An empirical investigation of the relationships among service quality, customer satisfaction and psychological commitment in a health club context

Abstract

This study aimed to test the applicability of a simplified version of the service quality model, proposed by Brady & Cronin (2001) in the context of a health club, and test the degree to which service quality perceptions and customer satisfaction predict psychological commitment and word‐of‐mouth communications. One hundred and seventy five members of a private health club in Greece participated in the study, and completed: a) a service quality scale (measuring interaction quality, physical environment quality, and outcome quality); b) the Sport Commitment Scale (Scanlan et al., 1993); c) an adjusted version of Oliver's (1997) customer satisfaction scale; and d) a three‐item scale measuring word‐of‐mouth communications. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provided support for the factorial validity of the three primary dimensions. The psychometric properties of all the scales were satisfactory. The results also revealed an adequate fit of the structural model, which accounted for 29% of the variance. The physical environment and outcome dimensions significantly influenced satisfaction, which, in turn, had a stronger influence on word‐of‐mouth communications than on psychological commitment.