when atmospheric characteristics are dissonant.

Physiological responses
A perceived servicescape may affect people in physiological ways as well. Noise that is too loud may cause physical discomfort. Temperature in a room may cause people to shiver or perspire. Air quality may make breathing difficult. Lighting intensity or glare may decrease ability to see well and cause discomfort. These and other influencers may cause a person to choose avoidance rather than attraction and acceptance. These factors affect whether or not people stay in and enjoy an environment or choose to leave it. It is well known that relative comfort of a restaurant influences how long diners stay. When diners become uncomfortable, consciously or unconsciously, they leave within a predicable time. Similarly, for a employee in an environment, the degree of comfort affects the quality, volume and perception of work.

An area of study, human engineering, systematically researches and applies findings about human capabilities and limitations to the design of things and procedures people use. Such design analysis has great potential for application in settings used in higher education; taking into account effects of design and configuration on both users and providers. Coexisting and simultaneous transactions are influenced by facility atmospherics.

Conclusion
A school that wants to enhance service user approach behaviors such as attraction and staying longer can assess environmental conditions or clues that may elicit particular cognitive, emotional or physiological responses. Attraction would most likely be facilitated by positive cognitive and emotional responses to the school's campus and facilities, whereas staying would depend more on positive emotional and physiologic responses to an academy's spaces.

For interpersonal services (such as often provided by higher education) an effective servicescape design would anticipate likely responses of users as well as providers to pre-established environmental conditions, setting the scene for positive encounters and experiences. Several goals and objectives will have been prepared in advance in order to elicit appropriate anticipated reactions. What type of response is required for the situation? What can be done to encourage or discourage interaction? Should your strategy be attraction or rejection? What beliefs, emotions, and physiological responses will encourage users to partake?

Because most academies comprise multiple spaces that are complex by nature it is very important to consider planning for compatibility and coherence. This is a challenging task, but not impossible. Where has your institution succeeded in doing this well? Where has it failed?

Findings
In general, people (both users and providers) respond to environments in cognitive, emotional or physiological ways- and their responses influence how they behave in an environment as well as how they perceive their experience. Of course, as with all behavioral relationships, strength and direction of relations between variables is moderated by personal and situational factors. Individual personality traits can influence ways a person reacts to a situation. People can be categorized into groups such as arousal seekers and arousal avoiders. Seekers look for high levels of stimulation. Avoiders seek solace from stimulation and are more comfortable in sedentary situations. Researchers have found that some people are better screeners of stimuli than others. Some are able to experience high levels of stimulation without being overtly affected by them. A non-screener, on the other hand, could be seriously affected by external stimuli. The non-screener might exhibit extreme responses even to what may appear to be low levels of stimulation.

What an individual notices and remembers about an environment, as well as how she or he feels about it, is influenced by the purpose for being there. In addition, each individual enters a situation in a particular mood state (i.e., happy, depressed, anxious, lonely, excited, impatient). Such mood states are likely to affect, as well as be affected by, variations in physical surroundings (Gardner 1985). For example, a person who is feeling anxious and fatigued after a frustrating day at work is likely to be affected differently by a highly arousing environment than she or he would be after a relaxing holiday weekend.

What an individual expects to find in an environment also affects how the individual responds to the place. Research to determine anticipated expectations for your situation can be used to help you organize, plan and execute a location to get best marketing results.

In general when expectations are unmet the person is likely to dislike the location. The opposite occurs when expectations are met or when an environment exceeds expectations. Concurrence between expectations and perceived atmospherics work in your favor. Of course preconceived perceptions and expectations are influenced by a variety of stimuli. College and university publications and communications, for example, are very important since they can be expectation builders.

Signage, lighting, color, layout, textures, quality of materials, style of furnishings, decorations, pictures, temperature, size, locations of materials, and a variety of other stimuli and clue providers are controllable. The way these clues are orchestrated, the way you use research to best match user and provider anticipated perceptions can make a powerful impact on marketing results. Most psychologists contend that people respond to environments holistically. That is, rather than focusing on any one item or clue, although stimuli can be perceived individually, it is the total configuration that determines responses to a location. It is this conclusive totality that is "filed" as mental reference. It is this conclusion that is repeated to others. It is this summary that is called "image."

Senses
People respond to their senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, ambient conditions such as temperature, lighting, color, noise, and functional layout influence human behavior and perceptions. The careful coordination of these stimuli concern many contemporary marketers.

Signs, symbols and other visual clues
Signals abound. There are all sorts of stimuli that communicate information about a place. Some of these stimuli are overt and easily determined. Others are subtle and may not be consciously determined. For example, signs placed on the inside and outside of buildings are communicators. They can appear as labels (name of building, name of department, institutional name) or directional (indicating how to get someplace), informational (no smoking, rest rooms), instructional (don't walk on the grass), or communicate behavioral expectations (post no notices here). Signage can play a very important part in your school's image. Signs, that many internal staff take for granted since they are familiar with them day-to-day, can collectively strongly influence conclusions visitors, for example, make of your academy, its people, offerings, and image. Signs are powerful clue providers. Unfortunately most schools don't pay them much thought.

Obviously, on a campus, there are hundreds and hundreds of visual clue providers. All of these visual stimuli play an important part in forming marketing messages your facilities convey to others. It is not by accident that many astute admissions directors find they are very concerned about physical plant, buildings, and grounds! There's good reason for that concern. Visual evidence of "problems" such as shoring up of campus structures after a California earthquake have powerful effects on campus visitors. A direct relationship to admissions can be found.

Studies of faculty office design indicate that desk placement, presence of diplomas on walls, and tidiness of the office can influence students' beliefs about a professor who occupies the space. In other studies, environmental clues were found to affect beliefs visitors had about the personality and character of an office occupant (Ward, Bitner, and Gossett 1989). These clues may be intentional or unintentional. Office configurations can be complex, subject to multiple interpretations, but a basic fact exists: everything about a place communicates important information!

Implications for leadership
The overall conclusion for this article is that through creative and careful management of an environment, servicescape, and facility, academies are able to contribute to achievement of both internal and external marketing goals by considering effects on both providers of services and users of services. Factors mentioned in this article are not trivial and should not be treated lightly. There may be very serious short and long term results.

A higher education servicescape vocabulary
An educational location, site, servicescape, or facility provides a visual metaphor for a school's total offering and its collective image. Factors such as stimuli and clue providers act as a "package" conveying a total image and suggesting potential usage and relative quality of service. These stimuli contribute toward user conclusions. Yet, as is often true at schools and academies of higher education, little care is given to these ideas. While careful attention is given to content, prerequisites and character of a course, for example, little thought may be given to the site in which that course is offered.

Plus or minus
Location can serve as a contributor or detractor. Atmospherics can play a facilitator role by confirming or exceeding expectations, or a servicescape can be a deterrent. It can stimulate social interaction, for example, or hinder it.

Positioning through environment
Atmospherics can lead to marketing positioning by differentiating signals and clues that make your academy different from competition. Factors can be shaped, researched, and controlled to elicit responses that are crucial for marketing purposes. Or they can damage the best marketing efforts when they do not support overall objectives.

Service location planners can learn much from studying efforts in the for-profit sector. How similar service organizations configure and execute atmospherics can be very helpful for an institution interested in maintaining its best marketing environment. Most importantly, to secure best marketing advantage, the needs, expectations, and perceptions of users must be considered as new facilities and locations are planned. Relying only on internal information in this process can be very short-sighted. The problem, of course, is that in higher education the people who plan and execute facility management are most often a separate function and pay little concern for marketing and implications of their decisions toward marketing results. Many of their decisions are made routinely with little "input" from others. In some cases they are driven only by concern for the "bottom line."

Finally, these decisions can have long term effects on internal as well as external staff, users, visitors and service providers.