Provide good service quality to satisfy students' needs and make them become loyal students

Abstract

This research studies the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty within the higher education service. Knowing student expectation is insufficient, it is important to reduce the gap between expectation and the service actually rendered by higher education institutions. Identify the gaps for improvement. More specifically; i) to examine the cognitive and affective aspects of students' satisfaction and ii) to investigate crucial antecedents of satisfaction that lead to loyalty. From the 329 responses obtained from students in the public university in Malaysia, study found that the relationship between student satisfaction and student loyalty was only partially supported. Perceived benefits of the course, feedback and assessment, physical environment and emotional factors all play an important role in influencing positive word of mouth, willingness to pay more and switching behavior. The study has shown relationship among variables that contribute to satisfaction and loyalty. Higher educational institutions could consider these factors as indicators or pointers which would offer an added advantage to providing standards of service quality to satisfy students' needs and make them become loyal students.