Obtaining External Motivation from Strangers: A Study on Customer-to-Customer Interaction in Gymnasiums

Many government-owned gyms in Taiwan consider coaches’ conflicts of interest and often the communication between customers is not encouraged. However, from the perspective of gym users, exercisers have expectations for interaction. Through a service design case study, the research explored how the customer-to-customer interaction service in the gymnasium can fulfill users’ needs and have a positive impact on the atmosphere of the gyms. The objectives of this research are as follows. (1) To propose digital and physical on-site services that help initiate the interaction between strange customers smoothly, and services that continue the connection between strange customers after exercise. (2) From the perspective of social exchange theory, to review the case and propose service suggestions that promote positive customer-to-customer interaction services. There are three findings in this research: (1) When providing customer-to-customer interaction service, gyms need to consider the familiarity of customers and help customers to establish trust relationships; (2) Services that trigger internal motivation of exercisers to interact helps to maintain a long-term and positive cycle of customer-to-customer interaction services in gyms; (3) Providing a medium to trigger interaction and heating an interactive atmosphere help to improve the quality of customer-to-customer interaction service.