Customer Satisfaction as a Relevant Factor for a Successful Customer- Relationship-Management in Tertiary Education

Abstract

Purpose: Today, not enough importance is being attached to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in tertiary education. Often interest groups, such as current and former students (alumni) or various business organisations, are not sufficiently involved in any kind of network, with the result that there is no chance of a partnership developing with universities regarding lifelong learning. The main purpose of the article is to reveal that customer satisfaction is a determining factor in CRM in tertiary education. Scientific aim: The main scientific aim is to reveal that the theory of customer satisfaction can be employed to the marketing concept in tertiary education in practice. Methodology/methods: After outlining the principal theories of customer satisfaction this thesis concentrates on the more practical aspects of the topic. The main theory is the traditional Confirmations/Disconfirmations-Paradigm. It explains the customer relationship as a dependent and as an independent variable. Findings: The most important result is that it is possible to transfer the theoretical considerations into a practical CRM-concept for the tertiary education. Conclusions: The keynote of the model of Customer Satisfaction is contagious into a feasible marketing concept of universities. The different theories are various significant for practice. The main task will be to get as much as possible relevant information about the expectations, the satisfaction and the reactions of the different interest groups of the tertiary education respectively universities. This information is the database for a successful networking and CRM.