Service Quality In Higher Education Essay

3024 Words7 Pages

At present, service industries are the major contributors in the economy of many nations. Various studies have been conducted on service quality in different service industries, however studies on service quality in higher education sector is relatively new as compared to other service industries especially in Indian context. Senthilkumar & Arulraj, (2010) proposed that among all service sectors, the education sector, particularly the higher education system, has direct bearing on society for society’s growth and socio-economic development. The study of service quality in higher education is essential to the institutions to provide information on the effectiveness of education plans and improvement programs (Cardona, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework of service quality in higher education. Apart from the conceptual view, this paper also attempts to briefly describe the role of marketing in higher education.
Keywords: Service quality, Higher education, marketing

1. Introduction:
In today’s world, where intense competitive environment is existing everywhere, globalization acts as a boon for trade, commerce and service industry, on the other hand it also results in lots of challenges that has to be tackle carefully to survive in highly competitive market. The positive aspect of globalization is that it creates a marketplace where only the best provider of the service would survive (Jain et al, 2011). It is no secret that higher education is more competitive than ever. There is a growing competition between higher education service providers since the market is increasingly privatized (Stimac and Simic, 2012). The most competitive institutions frantically try to climb over one another to be the ...

... middle of paper ...

...tudies revealed that demographic factors are generally important in the evaluation of service quality. Understanding of the role of demographic variables can guide marketers of higher education to consider more demographic-based segmentation approach and differentiating the services in line with the nature of individual demographic groups (Min & Khoon, 2013). Studies on service quality in higher education revealed that students are the primary customers of higher education; therefore it is highly imperative that the services delivered should be evaluated from students’ perspectives rather than education institute’s own perspective. It is imperative for higher education institutions to understand the various dimensions of service quality and the need of continuous improvement in service quality for achieving sustainable development along with a competitive advantage.

Open Document