Total Quality Management Vol. 17, No.

5, 623 631, June 2006

Measuring Service Quality in Sport Services

E. TSITSKARI , D. TSIOTRAS & G. TSIOTRAS
Department of Physical Education and Sport, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece; Department of Physical Education and Sport, Aristotles University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Department of Business Administration, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

ABSTRACT Conceptualization and measurement of quality in the eld of sport-related services are still in a formative stage, underlining a certain degree of uncertainty or disagreement regarding the set of criteria or the conceptual model that can adequately describe them. This paper presents a literature review on the evaluation of quality of sport-related services. The results of this investigation provide some interesting ndings: that the evaluation of service quality of sport and recreation organizations and installations is a multi-dimensional structure. It seems that these dimensions may vary from country to country and also among different service sectors. Given the centrality of service quality to the mission of sport and recreation centres, research toward a better understanding of the nature of service quality should be a primary concern to all organizations. KEY WORDS : Service quality, sport, recreation, multi-dimensional concept

Introduction In the business world today, one of the biggest challenges is customer retention. Increasing competition for more consumers has led companies to rene or provide extra value to services that they provide in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors. According to a study conducted by the Institute of Environmental Research (IER) (1990), only 4% of unsatised customers will actually complain about poor service, but of the 96% who do not complain, 90% will not continue doing business with that organization. Even more important is the fact that each dissatised customer will tell at least seven other people about their experience (Rintjema, 1998). Denitions of service quality revolve around the idea that it is the result of the comparison that customers make between their expectations about a service and their perception of the way the service has been performed (Caruana et al., 2000; Lehtinen & Lehtinen, 1991; nroos, 1984). Service quality is an important issue in Parasuaman et al., 1985, 1988; Gro
Correspondence Address: George Tsiotras, Secretary General, 11 Kath. Rossidi Street, Kalamaria, Thessaloniki 540 08, Greece. Email: tsiotras@uom.gr 1478-3363 Print=1478-3371 Online=06=0506239 # 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080=14783360600588190

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the marketing literature, since service quality perceptions are related to customer satisfaction and customer retention (Alexandris et al., 2004; Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003; Zeithaml et al., 1996). A similar tend is also evident in the sport-related literature, which was prominently manifested by the initiative of the European Association for Sport Management to devote its sixth annual congress to Service quality in sports. While quality is germane to both goods and services, services have unique characteristics and are implementing quality initiatives (Lehtinen & Lehtinen, 1991; Zeithaml nroos, 1984, 1988). Services differ from manufactured goods et al., 1988, 1990; Gro not only in terms of how they are produced but also of how they are consumed and evaluated. Services have four special characteristics that make them differ from products and that affect the way they are designed and sold. Services are: intangible, heterogeneous, they are produced and consumed simultaneously and they do not have an owner (Chelladurai & Chang, 2000; Kotler, 1996, 1997). Services are intangible because, unlike goods which are objects with precise manufacturing specications that can be counted, inventoried, measured, tested and veried prior to sale in order to test uniform quality services are performances for which uniform quality specications can rarely be set. They are heterogeneous because their performance usually varies between different producers, customers and days, causing uniform quality to be difcult to assure. Services are considered simultaneous in production and consumption because service delivery often takes place as an interaction between the customer and an employee. They are perishable because once the interaction ends, so does the service, as opposed to goods, which a customer can often keep for a while after its purchase (Parasuraman et al., 1985). According to Zeithaml et al. (1990), the difference between customers desires, expectations and their perceptions of service quality is known as a service gap. The four main service quality gaps identied by these researchers are: not knowing what customers are expecting from a service; using the incorrect service quality standards; service performance (gap); and promises regarding the service which do not match delivery. All the above characteristics have accounted for the fruitless research efforts to develop objective measures for evaluating service quality in different sectors. This has forced researchers to understand that service quality is a construct and that, as such, it may require multiple perceptual measures to be conceptually captured (Papadimitriou & Karteliotis, 2000). The conceptualization and measurement of service quality is still a controversial topic in the services marketing literature (Brady & Cronin, 2001; Buttle, 1995). The most common denition is the traditional notion that views quality as the customers perception of service excellence. That is to say, quality is dened by the customers impression (Parasuraman et al., 1985). A variety of models for the measurement of service quality have been proposed, with that of Parasuraman et al. (1988) being the predominant one. Parasuraman et al. (1988) nroos (1984, 1990) proposed a threedeveloped the ve-factor SERVQUAL model. Gro dimensional model, while Dabholkar et al. (1996) proposed a multi-level service quality model. Last but not least, Brady & Cronin (2001) also proposed a new model, which conceptualizes service quality based on three primary dimensions. Research into service quality in the business world has been ongoing since the early 1980s, but only recently have recreation and sport service providers begun to recognize the importance of service quality to their businesses. Service quality is a topic that has recently attracted signicant attention by researchers in the sport marketing literature

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(Alexandris et al., 2001, 2004; Costa et al., 2004; Chelladurai & Chang, 2000; Howat et al., 1999; Kelley & Turley, 2001). The aim of this study was, through a thorough literature review, to explore service quality dimensions in sport services in general. Quality of Recreation Services Sporting business are part of the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy and can be roughly subdivided into the following groups: investment goods producers (sport clothing and equipment production, sport facilities construction), consumer goods producers (sports equipment industry) and, in the service sector, businesses in the prot sector (tness studios and recreation agencies, multifunctional sports facilities, sports equipment stores, sport sponsoring agencies, sport insurances) and in the non-prot sector (sports associations, sport clubs). As the producer can no longer market his products without the corresponding services and as people are realizing the need for exercise and recreation it can be expected that, in the sports branch, there will be a favourable amount of growth and a chance for employment in the service sector nowadays and in the future (Woratschek, 2000). Researchers from the eld of sport management and marketing recently started to conceptualize and measure the construct of service quality. A relatively small number of researchers have followed their colleagues from other service sectors (i.e. banking, insurance, hospitality, nancial and health) and have presented studies that model service quality in various sport settings (Theodorakis et al., 2001). Service quality is an elusive and indistinct construct (Parasuraman et al., 1985) but provision of consistently high-quality service is a goal that sport and recreation agencies seek to attain. Although the central importance of service quality is increasingly recognized by suppliers of recreation services, it has not led to much research designed to identify, assess or evaluate the phenomenon of service quality (Crompton & Mackay, 1989). The study of quality in sport services has been limited in terms of the number of articles and their scope. The few research studies have focused on identifying dimensions of quality in specic services (e.g. tness services, leisure services, recreation services). Crompton & Mackay (1989) examined service quality dimensions in public recreation programs in Nova Scotia and concluded that ve factors affect customers perceptions of the provided quality of service: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance. Mackay & Crompton (1990), applied the SERVQUAL model to recreation services. This attempt suggested an instrument which consisted of 25 quality-related criteria that evaluated consumers desires and perceptions about the services received. Crompton et al. (1991) examined the stability of this model and found statistical support only for four of the ve suggested factors of service quality: assurance, reliability, responsiveness and tangibles. Howat et al. (1996) developed the Centre of Environmental and Recreation Management Customer Service Quality (CERM-CSQ) scale to measure four dimensions of services in sport and leisure centres: core services, staff quality, general facility and secondary services (such as food, drink and child minding). Kouthouris et al. (1999) investigated and concluded that the Service Quality Model research tool (Parasuraman et al., 1985), which measures and evaluates the quality of services, was an appropriate tool to examine the quality of services in the outdoor recreation market in Greece (Activity Holidays).

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Han (1999) examined members satisfaction of the quality of ski programmes at selected, private sport centres in Seoul, Republic of Korea and concluded that ve factors affect ski programmes evaluation by the customers: programmes, employee performance, public relations, cost and facility. Ko (2000) tried to gain a better understanding of the service quality construct by: (a) proposing and testing a conceptual model of sport consumers perceived service quality; (b) identifying the casual relationship between service quality, satisfaction and repurchase intention; and (c) testing the scale of service quality in participant sport (SSQPS) which was developed based on the conceptual model. The study defended the multidimensionality of the service quality construct. In the proposed model, service quality consisted of four generic dimensions and each one of them was dened by several corresponding subdimensions: (a) programme quality range of programmes, operating time and information; (b) interaction quality client employee interaction and inter-client interaction; (c) outcome quality physical change, valence and sociability; and (d) environment quality ambient condition, design and equipment. The results of the study also indicated that service quality and satisfaction were equally important variables for a sport consumers future purchase intention. Costa et al. (2004) examined whether the ten primary dimensions of SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1985) could be modied and used to evaluate the service quality of sport camps. It was concluded that children evaluate the camps quality according to ve dimensions (training programme, contentment-intention, safety and convenience in the facilities, tangibles and relations with the coaches) while the parents seem to evaluate their childs participation in a sport camp according to four factors (accommodation installations, coaches, contentment-intention and access-communication). Service Quality in Spectator and Professional Sport The inability to control the core product in professional sports serves to heighten further the need to provide high quality service. Sport managers, therefore, are searching for tools to effectively measure service quality. A study by McDonald (1996) tried to measure customers perceptions of service quality for professional sport franchises and, also, to measure the value of individual customers, by selecting information about them. The results showed that perceptions and expectation of service quality increased with higher levels of customer investment for both dimensions of service quality and service areas. In the case of spectator sports, the sportscape (i.e. the context in which spectator services are provided the stadium) consists of several dimensions including: stadium access, parking, facility aesthetics and cleanliness, scoreboard quality, seating comfort, layout accessibility, space allocation, crowding, signage, food service and fan control (Wakeeld et al., 1996; Wakeeld & Sloan, 1995). Theodorakis & Kambitsis (1998) proposed six dimensions of quality when referred to the spectators: satisfaction, access, responsiveness, reliability, security and tangibles. McDonald et al. (1995) and Shilbury (1994) have also examined service quality in professional sport. In fact, McDonald et al. (1995) developed the TEAMQUAL scale consisting of 39-items to measure ve dimensions of service quality in professional team sports, which were based on the idea that quality judgements are based on the gap between customer expectations and customer perceptions.

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Finally, Kelley & Turley (1999) investigated the importance of service attributes used by sport fans when evaluating the quality of service and level of satisfaction they experience at sporting events. The ndings from this study suggest there are nine quality factors in the sporting event context and some of them are unique to this particular service encounter: employees, price, facility access, concessions, fan comfort, game experience, showtime, convenience and smoking. Service Quality in Fitness Centres With the proliferation of sport and tness centres in many countries over the last decade, sport service providers increasingly place emphasis on quality services and efcient operation, in order to remain protable (Papadimitriou & Karteliotis, 2000). At the same time, sport participants and spectators raise their expectations for more benets from participation in sport and for quality in sport products and services (Howat et al., 1996; Mawson, 1993). In this philosophy, organizational success is inherently lined with the ability of the sport and tness service provider to identify and respond to needs but also to inuence what is perceived as service quality by the targeted segment of the market (Papadimitriou & Karteliotis, 2000). Chelladurai et al. (1987) identied ve dimensions of tness services as measured by their Scale of Attributes of Fitness Services (SAFS). These dimensions are: primary-professional, primary-consumer, primary-peripheral, primary-facilitating goods and secondary goods and services. The rst dimensions reect the core services while the rest reect the context. Hartshorn (1990) investigated differences in the way tness industry managers dene service quality. Service quality was measured using the SERVQUAL instrument. The results suggested that although managers of the leisure tness industry from three sectors (public, private and voluntary sector) agree on the denition of service quality, the private sector showed more concern with service quality than the public sector, with the voluntary sector being most similar to the private sector. Based on literature review and focus group results, Kim & Kim (1995) generated 45 items to assess service quality in sport and tness centres in South Korea. They measured the desirability of the items as well as the delivery of the service indicated by the items. They derived an 11-factor 33-item measure entitled Quality Excellence of Sport Centres (QUESC). The 11 dimensions were labelled: ambience, employee attitude, reliability, information, programming, personal consideration, privileges, price, and ease of mind, stimulation and convenience. Rintjema (1998) explored the measurement of service quality of a private recreation organization using a questionnaire with modied questions from a SERVQUAL-based instrument. The researcher underlined the importance of conducting service quality researches, as the customers are looking for personalized service from the business with which they deal and they want this service to be of high quality and value for the price they pay. More recently, Chelladurai & Chang (1999) proposed a framework for the analysis of quality in tness clubs. Their scheme consists of three dimensions in the input stage: management commitment to service quality; developing service climate and designing core services; ve dimensions in the throughput stage: interpersonal interacting with employees, task interactions with employees, physical environment, contact with other customers, and service failure and recovery; and one dimension at the output stage: perceived service quality.

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Finally, Lam (2000) developed the Service Quality Assessment Scale (SQAS) in order to determine the dimension of service quality of health-tness clubs. The researcher found out that there are ve factors that affect customers perceptions of the provided service quality of a tness club: staff, programme, locker rooms, physical facility and workout facility. Service Quality in Fitness Centres in Greece Over the last two decades, the (mainly private) tness industry in Greece has experienced signicant changes in its service provision and has exhibited a tremendous growth. Large and modern tness and recreational establishments have tended to replace the family-type sport and tness centres and to raise signicantly the expectations of Greek consumers regarding sport and tness facilities and services (Papadimitriou & Karteliotis, 2000). Papadimitriou & Karteliotis (2000) tried to re-examine the underlying structure of the quality excellence of sports centres (QUESC) instrument suggested by Kim & Kim (1995). The research took place in Patra, Greece. Their results failed to support the stability of the 11-dimension QUESC structure of service quality expectations. Instead, the study suggested a four-factor model (FITSSQ) to describe the tness service quality expectations. The four extracted factors were: instructor quality, facility attraction and operation, programme availability and delivery and other services. Afthinos et al. (2001) also used the QUESC instrument (Kim & Kim, 1995) to measure service quality in Greek tness centres (two public and four private) in Athens, Greece. Results indicated that Greek customers of sport centres perceived cleanliness as the most important service quality aspect, followed by employees adequate knowledge and skills, employees responsiveness, employees courtesy and emergency procedures. The less important quality aspects for Greek customers were: provision of necessities, non-member guests may be invited, family programmes, maintenance of good customer records and access to drinks. Finally, Alexandris et al. (2004) tested the applicability of a simplied version of the service quality model proposed by Brady & Cronin (2001) in the context of a health club. The results provided support for the three-factor structure proposed by Brady & Cronin (2001): interaction quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality. According to the authors, this last dimension (outcome quality) is an important one in the context of sport services and should be included in service quality evaluation studies. Discussion The papers aim was to report the studies that have been performed worldwide dealing with the evaluation of quality in sport services. In this report, researches that deal with the evaluation of the provided service quality in sport and recreational agencies and installations were discussed. This research has shown that the sport-related literature of service quality is still in a formative stage, underlining a degree of uncertainty or disagreement regarding the set of variables or the conceptual model that can adequately describe the construct under investigation. The challenge of providing a high quality sport and recreation service becomes less difcult when agencies and tness centres know what their customers expect from a service and what they feel is important to quality. From a managerial perspective,

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identifying the dimensions that are most important indicates the direction that management should take in investing its efforts and resources to increase the probability of the customer experiencing a positive outcome from participating or from watching. As can be seen from the literature review, all studies show that the evaluation of service quality of sport and recreation organizations and installations is a multi-dimensional structure. It seems that these dimensions may vary from country to country and also among different service sectors (Papadimitriou & Karteliotis, 2000). These ndings tend to support the arguments proposed by Carmen (1990) and Babukus & Boller (1992) that service quality dimensions tend to vary across different types of services. Given the centrality of service quality to the mission of sport and recreation centres, research toward a better understanding of the nature of service quality should be a primary concern. This demands future research initiatives to further test the stability of the above-mentioned instruments, not only in Greece but in other countries as well and also with larger samples. In this way, maybe an objective measure of evaluating service quality in sport centres will nally be produced, a fact that will be of assistance not only to academicians but also to professionals.

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