MENSURAÇÃO DA QUALIDADE DE SERVIÇO EM ACADEMIAS DE GINÁSTICA: DAS ESCALAS PADRONIZADAS AO DESENVOLVIMENTO DE UMA ESCALA ESPECÍFICA.

The present study aims to: a) propose a scale to measure the service quality offered by health clubs; b) evaluate the dimensionality of the service quality construct; and c) identify, based on importance-performance matrix, in which dimensions managers should focus their attention. Obeying similarity criteria, completeness, juxtaposition, agglutination, specificity and presence in empirical studies, 31 attributes were selected for compose the scale proposed. Subsequently, the attributes that formed the scale were analyzed by specialists and customers. These analyzed the levels of clarity and representativeness of sentences defining each attribute. Finalized this process, a pilot test with 30 customers was developed, in order to make the last adjustments. We interviewed 986 customers of six among the major health clubs of Natal/RN. The results revealed that the proposed scale, titled QSAG, showed a significant internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha was 0.940). The factor analysis, six factors emerged which explain 61.82% of data variance. This confirms the multidimensionality of the service quality construct. The use of importance-performance matrix allowed to extract a set of actions that can be used to support management decisions for improvement of quality strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]