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The Effects of Service Quality and Relationship Benefits on Relationship Commitment and Customer Loyalty in Membership Fitness Club

이화석|Su Jin Kim|오상현
한국마케팅과학회 (Korean Scholars of Marketing Science)|2011.09|Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science(마케팅과학연구) (全球营销科学学报)|제21권 제3호|pp. 115-125

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Service quality服务质量Customer loyaltyRelationship commitmentRelationship benefits顾客忠诚度Technical qualityFunctional quality技术质量功能质量关系利益关系承诺
주제분류경영학

초록

Relationship marketing is not a new phenomenon, but is now one of the most important topics in marketing academia and the business community. For marketing practitioners, greater benefits may arise by perceiving relationship marketing as an underlying philosophy of caring for customers. In the Academy, many scholars have suggested a new marketing paradigm based on relationship marketing. The rationale behind relationship marketing is to create, enhance, and maintain relationships with customers. Increasing and securing loyalty is central to many corporate strategies because obtaining new customer is costly and customer retention is connected to long-term profitability. Commitment is recognized as the key component in the relationship marketing paradigm and social exchange theory. The health care industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing industries. The modern health care sector is divided into many sub-sectors, and depends on interdisciplinary teams of trained professionals and paraprofessionals to meet health needs of individuals and populations. The objective of this paper is to establish a theoretical basis for evaluating a strategic increase in customers' perceptions of service quality (technical quality and functional quality) and relationship benefits – specifically in terms of an increase in relationship commitment and customer loyalty in membership fitness club and to test this theoretical basis empirically. The present study focuses on relationship commitment. Also this study identifies antecedents and consequences of relationship commitment. In so doing, the aim is to underline the effect that service quality and relationship benefits have on relationship commitment and customer loyalty. The present study empirically tests the formulated model – to establish the effects of service quality and relationship benefits on relationship commitment and customer loyalty in membership fitness service setting. Research model was tested sub-sector of health care industry. The basic objective of the empirical part is to test the model among users of the services of gym, health and fitness. More specifically we chose the users of two membership fitness clubs, located in Daegu (Korea). Research fitness clubs operate fitness and recreational sports facilities featuring exercise and other active physical fitness conditioning or recreational sports activities, such as swimming, racquet sports and golf. Firms are also involved in facilities management and fitness instruction. The selection of the sample was random, a random route in each fitness club being established for each of the interviewers. The average duration of the interviews was ten minutes. Finally, 254 usable responses were gained. To test the hypotheses in this study, we estimated the fit and parameters of the models through covariance structural analysis. The parameters of the overall model used maximum likelihood estimation, and the fit of the model resulted as χ² (94 d.f)= 329.52(p=.000), GFI=.94, AGFI=.93, RMR=.022, NFI=.92, CFI=.94. Compared to general evaluation standards, this failed to meet the χ² value. But it’s enough to explain the relations among variables since GFI, NFI, CFI turned out to be .95, .92, and .94, respectively. All hypotheses are supported by the data. They suggest that technical quality, functional quality, and relationship benefits significantly influence relationship commitment toward using fitness club. Relationship benefits directly influence relationship commitment and customer loyalty, and indirectly influence customer loyalty through mediator of relationship commitment. Also, the empirical results confirmed that relationship commitment plays a strong, central role in determining customer loyalty. Sound expertise performance (technical quality) is a necessary but not sufficient condition to retain customer. Because of the general lack of knowledge among customers, the service provider needs to recognize that all service provider-customer interaction takes on added significance and value to customer. For such services the traditional marketing functions can only operate at the strategic level - the people operating at the boundary between the firm and the external environment are the ones who must re-mix the service in interaction with customer. Their technical capabilities and interpersonal skills are the source of service differentiation, satisfaction and ultimately, customer retention. Next, regular and effective communications with customer is essential in order to reduce perceived risk and uncertainty, shape expectations, educate the customer, resolve any misunderstandings and explain the options in a jargon-free way. Given the pivotal role of functional quality in impacting on relationship commitment, intensive training in interpersonal and communications skills would seem warranted. Finally, it needs to be appreciated that effective interpersonal communication has the potential to, over time, result in strong social and emotional bonds between adviser and client, and thereby increase the switching barriers to exiting the relationship. A reciprocal influence may exist between relationship strength and relationship benefits. A long-term relationship results in certain relationship benefits that strengthen the ties and results in a continued relationship. There are some limitations of this research that should be considered when interpreting its findings. Our model does not take into account personal characteristics (e.g., attractiveness of alternatives, length of patronage, skill level and experience) that also may have an impact. Thus, expanding the scope of antecedents is an important next step toward our understanding of the factors that enhance membership service area. Future research could also address the moderating role of the length of the relationship and how it influences the connection between relational benefits, service quality, and loyalty. Other moderator variables can also affect such relationships, such as income, age, gender, and customer experience.

Abstract

关系营销已经不是新的概念，但是在当今的营销研究和实践领域都是一个十分重要的课题。对于营销实践者而言，通过关系营销对消费者进行潜在的爱护会为企业创造更大的利润。在研究领域，许多学者已经开始基于关系营销建立新的营销模式。进行关系营销的理由是为了创造、增强和保持与顾客的关系。增加和保护忠诚度是许多企业的核心战略，这是因为开发新的客户投入更大，而保持客户可以使企业长期收益。承诺被认为是关系营销模型和社会交换理论中的核心概念。保健行业是世界上最大以及发展最快的行业之一。现代的保健行业可以细分成许多分支，主要依靠训练有素的专业人员和辅助人员组成的跨学科团队，从而满足个人和群体对于健康的需求。本文的研究目的是建立评价战略的理论基础来增强顾客对于服务质量的知觉和关系利益——特别是为了增强关系承诺和顾客忠诚度。本文将通过会员制健身俱乐部来验证所提出的理论。研究将针对于关系承诺，并探索影响关系承诺的诱因以及关系承诺的结果。因此，研究将强调服务质量和关系利益的影响。研究模型的检验将在保健行业的分支中进行。为此，我们选择了两家健身俱乐部。这两家俱乐部都经营健身和体育活动设施，包括游泳，有氧运动设施和高尔夫。企业都包含设施管理和健身指导业务。样本的选择是随机的，每名被访问者平均被访问时间需要10分钟。最终，有254名受访者完成了访问。为了检验假设，我们通过协方差结果分析来检验模型的拟合度以及参数。模型的拟合度为：χ²(94d.f)=329.52(p=.000), GFI=.94, AGFI=.93, RMR=.022, NFI=.92, CFI=.94。参考模型评价标准，χ² 值并不合格。但是模型的GFI, NFI, CFI 分别是 .95, .92, and .94。所以，模型的拟合度可以被接受。而且所有假设均被数据支持。这就说明技术质量，功能质量和管理利益都显著正向影响关系承诺。关系利益直接影响关系承诺和顾客忠诚度，而且间接影响通过关系承诺影响顾客忠诚度。而且，研究表明关系承诺在顾客忠诚度中扮演着重要的核心角色。健全的专业的表现（技术质量）是必要但不充分的条件来保持消费者。因为消费者缺少相关的知识，服务者必须认识到与消费者的交互会增加顾客的价值。由于传统的市场营销功能只能在战略层面实施，企业和外部环境的界限必须在与顾客交互式进行重新的拟合。他们的技术能力和交流能力是服务差别化，满意度和顾客关系的重要影响要素。另外，普通和有效地交流会减少预期风险，塑造预期，教育消费者，并解决误会和行话带来的困惑。鉴于功能质量对关系承诺的关键作用，人交往和沟通的训练是非常必要的。最后，要感谢有效地人际沟通可以持续潜在的影响顾问与顾客之间的关系，从而去除两者间的界限。关系强度和关系利益间存在互惠关系。一个长期的关系会增强关系利益，而关系利益会增加关系强度和持续时间。在研究结果之余，本文还有一些局限。我们的模型并没有考虑个人特质的要素（例如：替代方案的吸引力，坚持的长度，技术水平和经验等）。所以，对于下一步的研究来说，拓展影响诱因将会对理解会员服务有重要的意义。另外，其他的调节变量（例如：收入，年龄，性别等）也应列为被考虑因素。

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