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Communication of trainers as one of the means for customer retention in fitness clubs
35-40Views:387Acquiring the adequate communication style is a vital element in trainers’ profession. This research aims to reveal the effects generated via the communicative style by trainers of fitness club customers. It also intends to explore whether communication style has any relation to the regularity of class attendance as well as to the length of training periods which is conceptualised in this paper as trainers’ economic efficiency. Data collection was carried out by structured interviews in a country-side large sport centre. Trainers with at least three training sessions per week (N=20) and their groups (N=160) were interviewed using Rudas (1994) communication style survey and additional selfdeveloped interview protocols. The results revealed that the examined trainers were distributed in all four communications styles, but showing dominance in aggressive and passive styles. The classes of trainers with aggressive and assertive communication style were those that showed the highest and maintained attendance rates. It seems, that classes held by trainers who communicate in a deliberate way and convey positive messages are attended more and in a sustained way. Accordingly, their precisely set targets and explanation of training sessions content correlated with repeated attendance and customer retention. It seems that groups with extended scope of communication are characterised by stronger group cohesion where social relationships could develop easier, which have relations to perseverance and commitment. Therefore development of trainers’ communication skills may be considered as an effective tool for fitness clubs for customer retention.
JEL code: Z20
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Guest satisfaction survey at the Aquaticum Debrecen Thermal and Wellness Hotel
53-56Views:303Aquaticum Debrecen Thermal and Wellness Hotel is one of the most successful hotels in the North Great Plains region as well as in Hungary. The key to success lies in high level customer satisfaction. On the one hand only the satisfied guests will return to the hotel, on the other hand the guests’ positive or negative opinions will be shared with thousands of potential customers immediately by means of the Internet. Consequently, exploring the main factors of guest satisfaction has never been so important as nowadays. An online questionnaire system was introduced to the hotel in 2010, which resulted in an increased number of customer responses, thus it became possible to analyse the various aspects of customer satisfaction in a greater detail. In the present study the critical factors of guest satisfaction are analysed. We investigated the guests’ willingness to return to the hotel, and found that there is no significant difference between the guests’ gender, age, permanent place of residence and the fact if they travel alone or with a company and their willingness to return to the hotel, i.e. guest satisfaction. However, business travellers’ opinion significantly differs from the recreational travellers’ views concerning their return to the hotel. Business travellers are less satisfied and less willing to return. Furthermore, we investigated whether the problems experienced by the guests in the hotel influence the guests’ willingness to return to the hotel. We found that the guests who experienced problems are less willing to return. However, we also concluded that there was no significant difference in their willingness to return among those guests who experienced problems during their stay and these were efficiently handled, and those guests who did not experience any problem.
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Quality-satisfaction-loyalty: consumer behaviour in catering
5-11Views:265Our study is the result of the initial research of a qualitative and quantitative research consisting of more stages. The survey was made between 2007 and 2013 and specially focused on the satisfaction of Hungarian customers of catering enterprises with hot kitchen as well as on factors influencing satisfaction and customer loyalty. The results proved that a well planned, central strategy cannot be prepared for the whole catering industry as even enterprises with the same profile (warm food kitchen) show significant differences. The most important task for an enterprise is to establish and know its appropriate clientele well in order to suit its services, selection to their requirements. Our assumption that customers of fast food restaurants, canteens have lower expectations from selection, personal relations, quality of services than customers of restaurants, public houses, wayside inns, brasseries with traditional methods of selling was proven. In the lattest, the main aspect of choosing a 'favourite place' was the quality of human relations, with the special role, besides other customers, of the staff. Establishing unique atmosphere to the liking of customers can be regarded as an important point of the operational strategy. It was also proven that the majority of regular customers of restaurants are men, coming from the economically active population. Other active users are youngsters, they mainly go to fast food restaurants. More impersonal advertisements hardly have any effect, while successful word of mouth propaganda can be achieved by consequent, high level work. Regular customers can be characterized by rather emotional than market-based attachment. Favourite units are mainly preferred because of their atmosphere, relationships with acquaintances and friends, not because of measurable features, selection or prices. Those visiting catering enterprises with hot kitchen more frequently are more critical and less satisfied, in spite of this, they are reluctant to part from their regular places.
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Importance and impact of guest satisfaction
31-37Views:503The service quality can be measured by the consumers’ satisfaction. Researchers assume that high quality satisfies the guests and satisfaction may increase their loyalty. The main goal of this article is to measure guest satisfaction and prove its positive impacts on Hungarian hotels’ performance. A comprehensive survey was made on the Hungarian wellness hotels in October 2012; the primary aim was to provide them suggestions to improve their quality on the base of guests’ feedback. A self-administered questionnaire were compiled and sent back by 815 respondents. The investigation examined the quality awareness, quality perception, guest satisfaction and the following behavioral intentions of domestic guests of spa hotels. It can be concluded that domestic guests are generally satisfied with the quality of services offered by Hungarian spa hotels. The message of this research is for hotel managers that the increase of guest satisfaction can be reached by the improvement of service quality, and not only with price discounts. It has been demonstrated that satisfaction is closely related to their willingness to return to the hotel, so it is an essential condition of loyalty.
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The role of emotions and perceived control in the recovery strategy of service companies
65-68Views:139The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of service recovery tactics. The reseach included a qualitative study based on 30 interviews with customers and employees of a telecommunication company. This was followed by a quantitative study using between subject experimental designs based on scenarios. Our research results suggest that employees’ positive emotions and perceived control during the recovery process make consumers more satisfied.
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Green networks: Innovative capacity of SMEs in the Dutch greenhouse horticulture industry
43-50Views:169The Dutch greenhouse horticulture industry is characterized by world leadership in high-tech innovation. The dynamics of this playing field are innovation in production systems and automation, reduction in energy consumption and sharing limited space. However, international competitive advantage of the industry is under pressure and sustainable growth of individual enterprises is no longer a certainty. The sector’s ambition is to innovate better and grow faster than the competition in the rest of the world. Realizing this ambition requires strengthening the knowledge base, stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation (not just technological, but especially business process innovation). It also requires educating and professionalizing people. However, knowledge transfer in this industry is often fragmented and innovation through horizontal and vertical collaboration throughout the value chain is limited. This paper focuses on the question: how can the grower and the supplier in the greenhouse horticulture chain gain competitive advantage through radical product and process innovation. The challenge lies in time- to-market, in customer relationship, in developing new product/market combinations and in innovative entrepreneurship. In this paper an innovation and entrepreneurial educational and research programme is introduced. The programme aims at strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration between enterprise, education and research. Using best practice examples, the paper illustrates how companies can realize growth and improve the innovative capacity of the organization as well as the individual by linking economic and social sustainability. The paper continues to show how participants of the program develop competencies by means of going through a learning cycle of single-loop, double-loop and triple loop learning: reduction of mistakes, change towards new concepts and improvement of the ability to learn. Finally, the paper illustrates the importance of combining enterprise, education and research in regional networks, with examples from the greenhouse horticulture sector. These networks generate economic growth and international competitiveness by acting as business accelerators.
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Members of a supply chain and their relationships
131-134Views:242Today, companies do not compete individually on the market, but as members of a supply chain, delivering their goods or services to customers through shared collaboration. The main objective of the members in the chain is to satisfy customer needs, in the interest of which they cooperate in value adding processes. The main objective of the present study is to characterise the members of a supply chain, their relationship and to measure performance. The most relevant literature published on this topic states that investigation of the performance measurement in supply chains from the side of relationships is considered ‘uncharted territory’. However, the operation of a supply chain cannot be described without investigating its relationships.
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Strategy for the restaurant business in Russia in terms of sanctions and import substitution
71-80Views:183This article describes the situation established in August 2014 in Russia. The article considers an example of a famous restaurant «Metropol» (Moscow), taking into account the prevailing situation in Russia. The study of customer attendance, assortment and price policy towards the main products forming the restaurant’s menu was conducted. As a result, recommendations were given, in order to preserve the client base and revise the assortment of dishes.
JEL CODE: M21
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The analysis of agro-economic effects of household food wastage through the example of bread
9-18Views:244In our busy world, where numerous people starve and where the resources are restricted, it is a key issue to pay particular attention to the topic of prevention and decrease of food loss as well as food wastage.Wastage of food produced and delivered to the end user (customer) is an issue arising globally and nationally as well, which results in efficiency loss at economic level in any case. While the FAO study mentions food waste of the order of 1.3 billion tonnes on a world scale, then the annual quantity of food waste in Hungary is estimated at about 1.8 million tonnes, which contains the waste of every member of the chain from production to consumption. On the basis of the data published by the Hungarian Food Bank (2015), the amount of food waste caused by the population is 400 000 tonnes. In compliance with our objectives, inputs – expressed by non-financial and financial indicators – emerge during production are assigned to the quantity of wasted food. Applying the aforementioned method we would like to make customers realize how many resources (land, water, artificial fertilizer, pesticide, seed and gasoil) are utilized needlessly in food verticum by the end products – at present by different breads they throw out. As our calculations prove by 10% waste of breads the utilization of 5 300 hectares of wheat land and 660 hectares of rye land can be considered unnecessary. By 10% waste of breads the financial value of the utilized resources is altogether 3.25 million EUR. Out of this the financial value of utilized artificial fertilizer is 1.10 million EUR (34%), of utilized pesticide is 1.15 million EUR (35%), of utilized gasoil is 0.70 million EUR (22%) and of utilized seed is 0.30 million EUR (9%). Among different breads, white bread is purchased in the greatest volume by the Hungarian households, from which 121 900 tonnes are bought annually on an average. This quantity is equal to almost the 40% of the annual bread sell. If 10% of purchased white bread is thrown out, it results in useless utilization of 2 676 hectares of wheat land in food verticum. The quantity of utilized water arising form wastage is 15.8 million m3. Further losses emerge as regards material inputs: artificial fertilizer- to the value of 0.50 million EUR, pesticide- to the value of 0.58 million EUR, seed to the value of 0.15 million EUR and gasoil-loss to the value of circa 0.35 million EUR. Totally, material input to the value of 1.58 million EUR is owing to the Hungarian households in case of 10% white bread wastage.
JEL code: Q53
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The effect of logistic controlling on business processes
107-111Views:156The increase in the significance of logistics can be attributed to two major reasons: the increasing cost sensitivity of companies and the necessity for the higher fulfilment of customer needs. Logistic controlling is a tool of management used to coordinate logistic activities and to reach logistic managerial decisions by providing information through the analysis of the system. The up-to-date and precise information that can be gained from the logistic controlling system helps the management in the preparation of decisions, and the adaptation to environmental conditions. With these activities, logistic controlling makes the enterprises more efficient and successful. Taking the above into consideration, I carried out a survey on why commercial entities decided on the introduction and application of a logistic controlling system, what conditions are necessary for the introduction of a logistic controlling system, and what experiences the users gained by the application. Positive effects of logistic controlling were proved on operations, and the introduction and application of logistic controlling were analysed.
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Establishment of the Customer Perspective of the Balanced Scorecard System at Sports Enterprises Through the Example of a Hungarian Football Club
5-16Views:811In our present world, more and more attention is being paid to the evaluation and monitoring of different sports organizations, which is because the support of spectator sports has become an important issue. Our fundamental assumption is that football clubs of our time should operate just like large companies in the business sectors. Obviously, it is an essential prerequisite that controlling, a controlling system or a performance measurement system be applied at the business entities operating the clubs. According to our experience, conscious financing of organizations is often neglected in the course of the management processes of sports companies. It is necessary to create the conditions at these organizations that enable managerial decision support and the establishment of a controlling system. It is essential to find controlling methods and tools that can be successfully applied in the life of a sports organization and that ensure the harmonization and coordination of different processes. Consequently, controlling provides a higher level of transparency and information supply for decision makers. The aim of present study is to introduce the Balanced Scorecard (The Balanced Scorecard is a balanced strategic system of indexes, which measures the performance of companies for the sake of implementing the strategy), one of the tools of strategic controlling and its application to sports companies through an example of a Hungarian football club.
JEL Classification: Z23
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The analysis of costumer satisfaction in recreational tourism
57-61Views:235Due to increased health awareness and the growing amount of assistance to boost it, health tourism research has gained significance in our days. The present study focuses on the analysis of customer needs for recreational tourism and their habits; moreover, it interviews the guests of 15 Hungarian wellness hotels through a questionnaire survey. Next we attempt to explore the rate of guest satisfaction with healthpreservation services. The study presents the findings of this research activity until now, whereas the results of further data processing will be published in the future.
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Segmenting Hungarian people based on healthy eating
65-72Views:279Relying on customer trends healthy eating, which is one aspect of healthy lifestyle is becoming more and more popular. The aim of this study was to understand the healthy eating style of Hungarian adult consumers. An online empirical research with a sample of 1563 respondents (58.7% females and 41.3% males) was conducted in November 2018. Considering healthy eating two factors, namely the choice of healthy foods and the avoidance of unhealthy foods could be distinguished. A hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted to segment consumers. Four groups of consumers were identified: unhealthy food avoiders (20.3%), rejecters (11.8%), neutrals (26.2%) and healthy food choosers (14.7%). Unhealthy food avoiders are seniors. Rejecters are blue collar workers and have financial problems. Healthy food choosers live in families with children over 10 and do not have weight problems. This study is useful for the health sector and the government since targeted marketing programs can be planned to change eating behavior. To decrease overweight and obesity is the goal of all society, especially in developed countries. To increase the well-being of people and their quality of life educating social marketing campaigns are necessary with the aim of raising their awareness and explaining the basic principles of a healthy diet.
JEL Classification: 112, M30, M39
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