ENTREVISTAS Entrevistado #1: Lic Daniel Rodríguez (29 años)

Zeithaml et al’s (1985) IHIP model assumes that, unlike the production of goods, the production of services is inseparable to the consumption of the service; goods can be produced separately in advance of the customer’s consumption unlike services. The assumption, therefore, is for services to try and create some kind of separation; producing as much of the service experience in the ‘back office’ prior to customer demand. However, similarly to the critique of standardisation (above), this creates the risk of not customizing the service to the customer’s precise demand. Perhaps inseparability, like heterogeneity, provides a positive differentiator between service- and good-based organisations. By keeping the service supply and demand close together, service providers can try and ensure a high level of value is co-created with the customer.

This has also been supported by Gummesson (2007) who states that whilst a service supplier offers a value proposition, the value actualisation occurs only during the usage and consumption process. Thus, the actual value is the outcome of co-creation between suppliers and customers. Further, the inseparable nature of production and consumption in services provides an opportunity for organisations to develop relationships with their customers, and to personalise their service experience in order to co-create value with their customers.

It has been found that for services with a high degree of contact (such as fitness clubs), relational benefits and relationship building activities are considered to be the most important aspects of their service experience (Kinard & Capella, 2006).

However, in relation to fitness clubs, there are two issues; firstly, how much control fitness clubs can have over co-creation and secondly, whether indeed there is such inseparability. Regarding control over co-creation, this arises due to the fact that fitness clubs can be considered part of the ‘rental/access paradigm’ of services (Lovelock & Gummesson, 2004), meaning that the service provided to members is merely access which the customer subscribes to, paying monthly/annual costs regardless of their use of such access. Paid memberships, as in the case of fitness club memberships, allow exclusive access to the organisation’s services or goods (access to a fitness club’s facilities) (Bhattacharya, 1998). In essence, fitness club members subscribe to a service which, within their contractual stipulations, they can use as much or as little as desired.

Whilst there has been much literature in relation to subscription services, this has mainly been in relation to information technology and telecommunications services (Iyengar, Jedidi, Esseghaier & Danaher, 2011) or entertainment rentals (Randhawa & Kumar, 2008) but the fitness industry has received no such interest, other than being recognised as a ‘paradox’ (Ferrand, Robinson & Valette-Florence, 2010), in that by encouraging usage of a fitness club there is a risk of encouraging overcrowding. Whilst helping members to achieve ‘good value for money’ may help to retain them to the club, this could also cause disgruntlement and perhaps attrition if, upon usage, the fitness club is too crowded.

Fitness clubs have little control over how members’ levels of value are co-created. This relates to the concept of ‘congestion’ which, in service industries is “an unavoidable reality” (Cachon & Feldman, 2008). However, unlike other services, fitness clubs can’t simply try and ‘serve quicker’. When a member enters the club, the time of their usage is unknown and controlled mainly by the member. Fitness clubs have little control over how often members will use the club, making it difficult to plan interactions and build relationships with members; how can fitness clubs build relationships with members who are not attending?

Further to this issue of control, even members who use the club on a frequent basis can easily bypass the relational aspects of a club, by choosing not to engage with staff and other club members, hence reducing the scope for more value to be created through interaction and rapport. In essence, fitness club members may co-create value not with club personnel, but directly with usage of the physical equipment.

During the service experience within fitness clubs, the potential for interpersonal contact is easily avoidable by members who instead create their service experience with tangible goods; fitness equipment, spa facilities etc., choosing only to have any interpersonal contact if and when they require it. The premise of ‘co-creation’ is difficult in fitness clubs; this assumes that customers will also be co-creating value with employees. However, members often create value (solely) during their interactions with the physical facilities. Regardless of the quality of the facilities, training of the employees or pleasantness of the environment, the value which members receive is ultimately their responsibility regarding how they create the value (with staff or with the facilities). This notion is supported by Lengnick-Hall, Claycomb and Inks (2000) who found that customers can influence their received outcomes, hence causing service outputs to vary depending on what outcome the customer has ‘created’ for themselves.

The second issue, relating to inseparability, is that it can be argued that the co-creation of value is separate. In goods-based industries, the manufacturers usually have the initial outlay of cost through the manufacturing goods ahead, and in the hope of, customer purchase. In many services, customers pay and, at the same time as payment, service is both produced and received. However, in fitness clubs due to the subscription nature of the service, members (not the provider) also have an initial outlay of cost, after which the issue is not so much about co-creation of value, but how to regain value and compensate for the costs paid out.