Generation Y: Evaluating Services Experiences Through Mobile Ethnography

Abstract

There have been various ways of measuring service experiences in the past, but Generation Y has different values and mindsets than those of the generations that preceded them. This paper suggests mobile ethnography as an ideal method for data collection, where Generation Y customers are integrated as active investigators. The paper aims to contributing to the debate on museums as experience-centred places, to understanding how the experience is perceived by Generation Y, to identifying the customer journey, to providing an insight into service experience consumption from the mind of Generation Y and to deriving managerial implication for the museum industry of how to approach Generation Y. The exploratory paper undertakes a thorough review of the relevant literature as regards measuring the customer experiences, service design and the museum setting, before mobile ethnography is applied to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra with a sample of Generation Y visitors as the future visitor market. This is one of the few studies to have addressed mobile ethnography in a service context and examined the museum experience of Generation Y. The paper finds that there is a need to involve museum management in service design to improve the service- delivery process, especially with regard to the the different mindsets of the Millenials.

Keywords: Generation Y, mobile ethnography, service experiences, service design, museums