A focused service quality, benefits, overall satisfaction and loyalty model for public aquatic centres

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). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported a model that included three process services quality dimensions and two benefits (outcomes) dimensions. Using 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, which mediated significant relationships with three attitudinal loyalty variables. The data from the second centre provided a validation sample to confirm the potential to replicate the model for a different respondent profile. 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.

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Dr Brianne Hastie for advice on the statistics used in this paper.

Notes

1 Missing data for Centre A ranged from 0 to 13% across items and for Centre B missing data ranged from 0 to 11% across items. Little's MCAR test confirmed that data was missing completely at random for Centre A (Chi-square 384.57; df 382; p = 0.453). Hence, ML imputation was an appropriate substitution method (Switzer and Roth, 2002). However, for Centre B data was not missing completely at random (Chi-square 1319.11; df 991; p = 0.000). A comparison between a listwise deletion sample (n = 232) and the imputed sample (n = 367) showed minimal differences in parameters. Thus, the imputed sample for Centre B was used in further analysis.