The Impact Of College Students’ Perceptions Of Campus Customer Service Quality Levels On Student Motivation And Persistence

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of college students’ perceptions of campus customer service quality levels and to ascertain whether college students’ motivation and persistence were impacted by their perceptions of campus customer service quality levels. Motivation was defined as self-reported feelings of enthusiasm, drive, ambition, and enjoyment during and after campus customer service experiences. Persistence was defined as students’ willingness to remain at the institution until graduation. The conceptual framework for this study was The Gap Model of Service Quality detailing five major satisfaction gaps: Knowledge Gap, Policy Gap, Delivery Gap, Communication Gap, and Customer Gap. The population of this study were college students from two selected institutions of higher learning. Using a qualitative design, the results from the study showed that perceptions regarding the quality of customer service negatively affected student motivation levels but did not impact their persistence to graduation. Although students were not satisfied with the quality of customer service on campus, they chose to “tough it out” rather than risk losing credits by transferring to another institution. The study recommended the implementation of mandatory quality improvement measures such as quarterly customer service training for employees as well as increased attention to orientating students to the policies, procedures and protocols of their campus during new student orientation sessions.