OM DENNE EPISODE
What if the most overlooked part of customer experience isn't digital at all — but the physical room your service happens in? In this episode of The CX Algorithm, Dr Eslam Afifi and design researcher Dr Jacqueline Baker (Head of Research, COX Architecture) unpack the servicescape: the idea that space, light, sound and layout are part of the service itself, shaping how customers and staff behave before anyone forms a conscious thought.
Servicescape is a decades-old concept from service research, yet most CX, service design and customer journey work still treats the environment as a backdrop. This conversation puts it back at the centre — bridging architecture, environmental psychology and neuroscience to show how the built environment drives behaviour, emotion and commercial outcomes.
You'll hear how our nervous system appraises a space in seconds, how designers tune the "dials" of ambient and spatial conditions on purpose, and why the room shapes employee experience as much as the customer's. Jacqueline shares the airport study linking natural light, greenery and quiet zones to longer dwell time and higher spend — achieved by improving wellbeing, not exploiting it — and draws a sharp ethical line between enhancing an experience and manipulating it.
If you work in customer experience, service design, CX strategy, retail, healthcare, hospitality or the built environment, this episode gives you a new, measurable variable to design with: the room.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- What "servicescape" means and why CX keeps ignoring it
- How your nervous system reacts to a space before conscious thought
- The levers of environmental design — light, sound, temperature, layout, sightlines, signage
- How space shapes staff behaviour, not just customers'
- How to measure experience with eye-tracking, EEG, sentiment and choice modelling
- The airport case study that tied good design to dwell time and revenue
- Where enhancement ends and manipulation begins — the ethics of designed space
- How to make the business case to a CFO for environment and experience
ABOUT THE GUEST
Dr Jacqueline Baker is a design researcher at COX Architecture, where she leads the research team. Drawing on multidisciplinary training in architecture, environmental psychology and marketing, her work bridges design, psychology and neuroscience to create places, spaces and precincts that promote human flourishing. Her career spans consulting, research, teaching and design across architecture and engineering practices and universities in Australia and the United Kingdom. She speaks, writes and collaborates with researchers, architects and specialists locally and abroad to address the complex challenges facing society and our cities.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The CX Algorithm, hosted by Dr Eslam Afifi, explores how people, data, technology and design combine into customer experiences that actually work — moving past the hype to the engineering underneath.
