Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2009 355 Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. The quality of the relationships between fitness centres and their customers Pinelopi Athanassopoulou University of Peloponnese 5 G. Ritsou str., Nea Erithraia 14671 Athens, Greece E-mail: athanapi@uop.gr John Mylonakis* 10 Nikiforou Str., Glyfada 166 75 Athens, Greece E-mail: imylonakis@panafonet.gr *Corresponding author Abstract: Customer retention and loyalty has become possible through the development of long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with customers, especially in services, due to their intangibility. The paper reviews the literature on relationship quality and services and presents the findings of a qualitative study in fitness centres offering a multitude of athletic services. The results show that the customers’ relational orientation, the customers’ experience and expertise in athletic services, the similarity of the customer and provider and the relationship duration influence relationship quality in that context. Furthermore, the results show that the relationship quality increases when there is trust and commitment in the relationship, the customers are satisfied both with the service in general and with the different members of the staff they interact with, there are strong social bonds between the provider and the customers and the services are adapted to customer needs. Finally, a high relationship quality leads to higher customer retention and profitability and more positive word-of-mouth communications and references. Keywords: relationships; relationship quality; relationship marketing; athletic services; fitness centres. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Athanassopoulou, P. and Mylonakis, J. (2009) ‘The quality of the relationships between fitness centres and their customers’, Int. J. Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp.355–366. Biographical notes: Dr. Pinelopi Athanasopoulou is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Marketing at the Sports Management Department of the University of Peloponnese and a Tutor of Marketing at the Hellenic Open University, Greece. She holds a PhD in Marketing from the City University, an MBA from the Manchester Business School, the UK, and a BA in Business Administration from the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. She has worked for many years in the banking sector and for multinational companies. She is the author of several academic papers and has participated in many conferences. Her research interests include new service development, relationship marketing and branding.