The Effect of Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction: An Empirical Study on Fitness Centers’ Customers

In this study, it is aimed to examine the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction in fitness centers offering physical activity services. As data collection tool, QSport-14 scale developed by Yildiz and Kara (2012) for service quality, and satisfaction scale developed by Cronin, Brady and Hult (2000) were used customer satisfaction. Data were obtained from 3 different fitness centers (n=227) operating in Antalya province. As a result of the reliability test to determine the reliability of the scales, the Cronbach Alpha value of QSport-14 was found as 0,849 and the Cronbach Alpha value of customer satisfaction scale was found as 0,7443. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied to determine the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction. The impact of the "staff", "installations" and "programme" variables on the customer satisfaction, which are the subscales of the QSport-14 scale, were evaluated separately. As a result of the analyzes, the quality of service in the fitness centers (and sub-dimensions of staff, installations and program variables) had significant and positive effect on customer satisfaction (p <0.001). From these sub-dimensions, the highest effect on customer satisfaction is the staff (β=,492), followed by the program (β=,446) and installations (β=,433). On the other hand, demographic variables have no meaningful affection on customer satisfaction. According to these results, it can be said that the way of providing customer satisfaction in fitness centers offering physical exercise services has gone through increasing the service quality (mainly staff, program and installations)