Customers' views of the results of managing quality through ISO 9002 and Investors in People in leisure services

Many UK local authorities manage the quality of their leisure services through ISO 9002, the international quality assurance standard, and Investors in People, the UK standard for people management. However, little is known about the ability of these two standards to affect customer perceptions of service in these contexts. The paper reports primary research that compared customer perceptions of service in cases registered to these different standards. It was found that customers of the IiP registered cases scored these leisure facilities more highly as compared to customers of the ISO 9002 registered cases. This was true both for employee related service elements and for the tangibles and processes which are the focus of ISO 9002.