Topic:
A focused service quality, benefits,
overall satisfaction and loyalty
model for public aquatic centres
Gary Howat, Gary Crilley and Richard McGrath
Centre for Tourism and Leisure Management, School of Management, University of South
Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, South Australia, Australia
Student : Oliver Pham
ID: 10105013
Abstract
This study supports a parsimonious range of key service quality dimensions that have a
strong influence on customer loyalty at public aquatic centres using data from two major
centres in Australia (n 367 and 307).
Using Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM), it was
found that one of the outcome dimensions (relaxation) and two process dimensions (staffing
and facility presentation) significantly influenced overall satisfaction.
The parsimonious set of dimensions identified in this research could provide a common core
suitable for inclusion in service quality research for a range of contexts.
1.0 Introduction
In recent years, the increasing of new or refurbished public and commercial aquatic and
fitness centres has brought about the competition for customers in Australia. Therefore, It
is very important to retent the customers and measure customer loyalty for facility
managers, because it can help the manager to improve their competitive advantage.
The relationships between service quality, overall satisfaction and loyalty measures are
examined at Australian public aquatic centers in this study.
According to Oliver (1997) Satisfaction appears to be a combination of emotional and
cognitive responses. Feeling of satisfaction and customer’s likely future support are
effected by perceptions of a service quality. (Alexandris et al., 2004; Bernhardt et al.,
2000; Ganesh et al., 2000; Howat et al. 1999)
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Customer Loyalty
According to Soderlund (20006) customer loyalty is the level of continuity in the
customer’s relationship with a brand or service provider. There are two views of
loyalty: behavioral and attitudinal.
 The behavioural view of loyalty includes :
 Repeat purchasing or frequency of attendance.
 The duration of the customer–service provider relationship
 The attitudinal view of loyalty includes:
 Customers’ intention to repurchase, and
 Their willingness to recommend the service to other prospective customers.
2.2 Satisfaction
According to Cole (2006) and Baker (200), the benefits or outcome of an experience
can be reflected by satisfaction and other influences.
Choi and Chu (2001) considered overall satisfaction as a post-service representation
of the customer’s overall feelings toward a service (Choi and Chu, 2001) based on
cumulative experiences with that service.
Oliver (1997) maintained that the aggregated satisfaction episodes from a series of
consumption experiences result in ‘overall’ satisfaction, which appears to be one
determinant of loyalty.
The overall satisfaction based on single consumption experience has weaker
relationship with outcome variables than accumulative experiences with the same
service provider.
2.3 Service Quality
Service quality involves comparing a customer’s evaluation of the perceived
performance of a service to their expectations (Parasuraman et al., 1988; Zeithaml et
al., 2006).
Research involving dimensions of service quality has been guided by the
SERVQUAL instrument and its adaptations (Parasuraman et al., 1985), or the
Nordic approach (Gro¨nroos 1984).
The Noric approach includes two broad dimensions of service quality: the technical
dimension (is what the customer receives ) and the functional dimension (is how the
customer receives the service)
The SERVQUAL instrument has been adapted to numerous tourismand leisure
contexts including hotels, sports and leisure services (Chelladurai and Chang,
2000).It is categorized service quality attributes into five dimensions (Parasuraman
et al., 1988):
 Responsiveness
 Reliability
 Assurance
 Tangibles.
 Empathy
The first four dimensions were process dimensions (how the service is delivered).
And the tangibles include the appearance of physical facilities, equipment,…
2.4 Service quality models for sport and leisure centers
Nn an attempt to provide a comprehensive service-quality model for health-fitness
clubs, a six dimension (31 attributes) ‘Service Quality Assessment Scale’ (SQAS) A
focused service quality, benefits, overall satisfaction and loyalty model was
proposed (Lam et al., 2005).
2.5 Service quality models for Australian sport and leisure centers
CERM PI research program initiated in the early 1990s did not include outcome
dimensions (Howat et al, 1999). This earlier CERM PI research involving
aggregated data from aquatic as well as dry leisure centres yielded a threedimension
model: personnel, core services, and peripheral services.
3.0 METHODOLOGY
3.1 The samples
Respondents are showed in this table.
Characteristic
N
Location
Gender
Age
How often visit the center
Member
Using center 2 years or more
Attend for swimming lesson
Attend for lap swimming
Fitness gym customer
Recreational swimming
Center A
307
Suburban
Majority female
44 (SD 14.9)
53% (3 or more per week)
61%
65%
24%
22%
27%
35%
Center B
367
Central city
Majority female
33 (SB 14.2)
40% (less than once a week)
20%
63%
23%
16%
7%
8%
3.2 Questionnaire and measure
The questionnaire used in this study was adapted from a service quality
questionnaire designed for public sports and leisure centres (Howat et al., 2002).
3.2.1 Service quality
Using the disconfirmation approach to measure service quality, customers’
expectations (E) were compared with how they perceived (P) each attribute of
the service performed (Parasuraman et al., 1988;).
A positively biased sixpoint interval scale, ranging from 1 (disagree) to 6 (very
strongly agree) including option “not applicable” was used to record
customers’ expectations and customers’ perceptions.
3.2.2 Outcomes( Benefit)
Five-point interval scales ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high) with ‘not
applicable’ option was used to rate the outcomes.
3.2.3 Overall satisfaction
Single question asking respondents to rate their overall satisfaction with the
service on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7
(very satisfied).
The customers’ ‘overall experience’ was measured on a seven-point scale
ranging from 1 (displeased) to 7 (pleased)
These two measures were aggregated into the “overall satisfaction” scale used
in the model with construct reliability of 0.84 (Centre A) and 0.82 (Centre B).
3.3.4 Loyalty
The author used 3 items with 7-point Likert scale to measure the customer’s
loyalty, and each items represents for each aspect: Recommend center, Revisit
center and Visit other center.
(1) “To what extent would you recommend this centre to others” using a seven
point scale ranging from 1 (very strongly notrecommend) to 7 (very strongly
recommend);
2)” Do you intend visiting this centreagain in the near future? “measured on a
seven-point scale ranging from 1 (definitelynot) to 7 (definitely)
(3)” If therewas another centre available to you, would you be likely to use it
instead of this centre “also used a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (definitely
not) to 7 (definitely)
4.0 Result
Building on findings from exploratory factor analysis (Howat, 2007) CFA was conducted
using maximum likelihood (ML) extraction in AMOS 7.0 to assess the construct
reliability of the factors and to check that themodel was a satisfactory fit to the data
According to Hu and Bentler (1999) and Scheiber et al (2006), the following goodnessof-fit indicators were considered as a guide to acceptable model fit: CFI and IFI > 0.95;
SRMR < 0.08; and RMSEA < 0.06
4.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
Three process service quality dimensions (personnel, facility presentation and
parking) and two outcome dimensions (relaxation and personal accomplishment)
were included in CFA initially with data from center A.
The overall fit of the model was acceptable for both center A and B. Although the
RMSEA of center A (0.075) and center B (0.076) exceeded < 0.06, but was less than
0.08 ( acceptable by Byrne 1998). The normed chi square for Centre B (3.1) was
slightly abovethe recommended maximum of 3
Standardized coefficients for all attributes exceeded 0.7 for both Centre A (Table 2)
and the squared multiple correlations (SMC) were above 0.5 indicating item
reliability. Correlations between each of the five dimensions (latent variables) were
low to moderate for both Center ( table 3 & 4).
4.2 The Structural Equation Model (SEM)
The structural model (Figure 1) was tested using maximum likelihood (ML)
estimation based on data from Centre A with the AMOS 7. The five service quality
dimensions validated in the CFA were included in the SEM. The overall fit of the
model was reasonable to good (CFI = 0.958, IFI = 0.958, SRMR = 0.055, RMSEA =
0.059, normed chi-square = 2.1) (Table 1).
Data from Centre B provided validation for the structural model. The overall fit of
the model was reasonable to good (CFI = 0.951, IFI = 0.951, SRMR = 0.044,
RMSEA = 0.061, normed chi-square = 2.3).
For Centre A the strongest relationship was between overall satisfaction and the
loyalty measure willingness to recommend with R= 0.80 and R2 = 0.65 (p < 0.01)
(Figure 2). Therefore, overall satisfaction accounted for 65% of the variance
explained in willingness to recommend. Overall satisfaction accounted for 25% of
the variance explained in intention to revisit. There was a negative relationship
between overall satisfaction and visit other center (R2= - 0.19, p < 0.05).
For center B, the strongest relationship was between overall satisfaction and
willingness to recommend (R = 0.76, R2=0.58, p< 0.01) (Figure 2). Therefore,
overall satisfaction accounted for 58% of the variance explained in willingness to
recommend. Overall satisfaction also accounted for 13% of the variance explained in
intention to revisit. There was a negative relationship between overall satisfaction
and visit other center (R2=- 0.17).
The personnel dimension has strongest relationship with overall satisfaction (R =
0.33) for Centre A followed by facility presentation (R = 0.26). The results were
reversed for Centre B with facility presentation has the strongest relationship with
overall satisfaction (R = 0.34) followed by personnel (R = 0.23). The relaxation
dimension was also positively related to overall satisfaction for Centre A (R = 0.19),
and Centre B (R = 0.16) (Figure 2).
5.0 Discussion and Conclusion
The major aim of this study was to identify a parsimonious set of core service quality
dimensions that have a significant influence on customer loyalty at public aquatic
centres.
Two process dimensions (personnel and facility presentation) and one outcome
dimension (relaxation) exerted significant on overall satisfaction, which in turn strongly
influenced three loyalty measures, in particular willingness to recommend the centre to
others.
The links between overall satisfaction customer loyalty were far stronger than the direct
links between the service-quality dimensions and the three loyalty variables This
indicates a mediating role of overall satisfaction between service quality and customer.
This study indicated that members and non-members did not vary significantly on either
overall satisfaction or willingness to recommend the centre to others.
Our model indicates that outcomes that most directly influence overall satisfaction
This finding reinforces the importance of core service quality dimensions as management
priorities.
6.0 Limitation
There are three limitations in this study:
 A limitation of this study is that it included data for only two Australian public
aquatic centres.
 A second limitation is the use of two items to capture the overall satisfaction and
single items for each of the three loyalty constructs.
 A third limitation is that comprehensive service quality reviews require
examination of additional attributes to assist managers improve the service.
Appendices