Customers as partial employees: The influences of satisfaction and commitment on customer citizenship behavior in fitness centers

Customer citizenship behavior is a kind of customers’ spontaneous behaviors that are not necessary for successful delivery of services, but nonetheless assists the services of the organization. Organizations may, therefore, benefit from different kinds of customer citizenship behaviors (i.e., feedback, advocacy, helping, and tolerance) during the service delivery process. To understand customer citizenship behavior in the context of the fitness center, the purpose of this study was to examine the influences of satisfaction and commitment on customer citizenship behavior. The results revealed that customer satisfaction positively led to customer citizenship behaviors of feedback, advocacy, helping but showed insignificant influence on tolerance. Moreover, customer commitment also had a positive influence on all customer citizenship behaviors. Lastly, customer satisfaction was positively related to customer commitment. The findings of the current study contribute to the field’s understanding of customer’s role during the service process in fitness centers and provide insightful implications for fitness center managers.