Evaluation of service quality at a sport center: Case study

Abstract

At present, in the sports services industry, “perceived quality of service” becomes an important concept for its managers, allowing, on the one hand, to hear and design services taking into account its users’ requirements, a key point to ensure its survival, and, on the other hand, to detect weaknesses and establish the necessary improvement actions, thus starting the path to continuous improvement within the organization. The objective of this chapter is to know the level of quality of service perceived by users of a sports center (case study), as well as to analyze the satisfaction they experience with the service received. We also analyzed whether there is a correlation between perceived quality and satisfaction. The methodology used is a descriptive analysis of a sample of 206 clients from a population of 1512 subscribers using the Scale of Perception of Sports Organizations (EPOD) as a measuring instrument. The results show that the overall quality of service with an average of 4.43 out of 5 is very high and corresponds to a high satisfaction level (4.48). The five dimensions of the scale show an average higher than 4. In addition, it was verified that there is a high correlation between perceived quality and satisfaction. This study has important implications for the Sports Center, its customers were heard and the weaknesses of the service provided were detected, enabling to establish improvement plans and most importantly to detect in time changes in the needs or tastes of its customers.