From Service Relationship to service encounters: the desirable integration of professional dynamics

Starting from a case study on the implementation of the Bus Attitude, a service project within RATP, the purpose of which is to establish a genuine service relationship onboard Paris buses, we attempt to question the operational implementation challenges encountered by management, especially as for the human ressources ones, even though the project seemed to have been prepared adequately. We propose referring to the Abbott conceptual framework to account for these challenges which seem to reflect more than just a "reluctance to change". The conceptual framework, which emphasises the systematic observation of how so-called professional groups address an issue according to a certain understanding, allows outlining a certain number of shortcomings and ambiguities, in particular in the way those groups consider themselves legitimate and efficient in their answer to the problem in question. We then consider how these specific results can be generalised and help to move forward in debates relating to service relationship: those relating to the specification of service relationship on the one hand and on the other hand, those that emerge from the organisation of contact staff activity. This progress seems to be a token of a less fragmented approach to services, which would call for a more operational use of this approach by professional dynamics.