Using expectation to segment Taiwan professional baseball spectator

This thesis comprises two stages that empirically investigate and evaluate the perceptions and importance of service elements expectations of professional baseball spectator in Taiwan. Study I is designed to collect the perception of spectators service elements expectations focus groups meetings, which also help the research to develop an appropriate research instrument for the evaluation of the importance of service elements expectations to Taiwan professional baseball spectators. Study II collected 1020 questionnaire survey samples and used cluster analysis approach to segment TPB spectators into six meaningful groups by service elements expectations. The thesis concludes that, firstly, the successful use of expectation to segment spectators proves the potential of expectation as a typology with which to categorise customers. Secondly, TPB spectators with different levels of team identification failed to have great differences in their service expectations, even though two service factors ( subsidiary services and social and educational services ) were evaluated as less important by respondents, they were still evaluated that six service expectation factors are all important to them. Finally, this study provided a different angle for sports organisers to consider, and an outline for assisting managers design service packages that are highly responsive to the target market.