Determine Level of Satisfaction Based on Gender

Question: Discuss about the Determine Level of Satisfaction Based on Gender. Answer: Introduction A gym survey was conducted to determine the customer satisfaction based on whether they need gyms to be unisex or not. According to Lewis (2016), firms that want to expand and make profit in the present and in future are likely to appreciate customer service is a vital part of their strategic plan. The way a company handles its customers on a day to day basis be it physically or online is all within the domain of customer service. DeSmet, McGurk, and Schwartz (2010) postulate that in one study on customer service companies globally to train its workers on customer care spend over $ 100 billion. This overwhelming high amount of expenditure only goes to suggest that studying customer relations is important as any other discipline in business. The current survey therefore sorts to investigate whether the customers thought that gyms should be made unisex. This was hypothesized as one of the characteristics or requirements that customers hoped to derive from the gym they attend. Related Literature As observed by Newhall (2013), the assumption regarding undivided availability, data reveals that women use gyms more often than men do. There is little or no research done to address women specific needs for gym space and the likely challenges they face in an endeavor to access space. The study aimed at addressing the socio cultural, availability of women spaces such as aerobics room or weight room based on gender as opposed to the general room policy. Specifically, the study addressed women spaces in a gym and the gym procedures implemented in three different gyms in the United States. She observed that women understood the entire gender disparity in terms of what drives individuals to access gym facilities and their choice of exercise or fitness equipment routines in addition to movement of women inside the gym and what it says about a womans body. Considering from the past as back as the medieval Greece era when gymnasia was a male domain, this presumption has done little to chan ge the current mindset. Gender dispensation has not changed much historically since the early times. During the time, gyms were meant for building muscles and developing a culturally ideal physique and were exclusively used by men. However, she notes that the current gyms are multi-purpose facilities used by both men and women and are perceived as unisex since the facilities are not established with gender exclusivity in mind. Ostgaard (2006) observes that women only gyms have grown considerably over recent years globally and in particular in the United States. For instance, Curves International has over 8,000 locations worldwide with over 3.5 million members whereas Contours Express has over 300 gyms in the US and close to 500 globally. However ,the significance of these women spaces is still not defined. The studies reviewed above sought to determine the relevance and need for women exclusive gyms. It is observed that women prefer their own exclusive gyms but it is not clear the reason for this. An Analysis of the Relationship between Gender and Whether Gym Should be Unisex To determine the relationship between gender and as to whether gyms should be made unisex, a chi-square test was performed. This is a non parametric test that seeks to determine the variation between two categorical variables by analyzing the observed responses against the expected values. Ideally, the data to be tested is qualitative in nature. The first analysis was to run some descriptive to analyze the frequencies from both genders on the question under review. This was done by running a contingency table to identify the frequencies of the responses as shown in figure 1 below. According to the preliminary analysis above the overall response rate was 56% said they did not want gyms to be unisex while 44% said they would. Of the 44% who said they would like gyms to be unisex, 25 women said they would want unisex gyms while 19 men opined they would like unisex gyms. Of the 56% total respondent who felt gyms should not be unisex, more men (43) than women (13) responded in the negative. However, on close examination, it was noted that men formed a higher percentage of the respondents at 62 males against an observation of 38 women. Therefore, cross tabulation to determine the expected and observed values was performed as shown in figure 2 below. Under the null hypothesis, it is expected that the differences between the observed values and expected values to be zero. That is, there is no difference between the expected values and the observed values. The question therefore is; are there more women than men that prefer unisex gyms? This formed the research or alte rnative hypothesis. The cross tabulations revealed that there was some variation between the expected values for males and females. The observed value for men who said yes was 19 while the expected was 27.28. For women the observed was 25 while the expected was 16.72 of those who said yes. On further analysis, as figure 2 above illustrates, the chi-square (x2) test revealed a statistic of 11.81 that was associated with a p value of 0.0006. Since the p value was less than 0.01 the decision was to reject the null hypothesis (x2 = 11.81, df = 1, p .01). It was therefore concluded that that is statistical evidence of infer that women do in fact prefer same sex gyms than men. Managerial Advice It is evident from the analysis that customers prefer same sex gyms. In particular a higher percentage of women have been seen to not to advocate for unisex gyms. The reviewed literature too revealed that women do not prefer unisex gyms. Based on these findings, the management was advised conduct another survey to determine which other aspects could be explored to enhance customer satisfaction in relation to gender sensitivity concerns. This was done by inquiring whether respondents would like exercise facilities be divided into different sections in terms of gender to cater for special needs especially for women. Analysis of the Proposed Alteration of Gym space to cater for gender specific needs A survey was carried out to determine whether customers preferred amenities geared towards addressing special gender based needs such as aerobics room and lounge area to enhance customer service. Figure 3 above revealed that at 90% confidence level that the proposed change would be supported by 90.2% 1.5% margin of error. In other words, we can be 90% confident that the number of customers that will support inclusion of special gender based facilities would be between 91.7% and 88.7%. Conclusion Previous research and the current study have provided evidence that unisex gyms are not ideal. The study has revealed mixed reaction concerning the issue of unisex gyms. Although men and women may have different opinions as to why they prefer same sex gyms or exclusive areas for the same gender, this debate is far from being conclusive. However, for the benefit of promoting better customer relations and in turn enhances customer satisfaction, the issues of exclusivity of gyms based on gender have been found to play a vital role. It is therefore felt that the management should constantly seek the opinion of its customers to determine areas that need improvement in terms of service delivery. References Aaron, D., McGurk, M. and Schwartz, E. (2010) Getting more from your training programs, Mckinsey Quarterly, 4, pp. 101107. Lewis, S. (2016) An online customer service survey to determine current levels of customer satisfaction at a CrossFit gym,All Graduate Plan B and other Reports., (Paper 243). Newhall, K.E. (2013)Is this working out?: a spatial analysis of women in the gym. PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis thesis. University of Iowa. Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2594 (Accessed: 25 January 2017). Ostgaard, G. (2006) For Women Only: Understanding The Cultural Space of a Women Gym through Feminist Geography, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/send - pdf.cgi/Ostgaard%20Gayra%20 Dee.pdf?bgsu1155218461