Predictors of retention and customer loyalty in gyms

Customer loyalty must be viewed as a sustainable and indispensable advantage to the survival of a service organization. For this reason, academics and professionals have been engaged in working on strategies which aim at increasing the perception of service quality and barriers that prevent desertio...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Arcoverde, David de França, Araújo, Marcus Augusto Vasconcelos
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2018
Country:Brasil
Institution:Associação Brasileira de Engenharia de Produção (ABEPRO)
Repository:Revista Produção Online
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.www.producaoonline.org.br:article/2705
Online Access:https://www.producaoonline.org.br/rpo/article/view/2705
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Loyalty. Retention. Service Quality. Barriers to Change. Gyms.
Lealdade. Retenção. Qualidade de Serviço. Barreiras à Mudança. Academia de Ginástica
Description
Summary:Customer loyalty must be viewed as a sustainable and indispensable advantage to the survival of a service organization. For this reason, academics and professionals have been engaged in working on strategies which aim at increasing the perception of service quality and barriers that prevent desertion. The objective of this study was to verify the influence of the perceived quality and the relational barriers to the change in customer loyalty and retention in gyms. The research, which has descriptive nature, was performed in two gymnasiums with a sample n = 228. The dimensions of Quality and Relational Barriers to Change were taken as independent variables and submitted to logistic regression analysis for retention and for loyalty. The results demonstrated that the tangible aspects associated with service are the dimension of quality that most affects loyalty. The predictive study of retention showed the frequency of service utilization as the most important variable associated with repurchasing, followed by empathy. We conclude that quality of service and barriers positively influence loyalty and customer retention although there are different predictors of retention and loyalty. In addition, quality has a greater power of influence than relational barriers, especially regarding loyalty.