Customer satisfaction in Turku Dansart ry

Abstract

Turku Dansart ry is a non-profit organisation established in 2001 offering dance education to dance professionals. The mission of Dansart is to offer quality weekly dance training classes for qualified professionals, consisting of dancers, dance teachers and performing artists in the Turku area.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how satisfied dance professionals in the Turku region are with Turku Dansart. The study was conducted using a quantitative research approach. The data collection was carried out in June 2014 by means of a questionnaire that was implemented as an online survey. A link to the questionnaire was distributed by email and posted also on Turku Dansart’s Facebook site. The data was analysed using SPSS Statistics 22.

The target group of this research consists of dance professionals of the Turku region. The demographic profile of the customer was defined by obtaining information on variables which included age, sex, place of residence, employment status and education. The membership status, frequency of class participation, preferences on the class contents and class timetable preferences were also under examination. The respondents were also asked to evaluate several claims in order to determine how satisfied they were with Turku Dansart in specific areas. Respondent’s feelings on issues such as quality of teaching and diversity of class selection, pricing, locations and communication were measured by a set of claims using a Likert scale.

The results of the research indicate that the typical customer of Turku Dansart is a woman in her thirties who lives in Turku. She has studied for a dance-related qualification at secondary vocational school or a university of applied sciences. She is working as a dance teacher and/or freelancer. She participates in classes occasionally, but due to irregular working hours has difficulty in arranging to come to class more often. Her overall satisfaction with Dansart is good, but she wishes that there was some diversity in the normal weekly class offerings.

Though the general satisfaction level was good, improvements are required in some areas. Turku Dansart should set up a webpage to enhance communication efforts and ease the class enrolment procedure. Marketing should also be targeted at students and recent graduates more effectively. Some variation in the class offering in terms of days and class contents should be offered, as the dance professionals have a variety of preferences and irregular working hours. The results of this research will be used in Turku Dansart’s future development.