Studying the Promotion of Quality Level of Services in Academic Sport Facilities via KANO- QFD (Case Study: Academic Sport Places and Facilities at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University)

The aim of the present study was to use KANO-QFD to investigate the promotion of the quality level of services of academic sport facilities and places at Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University from the students' perspective. In the first stage of this descriptive study, 256 students answered the 22-item SERVQUAL standard questionnaire (Parasuraman et al, 1985) aiming at detecting the lack of service quality of academic sport facilities and places. In the second stage, 240 students completed the Kano questionnaire to identify and categorize their needs. Finally, following the QFD house quality model formation, the house quality relationships matrix was formed and the technical features were defined. The results showed negative gap in all five dimensions of sports facility services quality at the university. Moreover, 10 basic needs as the voice of customer were entered to the QFD house quality model matrix and 12 technical features were extracted to improve them. It can conclude that the lack of proper planning and human resources weakness in offering services were the most common issues of athletic facilities and places of the university. Close contacts with students, question and answer sessions to detect their needs, more budget allocation to student's sports activities, and also recruitment of more expert human resources are the most essential strategies to promote service quality of academic sport facilities and places at the university.