An examination of intentions of recommending fitness centers by user members

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine what experiences members have with fitness centers that influence their intentions for recommendation. After item generation and content validity, as well as a pilot test, a survey was conducted among members of five different clubs (n=1750). The questionnaire included measures of service quality attributes, accessibility, well-being in life, well-being in a club, and intentions to recommend a fitness center. Results using a structural equation model provide evidence that only service quality attributes and well-being in a club have positive effect on intentions of users to recommend it. Well-being in life has a negative effect on the intentions for recommendation, while accessibility shows no predictive effect. These findings suggest implications for the management of a club, such as the need to create a pleasant environment and to provide a personalized service directed towards the members' goals in order to improve well-being in a club and contribute to increase the intentions to recommend the fitness centers to others.Keywords: intentions to recommend, service quality attributes, accessibility, well-being Resumo-"Uma análise das intenções de usuários em recomedar serviços de centros de atividade fisica." O objetivo deste estudo foi examinar como as experiências de usuários de centros de atividade física interferem nas intenções em recomendar serviços. Depois de gerar itens e validar o conteúdo, aplicou-se um pré-teste, o questionário final foi aplicado a sócios de cinco clubes de fitness (n=1.750). O questionário incluiu atributos da qualidade do serviço, acessibilidade, bem-estar na vida, bem-estar no clube e intenção de recomendar. O modelo de equações estruturais mostrou que apenas os atributos da qualidade do serviço e bem-estar no clube têm um efeito positivo sobre as intenções de recomendar. O bem-estar na vida tem um efeito negativo sobre as intenções para recomendar, enquanto que a acessibilidade não mostra nenhum efeito preditivo. Estas conclusões sugerem a necessidade de criar um ambiente agradável nos clubes e de oferecer um serviço personalizado para os objetivos dos sócios, a fim de melhorar o bem-estar no clube e contribuir para a intenção de recomendar o ginásio.Palavras-chave: intenção de recomendar, atributos da qualidade do serviço, acessibilidade, bem-estar Resumen-"Un análisis a las intenciones de los socios para recomendar gimnasios." El objetivo de este estudio fue examinar los antecedentes de las intenciones de los socios para recomendar su gimnasio. Después de generar ítems y validar el contenido, se aplicó un pre-test, el cuestionario final fue aplicado a socios de cinco clubes de fitness (n=1.750). El cuestionario incluyó atributos de la cualidad del servicio, accesibilidad, bienestar en la vida, bienestar en el club e intención de recomendar. El modelo de ecuaciones estructurales mostró que solo los atributos de la cualidad del servicio y bienestar en el club tiene un efecto positivo sobre las intenciones de recomendar. El bienestar en la vida t...

Consumer Behaviour in Fitness Club: Study of the Weekly Frequency of Use, Expectations, Satisfaction and Retention

“…These results are in accordance with the study by Gonçalves and colleagues [2]. However, they are not in accordance with the studies of Ferrand and colleagues [1], carried out in a fitness club in France, and with some practice references [6] which states that managers refer to frequency of use as a predictor of satisfaction.…”

“…The instrument used was adapted from a questionnaire which was already used in the Portuguese fitness industry [2] and new items were also included. For this study, two parts of the questionnaire were used: the (A) part, composed by the individuals' personal characteristics, referred on the sample characterization; and the (B) part, composed by a question relative to the weekly frequency of use of the club by the member (1.occasionally, 2.one day, 3.two days, 4.three days, 5.four days, 6.more than four days) and by a collection of items relative to the cognitive assessment of satisfaction with the club, these items and respective scale was adapted from a scale aimed to life's satisfaction and its use was authorized by the authors [24] (α=.870).…”

“…There were also added five items related to the expectations based on literature [9,12,13] (α=0.891) and items related to the construct of retention based on the literature e.g. [1,2] (α=.866).…”

“…The members' satisfaction must be a fundamental goal to all sporting organizations, as it can lead to the decision of repeating the experience, unlike dissatisfaction [2]. There are two ways to measure satisfaction: general satisfaction and satisfaction assessment by the service attributes of the fitness club.…”

“…Because of that, the use of a single item to the general satisfaction is used in the literature [20]. On the other hand, to Gonçalves and colleagues [2] satisfaction is measured by the members' perception about the service attributes and there's the need to decide which attributes must be upgraded or removed. However, not all service attributes have the same importance so each of them has different influence on satisfaction [1,18] and there's no consensus about which one easily leads to satisfaction.…”