The relationship between exercise commitment, brand and service quality with loyalty to health centers in Tehran

Dissertation for Master's Degree (M.A)

Strategy: Sports Management

Abstract

The general purpose of this research is the relationship between service quality, exercise commitment, brand and brand loyalty of participants in health centers in Tehran. The current research is contemporary in terms of time. Also, this research is applied in terms of its purpose, and in terms of research method, it is a correlational descriptive-survey research. The statistical population of the research is all users of health facilities in the northern region of Tehran. who have been involved in physical activity in these places in the past year. In this research, 120 people have been used as a sample size. To measure the research variables, the standard Williams questionnaire (2010) was used, which has 67 questions with a 7-point Likert scale, which collects the opinions of the respondents in 4 components: 1. Service quality (service quality, participation in club programs) 2. Brand loyalty, 3. Exercise commitment and 4. Brand (reason for membership, feelings about the logo and logo, participation in club programs, other questions, the impact of the club, club management, the impact of programs Club, items related to the club), and the answer to each question is determined on a seven-point scale from completely agree (1) to completely disagree (7) (? = 0.89). To analyze the data, descriptive statistics were used to classify the findings and to test the hypotheses of the research. Based on the findings of the research, there is a significant and direct relationship between the quality of service and the commitment of participants in health centers in Tehran (p = 0.002, r = -0.277). There is a correlation between service quality and brand of participants in health centers of Tehran (r = -0.516, p = 0.001), service fit and brand loyalty of participants in health centers of Tehran (r = -0.626, p = 0.001). Also, there is a significant and direct relationship between exercise commitment and brand loyalty of participants in health centers in Tehran (r = -0.507, p = 0.001), exercise commitment and brand loyalty of participants in health centers in Tehran (r = -0.426, p = 0.001). Also, there is a significant and direct relationship between the brand and brand loyalty of the participants in health centers in Tehran (r = -0.575, p=0.001). There is a significant difference between gender of participants and brand loyalty (p=0.048). There is a significant difference between the participants' marital status and exercise commitment (p=0.029). that there is a significant difference between service quality (p=0.045 and x2=9.761) and brand (p=0.038 and x2=10.133) and the age of the participants. that there is a significant difference between brand (p=0.001 and x2=15.759), brand loyalty (p=0.02 and x2=9.872) and practical commitment of participants with their membership history. It can be concluded that the improvement of each of these components and the quality of services will increase the level of commitment and loyalty of customers to the brand, and this loyalty will bring many benefits, including reducing the cost of attracting new customers, reducing the sensitivity of customers to changes and prices, increasing the barriers to the entry of new competitors and increasing income. Sports clubs that own a brand should focus on customer satisfaction beyond marketing strategies in order to develop the special value of the brand and brand and trust among customers. However, to prove in this field, more research is needed to support this hypothesis. Keywords: service quality, practice commitment, brand, brand loyalty. Introduction

Nowadays, sports as a multidimensional tool with wide effects and a valuable role is one of the ways that people can use it to overcome physical, mental and social pressures. Numerous researches have made it clear that engaging in healthy recreation, especially sports activities, has many positive effects on human physical and mental health. Participation of people in sports leads to improvement of physical condition, mental health and optimal entertainment of people (San [1], 2013).

On the other hand, the science of sports marketing includes three major parts with the names of sports advertising marketing, sports product marketing, and sports operation and service marketing (Fullerton and Merz [2], 2008).. Studies by Patterson and Tart (2009) showed that people's involvement in marketing in health clubs is related to service quality and member loyalty (Williams, 2010). Therefore, an important topic is service quality (SQ), which is a critical determining factor in the performance of business activity and long-term profitability of the company. The reason for this is that service quality leads to customer satisfaction, which thus has a positive effect on word-of-mouth advertising, attitudinal loyalty, and customer purchase intentions (Carilat et al. [3], 2007). In today's era, quality is considered as an important and effective factor in the success and failure of organizations, therefore, all organizations, especially service organizations, including organizations, centers and sports clubs, should seek to increase the quality of their services, because quality is viewed as an essential factor that can bring a strong and strong competitive advantage to organizations (Bahia and Natal [4], 2000). The examination of studies related to service marketing shows that the quality of services perceived by customers is one of the most important factors that influence the behavioral results of customers. High-quality services have consequences such as customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, value and commitment, and repeat purchase (Anderson et al. [5], 1994). Therefore, marketing has changed from its original state, which was formed to satisfy customers, to achieve a superior competitive goal. Efforts to achieve high levels of customer retention lead marketers to examine perceived value. The concept of perceived value is closely related to concepts such as customer satisfaction, loyalty and growth in the market, or considering that providing value to the customer leads to competitive advantages (Borman [6], 2009). In this regard, brand management is an area of ??increasing importance in marketing management, especially when organizations direct their efforts towards communicating intangible and complex messages (Goodchild and Kalo [7], 2001).

Abstract

The main goal of this research is relationship between quality of services, commitment to exercising, brand communication & loyalty to brand in Tehran sport & healthy places. This research in terms of time is present prospective study, also it was practical & the method of it was descriptive-surveying ones that it is as correlation. The (statistical) population was all users of sport & healthy places in northern areas of Tehran that they act in these places. They were 120 persons who used an adequate sample size, for measuring the variables was used William's standard questionnaire (2010) that included 67 questions with 7 value scales of Likert which measured respondents' opinions in 4 components; 1- quality of services (quality of services, participating in club programs) 2-loyalty to brand 3-exercising (training) commitment 4-relationship with brand (the reason of membership, feelings in Logo, participate in club programs & other questions), the impacts of clubs, the clubs' management, the effects of clubs' programs 7 the other cases of clubs & answers of each questions were identified in 7 range of scales; totally agree (1), totally disagree (7) (?=0.89). For analyzing the data was used descriptive statistic for classifying the findings & test the hypothesis was used Kolomogrov-Smirnov test & for naturalization the data distribution, Spearman, Whitney & Kurskal Wallis tests was used SPSS software version 18. There is meaningful & direct relationship between qualities of services & exercising commitment of participants in sport & healthy places in Tehran (p=0.002 & r=0.277) based on findings & also there is meaningful & direct relationship between quality of services & brand (p=0.001, r=-0.516) & between quality of services & loyalty to brands of participants in sport & healthy places (p=0.001, r=-0.626) & also there is meaningful & direct relationship between exercise commitment & relation to participants' brad in sport health places of Tehran (p=0.001, r=-0.426) & between brand & loyalty brad in sport health places of Tehran (p=0.001 & r=-0.575). There is significant difference between participants' gender & loyalty to brand (p=0.048) & between participants' marital status & exerciser commitment who have experiences (p=0