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TQM
21,5 Managing students loyalty to
school after graduation through
relationship marketing
502
Benjamin Osayawe Ehigie
Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, and
Megan Taylor
Department of Psychology, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract
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.
Keywords Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty, Customer services quality, Service levels, Students,
Relationship marketing
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
With increasing cost in managing higher educational institutions, it has become
imperative for institutional management to spur alumni members support. Alumni
members could support with finances, as well as in other areas that help to promote the
image of the school. All such acts demonstrate loyalty to the school after graduation, in
the same way as customers show loyalty to favoured products.

Students as customers
The whole idea of students as customers started in the mid-1980s when the total
The TQM Journal quality management (TQM) movement was introduced in the business world. Some
Vol. 21 No. 5, 2009
pp. 502-516 contemporary academicians consider this idea as absurd and believe strongly that
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1754-2731
DOI 10.1108/17542730910983416 This research was sponsored with grants from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA.
education is a unique experience that is different from the ideal customer experience. Managing
Although scholars agree that the school is a service organisation, there has been much students
hullabaloo on whether or not students are customers. Brennan and Bennington (1999)
present a number of reasons why a student is not a customer. Those who advocated loyalty
that students are customers believe that students and their parents pay the tuition, and
have a wide range of choices to choose from in attending colleges (Bagley and Foxman,
2003; Deming, 2002). Students shop around for a suitable university (Kemp, 1998) 503
and full-fee paying students expect to be treated like customers, and to receive
high-quality service (Qinglin, 1999). When students make the decision to attend a
college, they expect added value for their payments (DETYA, 1999). Qinglin reported
that education has been treated as an industry but students are yet to be treated as
customers.

Customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is the feeling of attachment, affection, or commitment to a service
provider (Berkman et al., 1997). It is the bias for a particular product brand and
commitment to it (Oliver, 1999). A loyal customer is one that will stay with the same
service provider, is likely to engage in positive word-of-mouth communication,
recommend the product and influence decision behaviour of friends and family
members (Fisher, 2001).
In the business world, customers are the greatest assets and the purpose of any
business is to create and keep customers (Ehigie, 2006). Owing to intense competitions
among organisations, the concern for loyalty of customers has increased. Evidence
abound showing relationships between customer loyalty and organization profitability
(Duncan and Elliot, 2002), organizational continuity and stability (Payne and Rickard,
1997). The essence of TQM in marketing is to enhance customer loyalty. But there are
different loyalty strategies for different industries (Sorce, 2002). Invariably, most of
the behaviours used to describe loyalty with other services may not be appropriate
for the education industry.
Student loyalty to school after graduation is different from mere customer loyalty to
a product. It includes such activities like providing current students with job-related
information, providing internships for current students, hosting a reception to discuss
alma mater with prospective students, keeping other graduates connected to the
schools alumni, assisting with raising funds for the school, attending sporting
competitions that involve the schools team, attending alumni meetings, reading and/or
listening to news about the school, and other related behaviours. Loyal students also
disseminate positive information about the school to prospective students and donors
(Fisher, 2001) and engage in activities that could promote the image of the school.

Relationship marketing
Contemporary researchers in marketing (Day, 2000; Gilbert and Choi, 2003) have
advocated for relationship marketing (RM) as a better option to foster customer loyalty.
Morgan and Hunt (1994) define RM as all marketing activities directed towards
establishing, developing and maintaining successful relational exchanges. It is
building a unique company asset, called a marketing network, which consists of a
company and all its supporting stakeholders. In the education industry, RM involves
building an enduring relationship network with the schools graduates.
TQM RM is based on the premise that maintaining good relationship with customers is
21,5 essential for business continuity. Business begins and ends with customers; it begins
with identifying consumers needs and ends with satisfying them (Ehigie, 2006). RM is
centred on understanding and satisfying consumer needs (Bendapudi and Berry, 1997).
Nonetheless, RM is not being implemented carefully (Gilbert and Choi, 2003), probably
due to poor customer relationship management.
504 Customer relationship management is the processes implemented by a company to
handle its contact with its customers. It is, thus, a marketing management strategy that
could help to foster alumni relations with their alma mater, and this is believed to be
achievable through enhanced service quality for students, leading to customer
satisfaction.

Antecedents of customer loyalty

It is opined that customer loyalty is enhanced where service providers understand their
customers expectations, service performance perception and satisfaction ( Jones and
Farquhar, 2003). These three variables are considered in the present study as possible
antecedents of customer loyalty. A customer-oriented organization desires to satisfy its
customers. Customer satisfaction is a feeling of contentment that arises from an actual
experience, in relation to an expected experience (Hernon and Whitman, 2001). The
comparison standard (CS) paradigm posits that customer satisfaction is a function of
the difference between customer expectations and perceived service performance
(Oliver, 1997). Similarly, the Gaps model (Disend, 1991) explains that poor service
results from gap between expectations and product performance.
What makes customers satisfied are different from what makes them dissatisfied
with products, and these are, respectively, named satisfiers and dissatisfiers
( Johnston, 1995). According to Johnston, enhancing attributes or satisfiers may
create high levels of satisfaction when delivered effectively, but their absence may
have little impact on dissatisfaction. The maintenance attributes (Anderson and
Mittal, 2000) (sometimes called hygiene factors or dissatisfiers) may create
dissatisfaction when not delivered, but have little impact on satisfaction.
Many outcome variables, like customer loyalty, have been attributed to customer
satisfaction. Fornell et al. (2006), for instance, provided an extensive list of published
research which found a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and
loyalty. Though the interaction between customer satisfaction and loyalty is well
researched, it is complex (Oliver, 1999) and hard to define (Oliver, 1999), as the
relationship is neither linear nor simple (Jones and Sasser, 1995). Customer satisfaction
is at the centre of a chain of relationships, extending from the antecedents of customer
satisfaction (perceived quality and customer expectations) to the consequences of
customer satisfaction (loyalty) (Fornell and Johnson, 1996).
Some studies have shown that customer satisfaction is a leading factor in
determining loyalty (Anderson and Fornell, 1994), while others (Fisher, 2001) see it as
only part of the antecedents of loyalty. Garbarino and Johnson (1999) reveal that
customer satisfaction is only a necessary but not a sufficient precondition for customer
loyalty. Despite, the large body of literature available on satisfaction research, only a
few focused directly on customer satisfaction among students as customers.
Hernon and Nitecki (2001) believe that customer satisfaction is worth studying as a
framework for evaluating library services. Rodski Behavioural Research Group (2003),
thus, conducted a survey on students satisfaction with library services only. Guolla Managing
(1999) found that learning is strongly related to course satisfaction. However, literature students
on customer satisfaction in the education industry have not covered the entire services
provided by schools, and have not demonstrated empirically, how students loyalty
satisfaction with school services relates to students loyalty to school after graduation.
Though satisfaction is revealed as a possible antecedent of loyalty, Hennig-Thurau
et al. (2002) identified service performance and customer expectations as other key 505
factors. Some researchers believe that customer satisfaction is influenced by customer
expectations and perceived service performance (Szymanski and Henard, 2001).
Customer expectations are desired wants. It is the extent to which customers believe a
particular attribute is essential for excellent service provision (Delvin et al., 2002).
Customers have expectations regarding what service providers should do and how
they should behave (Patterson, 1993). Peterson et al. (1999) found that most university
students expected to have access to learning support services and quality teaching.
Students valued those mechanisms that clarified the expectations of lecturers and
tutors (Billing, 1998), and preferred enthusiastic teachers who had good presentation
skills, and provided detailed, regular prompt feedback (Mullins et al., 1995). East (2001)
found similar expectations from students.
Customers become disloyal if their expectations are not met by the service provider
(Szymigin and Carrigan, 2001). To ensure loyalty of customers, service providers need
to build a marketing climate that is customer focused (Kish, 2000). Such climate is
established when, among other things, organizations identify customer needs and
design products to meet those needs (Bridgewater, 2001). LeBlanc and Nguyen (1999)
concluded that university management should ensure that students expectations, with
regard to services, are closely examined and analysed so as to set quality standards.
There is, however, dearth of literature on how students expectations from school
services relate to loyalty after graduation.
Achieving customer-perceived service performance is regarded as essential strategy
for the successful provision of overall customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in
todays competitive environment (Parasuraman et al., 1985). Perceived service
performance is defined as freedom from deficiencies, or how reliable the service meets
customer specifications (Johnson and Ettlie, 2001). It is the consumers judgment about
an entitys overall excellence or superiority (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Some researchers
have been concerned about the causal order of perceived service performance and
customer satisfaction (Dabholkar et al., 2000). Recent research has confirmed that
satisfaction is the behavioural consequence of perceived service performance (Gallarza
and Saura, 2006). This assumption is in line with the theoretical perspective that
customer satisfaction is an outcome of consumers favourable evaluations of goods and
services (Liu, 2005). It is necessary to examine how perceived service performance is
related to customer loyalty, specifically in the education industry.
The idea of customer loyalty was initiated in the airline industry (Zahorsky, 2007).
Ever since, studies on customer expectations, service performance perception,
satisfaction and loyalty have been restricted to service organisations like banks,
insurance, hotels and other related settings (Ehigie, 2006; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2002;
Nitecki, 1998). It is not clear how findings from such organisational settings can be
generalized to the education industry. Hernon and Nitecki (2001) see the school
environment as different from the retail sector where service quality has been studied
TQM and findings put in practice. In view of the foregoing, the present study is set out to
21,5 examine how students loyalty to school after graduation would be predicted from their
expectations, perceived service performance, and satisfaction with services received as
students.

Method
506 Design
The study is a correlation research, having the predictor variables as customer
expectation, perceived service performance and satisfaction. The criterion variable is
students anticipated loyalty to college after graduation.

Setting
A Liberal Arts College, listed among the 210 ranked Liberal Arts Colleges: Top
Schools, in the USA (The U.S. News, 2007), was purposively selected. The population
for the study is undergraduate students in USA, and the selected college operates a
four-year academic program.

Participants
The total participants for the main study are 467 students, who are among the 2,015
students at the college campus and are 18 years or older at the time of the study. The
participants comprise 167 males (35.9 per cent) and 298 females (64.1 per cent), with an
average age of 20.06 years (SD 1.74). Freshmen students are 113 (24.2 per cent),
sophomore 144 (30.8), juniors 83 (17.8 per cent), and seniors 127 (27.2 per cent). Whites
are 412 (89.4 per cent), Blacks 10 (2.2 per cent), Hispanics 3 (0.7 per cent), Asian/Pacific
Islanders 15 (3.3 per cent), multiracial 15 (3.3 per cent) and non-residential aliens
6 (1.3 per cent).

Instruments
A questionnaire that was divided into three sections was used. Section I contained
items that measure customer expectations and perceived service performance for seven
services provided by the college for students. These are library, academic, dining,
housing, health, student and recreational/social services. For each of the customer
services studied, customer expectation and perceived service performance were
measured with identical items; drawn from the results of a pilot study conducted.
In measuring customer expectation, participants indicated the extent they expected
the college to provide the service benefits listed for each of the seven service categories.
Responses were low (1), slightly low (2), moderate (3), slightly high (4) or high (5).
Similarly, respondents rated the extent they believe the college is truly providing the
services for students. Responses were on the same five-point Likert format but on a
separate scale sheet. Customer satisfaction was measured as a difference score
(gap score) between customers perceived performance and customer expectation
scores on each service benefit (Johnston, 1995; Kotler and Armstrong, 2004). To obtain
measures for the three independent variables, the total score on all items in each service
category was obtained. Also, the composite score on all the service categories was
obtained for the respective independent variables.
In standardizing the scales, the customer expectation scores were used. The library,
academic, dining, housing, health, student and recreational/social service subscales
have 16, 13, 11, 17, 9, 9 and 11 items, respectively. Item analyses results range between Managing
0.619 and 0.756, 0.551 and 0.701, 0.603 and 0.778, 0.593 and 0.824, 0.700 and 0.883, 0.541 students
and 0.719, and 0.610 and 0.810, respectively. Discriminant validity is 0.71, 0.67, 0.79,
0.85, 0.80, 0.79, and 0.75, respectively. Cronbach alpha is 0.94, 0.91, 0.93, 0.96, 0.95, 0.89, loyalty
and 0.93, respectively. Spearman-Brown coefficient is 0.91, 0.82, 0.89, 0.92, 0.92, 0.93,
and 0.83, respectively.
Section II contained a scale that measured students anticipated loyalty to the college 507
after graduation. There were 11 items that required the students to indicate the possibility
of their getting involved in activities related to the college, after graduation. The activities
included providing current students with job-related information, providing internships
opportunity for current students, hosting a reception to discuss alma mater with
prospective students, participating in an interview program to select prospective students
in ones region, keeping other graduates connected to the schools alumni, assisting with
raising funds for the school, attending sporting competitions that involve the schools
team, attending alumni meetings, reading and/or listening to news about the school and,
other related behaviours. Responses were on a five-point pattern of extremely likely, likely,
undecided, unlikely and extremely unlikely. Item-total correlation ranged between 0.436
and 0.697, Cronbach alpha is 0.87, and Spearman-Brown coefficient is 0.81. Section III had
questions on participants demographic data.

Procedure
Pilot study
The study was conducted in stages. First, students from two classes of introductory
industrial/organisational psychology voluntarily participated in focus group
discussions (FGD) that lasted for about an hour, and credits were awarded for
participation. Each focus group had 6-8 participants that comprised freshmen,
sophomore, junior and senior students. Both genders were represented in each group.
Each session was moderated by an experienced research assistant while another
served as a note-taker. An audio tape recorder was used for recording the discussions.
The student discussants identified services offered by the college for students, and
discussed measures that could be used to evaluate the quality of each of the services
identified. The students also identified features that could be used to describe an
alumnus that is loyal to the college. The open and axial coding techniques of
qualitative data analysis were adopted in reducing the services to seven, and
transcripts were broken down to develop measures for evaluating these services by
categorizing common themes and concepts. The same procedure was adopted for
measures on anticipated loyalty to the college after graduation.
At the second stage, two senior personnel from each unit of the services identified
were interviewed on concepts they believe could be used to evaluate the services their
units offer to students. They were also questioned on behaviours that could be
demonstrated by alumni who are loyal to the college. Responses from these personnel
were harmonized by checking for common concepts and themes. These were further
aligned with the basic concepts and themes selected from the students FGD. The
services of three reviewers were engaged in selecting common concepts and themes
from both the FGD and the interviews. These reviewers first examined the materials
independently and then jointly, to agree on the final concepts and themes. The outcome
was used to construct the items for the scales used in the present research.
TQM To establish the validity of the items, the scale was posted to the head of each
service unit examined and two psychologists, for content validation. Further
21,5 corrections were made on the scale and items that received 80 per cent acceptance, in a
Yes or No response provided, were accepted as valid. A final version of the scale
emerged and was incorporated in the questionnaire for the main study.

508 Main study

For the main study, a customer service questionnaire was developed that contained the
psychological scales measuring students expectations, perceived service performance,
anticipated loyalty to college after graduation and demographic data. The questionnaire
was administered, online, to all students of the college, using their college e-mail
addresses. However, participation was restricted to those who were on the main campus
of the college and were not less than 18 years as at when the survey was administered.
An incentive of a raffle draw to win $250 was attached to participation. Interested
participants were given three days to respond to the survey. After screening the
questionnaires to eliminate those under 18 years and those not on the main campus of the
college, a total of 467 questionnaires were accepted for analysis.

Results
To test the hypothesis that students expectations, perceived service performance, and
satisfaction will jointly predict anticipated loyalty to college after graduation, a
standard multiple regression analysis was computed. The results, as shown on Table I,
reveal that the variables jointly predicted loyalty F(3,242) 4.84; p 0.003 and
accounted for 5 per cent (adj. R 2 0.05) variance. However, the contribution of each of
the predictor variables, when other variables were held constant, was not significant.
Customer satisfaction had the highest contribution (b 0.328), followed by customer
expectations (b 0.266), and next perceived service performance which contributed
negatively (b 2 0.024).
The bivariate correlations in Table I show the independent prediction of anticipated
loyalty by the predictor variables. Results reveal that customer expectation (r 0.056)
is not significantly correlated with anticipated loyalty, but perceived service
performance (r 0.237) and customer satisfaction (r 0.145) are significantly and
positively correlated. Perceived service performance accounts for 6 per cent
(r 2 0.056) variance in anticipated loyalty while customer satisfaction accounts for
2 per cent (r 2 0.021) variance. Results of the partial correlation show that none of the
predictor variables significantly correlates with anticipated loyalty when the influence
of the other two predictor variables is controlled. Perceived service performance
correlates positively with anticipated loyalty in the bivariate correlation, but

Table I.
Variables b SE t p r r0
Zero-order and partial
correlation, standard Constant 5.647 3.630
multiple regression of Customer expectations 0.266 0.358 0.147 0.883 0.056 0.009
students anticipated Perceived service performance 20.024 0.356 2 0.013 0.990 0.237 * * * 2 0.001
loyalty on expectations, Customer satisfaction 0.328 0.360 0.141 0.888 0.145 * * 0.009
perceived service
performance and Notes: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, * * *p , 0.001; r bivariate r; r 0 partial r; F(3,242) 4.840;
satisfaction p 0.003; R 0.238; adj. R 2 0.045
negatively in the partial correlation. Its standard regression coefficient in the multiple Managing
regression analysis is also negative; suggesting that the other predictor variables are students
likely suppressors on perceived service performance in the joint prediction.
A follow-up standard multiple regression analyses of anticipated loyalty on the loyalty
predictor variables was run separately for customer expectation, perceived service
performance and satisfaction, across the seven services studied. The results, as presented
in Table II, show that customer expectations on the seven services jointly predicted 509
anticipated loyalty to college after graduation F(7,305) 6.014; p 0.000. The variables
jointly accounted for 10 per cent variance in anticipated loyalty (adj. R 2 0.101).
However, only expectations from library (b 0.209) and recreational/social services
(b 0.514) are significant, but the latter contributed more. The bivariate and partial
correlation results showed that expectations from library service had low correlation with
anticipated loyalty (r 0.001; r0 0.138). But recreational/social service is highly
correlated (r 0.238) and accounts for 6 per cent variance in anticipated loyalty, and the
partial correlation reveals higher correlation (r 0 0.331).
On perceived service performance, the seven services jointly predicted anticipated
loyalty F(7,288) 7.790; p 0.000 and accounted for 14 per cent of its variance. Only
the contribution of academic service is significant (b 0.361) in the prediction and it
showed high correlation with anticipated loyalty, both in the bivariate (r 0.376) and
partial (r0 0.234) correlations. On customer satisfaction, the seven services jointly
predicted variance in anticipated loyalty F(7,239) 4.508; p 0.000 and explain 9 per
cent of its variance. Only academic (b 0.380) and recreational/social service
(b 2 0.218) contributed significantly in the joint prediction. The bivariate and
partial correlation results show that academic service is positively correlated with
anticipated loyalty (r 0.268; r0 0.260). Recreational/social service is positively
correlated with anticipated loyalty in the bivariate correlation (r 0.016) but
negatively correlated in the partial correlation (r0 2 0.157).
Zero order and partial correlations were computed to test the hypothesis that
students expectations, perceived service performance, and customer satisfaction
would correlate significantly among themselves (Table III). The results revealed that
customer expectation correlated positively with perceived service performance
(r 0.185; p , 0.01); the correlation coefficient is higher when customer satisfaction is
partial out (r0 0.999). It correlated negatively with customer satisfaction
(r 2 0.629) and higher when perceived service performance is partial out
(r0 2 0.999). Perceived service performance correlated positively with customer
satisfaction (r 0.647) and higher when expectation is partial out (r0 0.999).
Other serendipitous findings (Table III) show that customer expectation correlated
significantly and positively with anticipated loyalty only when customer satisfaction
was partial out (r0 0.186). Perceived service performance correlated with anticipated
loyalty when customer expectation (r0 0.232) and customer satisfaction (r0 0.191)
are, respectively, partial out. Customer satisfaction was positively correlated with
anticipated loyalty when expectation was partial out (r0 0.227) but it is not
significant when perceived service performance was partial out (r0 2 0.012).

Discussions
In order to face the new global competitive situation in higher education industry,
institutions are getting involved in a change process by trying to adopt an
 21,5

510
TQM

Table II.

seven services
Standard multiple

loyalty on customer

satisfaction with the

expectations, perceived
service performance and
regression of anticipated
Variables B SE t p r r0
Customer expectations
Constant 5.190 7.830 0.000
Library 0.209 0.091 2.440 0.015 0.001 0.138
Academic 20.126 0.124 21.563 0.119 20.005 2 0.089
Dining 20.009 0.129 20.086 0.932 0.044 2 0.005
Housing 20.072 0.077 20.726 0.468 0.026 2 0.042
Health 0.067 0.116 0.888 0.375 0.071 0.051
Student 20.066 0.181 20.659 0.510 0.063 2 0.038
Recreat/social 0.514 0.096 6.129 0.000 0.238 0.331
F(7,305) 6.014; p 0.000; R 0.348; adj.
R 2 0.101
Perceived service performance
Constant 3.518 3.545 0.000
Library 20.096 0.06 21.098 0.273 0.251 2 0.065
Academic 0.361 0.08 4.085 0.000 0.376 0.234
Dining 20.104 0.07 21.340 0.181 0.201 2 0.079
Housing 0.149 0.05 1.795 0.074 0.290 0.105
Health 0.039 0.07 0.589 0.557 0.199 0.035
Student 0.013 0.10 0.161 0.872 0.265 0.009
Recreat/social 0.049 0.08 0.588 0.557 0.288 0.035
F(7,288) 7.790; p 0.000; R 0.399; adj.
R 2 0.139
Customer satisfaction
Constant 0.855 43.824 0.000
Library 0.068 0.072 0.720 0.472 0.170 0.047
Academic 0.380 0.089 4.159 0.000 0.268 0.260
Dining 20.087 0.085 20.946 0.345 0.066 2 0.061
Housing 0.130 0.056 1.314 0.190 0.137 0.085
Health 20.070 0.073 20.950 0.343 0.016 2 0.061
Student 20.041 0.115 20.411 0.681 0.100 2 0.027
Recreat/social 20.218 0.083 22.455 0.015 0.016 2 0.157
F(7,239) 4.508; p 0.000; R 0.342; adj.
R 2 0.091
Notes: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, * * *p , 0.001; r bivariate correlation; r0 partial correlation
entrepreneurial approach to better serve their customers/students. One of these Managing
approaches is the use of RM to gain and maintain customer loyalty. RM factors studied students
in the present study include customer expectation, perceived service performance and
satisfaction. Findings from the present study demonstrate that these factors that are loyalty
associated with customer loyalty in other settings (Gerrard and Cunningham, 2001;
Parasuraman et al., 1985) are also significant predictors of anticipated loyalty to the
college after graduation. These factors work jointly as correlates of anticipated loyalty 511
to college after graduation. This finding supports Jones and Farqhhars (2003) view
that customer loyalty is enhanced where service providers understand their customers
expectations, service performance perception and satisfaction. The present result also
supports the empirical findings of Ehigie (2006), Gerrard and Cunningham (2001) and
Jones and Farqhhar (2003) among bank customers.
The present study demonstrates that customer satisfaction is one of the correlates of
customer loyalty. Fisher (2001) also sees customer satisfaction as part of the antecedents of
customer loyalty. Other researchers (Szymanski and Henard, 2001) believe that the
influence of customer satisfaction on loyalty is moderated by variables like customer
expectations and perceived service performance. This was supported in the present study
because when customer expectations and perceived service performance were controlled,
customer satisfaction had no significant influence on students anticipated loyalty. Among
the predictor variables studied, customer satisfaction is the best predictor of students
anticipated loyalty. This supports other researchers views that customer loyalty is an
outcome variable to customer satisfaction (Fornell and Johnson, 1996; Fornell et al., 2006),
and an immediate predictor of loyalty (Anderson and Fornell, 1994).
Although seven services offered by the college were studied, the results show that
student satisfaction with academic and recreational/social services were the only
significant antecedents in the joint prediction of anticipated loyalty to college after
graduation. While academic service is positively related to student anticipated loyalty,
recreational/social service is negatively related. The CS paradigm (Oliver, 1997) and the
Gaps model (Disend, 1991) propose that customer satisfaction is a function of the
difference between customer expectations and perceived service performance. By this
measure, perceived poor service results from smaller gap between expectations and
product performance. Thus, the higher the difference between perceived performance

Variables Mean SD N Loyalty Expect Perf. Satisfact.

Loyalty 36.03 7.825 246 1.00

Expectations 380.04 39.59i 246 0.056 1.00
[2 0.012]
{0.186 * *}
0.237 * * *
(0.232 * * *) 0.185 * *
Performance 319.533 40.580 246 {0.191 * * *} {0.999 * * *} 1.00 Table III.
0.145 * * Zero-order and partial
(0.227 * * *) 2 0.629 * * * 0.647 * * * correlation matrix for
Satisfaction 2 59.598 50.740 246 (2 0.012) (0.999 * * *) (2 0.999 * * *) 1.00 loyalty, expectations,
perceived service
Notes: *p , 0.05, * *p , 0.01, * * *p , 0.001; ( ) partial customer expectation, [ ] partial performance and
perceived service performance, { } partial customer satisfaction satisfaction
TQM scores and the expectation scores in academic and recreational/social services, the higher
21,5 the anticipated loyalty score. In this wise, service performance scores must have been
perceived as reasonably higher than expectation score for a student to feel satisfied with
the academic and recreational/social services, and by inference having higher anticipated
loyalty to the college. The idea that customers become disloyal if their expectations are not
met by the service provider (Szymigin and Carrigan, 2001) is, thus, demonstrated.
512 Johnston (1995) differentiated between satisfiers and dissatisfiers. It is inferred
therefore that academic service is a satisfier among students because it is positively
related to student anticipated loyalty. It means the more satisfied students are with the
academic service received the higher the likelihood of being loyal to the college after
graduation. The recreational/social service could be termed a dissatisfier because it is
negatively related to student anticipated loyalty. It means the more dissatisfied
students are with the recreational/social service the less likelihood of becoming loyal to
the college after graduation. Thus, the recreational/social service does not significantly
enhance perception of school service. These services are rather hygiene factors
( Johnston, 1995) or maintaining attributes (Anderson and Mittal, 2000), hence they
do not necessarily need to be present for students to be satisfied, but their absence
could produce dissatisfaction with school service. These findings corroborate earlier
findings (Guolla, 1999; Rodski Behavioral Research Group, 2003).
Some researchers (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999) have shown that customer satisfaction
is only a necessary but not a sufficient precondition for customer loyalty. This is supported
in the present study as customer satisfaction, along with perceived service performance and
customer expectations jointly correlated with students anticipated loyalty to college.
Though satisfaction is a possible antecedent of loyalty, service performance and customer
expectations are other key factors (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2002). The study revealed that
with higher perception of service performance, the anticipated loyalty of students to college
increased. Thus, an essential strategy to successfully enhance customer loyalty in todays
competitive business environment (Parasuraman et al., 1985) is to boost customer
perception of service performance. This has been demonstrated in the results from the
present study, as perceived performance in the academic and housing services offered by
school were the prominent antecedents of students loyalty to school after graduation.
Results of the correlations among the predictor variables show that customer
expectation correlated positively with perceived service performance; implying that as
customers expectations increase, their perception of service performance increases.
This corroborates the findings that expectation scores have direct effect on perception
scores (Caruana et al., 2000). The notion that satisfaction is an outcome variable to
expectations (Cadotte et al., 1987) is confirmed in the present study. But customer
expectations correlated negatively with customer satisfaction, indicating that
increased customer expectation is a precursor of decreased satisfaction with service.
This finding confirms earlier views of researchers that customer satisfaction is
influenced by some other variables (Szymanski and Henard, 2001). Perceived service
performance is positively correlated with customer satisfaction, meaning that the more
favourable students perceive school services the more satisfied they are.

Implications of findings
It is implied from the present study that the customer-oriented climate for students
loyalty to school after graduation is built jointly on the effective management of
students expectations, service performance and satisfaction with the services received Managing
as students. This is referred to as customer relationship management in the study. It is students
established that customer satisfaction best predicts students loyalty to their alma
mater. By implication, school administrators should be concerned with offering loyalty
adequate services to their students, to the level of satisfaction, so as to gain their
loyalty to the school after graduation. More particularly, considerations should be for
academic and recreational/social services. In absence of other services, good academic 513
service would encourage students loyalty to school after graduation. But the provision
of good recreational/social services, in absence of quality academic service, may hinder
loyalty to school after graduation. The improvement of services in these two areas
could encourage students loyalty to the school after graduation.
Academic service is important to the extent that perceived academic service
performance is the only significant predictor of anticipated loyalty. The appeals for
improved academic service, based on the content of the scale used in the present study
include, hiring of quality professors, encouraging quality teaching, improving teaching
skills of professors and making courses taught relevant to students and societys
needs. Others include encouraging fairness in grading of papers, relevance of
assignments to courses, access to professors, positive attitudes of professors to
students, cordial student-teacher relationship, good teaching materials, good size of
classes, comfort of classrooms, provision of teaching equipments and the like.
The marketing implication is for school administrators to study students needs and
expectations. Accurate identification of these should inform the design of services to
satisfy students. Where services are planned without recognizing students needs and
expectations, it is not likely that the students would be satisfied with the services delivered
and loyalty to the school would be threatened. School management should ensure that
students expectations with regard to services are closely examined and analysed so as to
offer quality standards for the students. The management should not promise more than
the school can deliver (LeBlanc and Nguyen, 1999). By identifying possible predictors of
students anticipated loyalty to school after graduation, tertiary school administrators
would be provided with relevant tools for enhanced TQM in RM. Finally, in as much as
schools cannot be run like other businesses, the present study has shown that some
predictors of loyalty in other organizations also predict loyalty to college after graduation.

Limitations of study
Data on both the independent and dependent variables were obtained from the same
participants in the form of self-reports, thus making the data less objective. The
participants are students and not graduates; it is possible that their actual behaviours after
graduation might be different from their reports as students. It is encouraged that similar
study could be conducted among graduates. The present study was conducted among
college undergraduate students; this limits the generalizability of findings. Future
researchers could conduct similar study in universities that have graduate students.

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Corresponding author
Benjamin Osayawe Ehigie can be contacted at: ehigieb@dickinson.edu; benosang@yahoo.com

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