The Importance of the Services Brand in Predicting Loyalty and Word of Mouth

Abstract

This research is related to brand perception and its implications for the management of services, especially for hedonic services. The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of perceived brand quality on credibility and attitudes towards this perceived quality from the point of view of users, as well as whether that relationship could trigger increased loyalty and recommendations. The survey was conducted with usersof a public sports service located in Valencia, Spain, and the analysis of the data and the creation of the structural model was carried out using structural equation modeling (SEM). Its results have confirmed the influence of perceived quality on credibility but not on attitudes. On the other hand, the effectsof credibility and attitudes on loyalty have been significant because of the influence of credibility on recommendations and attitudes. Conversely, attitudes have not had a direct influence on the word of mouth (WOM).This type of study, represent a novel contribution, because the studies of brand perception in sports services arepractically non-existent, especially in the case of public sports services. In addition, the fact of using this type of methodologyis in line with the most current works. Therefore, it supposes to contribute relevant information to the bibliography of this topic, and at the same time,it provides valuable information for managers, because if they have more information about how the variables are related and to what extent they do it, they will have more and better tools to be able to manage sports services more effectively and with less expenditure of resources, being able to plan more precisely the actionsthatthey consider appropriate.