Managing students' loyalty to school after graduation through relationship marketing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider customer expectation, perceived service performance and customer satisfaction as issues of total quality management (TQM) in relationship marketing, and examines how these relate to students' anticipated loyalty to college after graduation. Design/methodology/approach It is a survey research. Participants are 467 college students of 18 years and above, in the USA. Standardized instruments are used for data collection. Findings Standard multiple regression analyses results show that customer satisfaction, expectation and perceived service performance jointly predict anticipated loyalty. The predictor variables correlate among themselves. Among seven services studied, academic and recreational/social services are the most important predictors of students' anticipated loyalty. Research limitations/implications School administrators should closely assess students' expectations on academic and recreational/social services with the aim of improving school services. This could encourage students' loyalty to the school after graduation. This paper is conducted among undergraduate students only, and from just one institution; these limit the generalizability of the paper. Practical implications Customer expectations, perceived service performance and students' satisfaction serve as issues of TQM in school organisations. Originality/value Students are customers of school services, and research on TQM could be extended to the school setting.