Towards a conceptual framework for customer relationship management for public universities in Mauritius

Abstract

Public universities in Mauritius aim to climb the overall universities' ranking by improving the quality of teaching, research, and student support services so as to improve overall student satisfaction. They are also devising strategies to achieve higher student engagement by developing effective relationships with students. The Tertiary Education Commission has pointed out many student support problems and administrative bureaucracy in its recent quality audit reports that may lead to poor student engagement and attrition. The current research seeks to address this problem by proposing a customer relationship management framework based on a mixed research approach based on survey findings with 370 students and personal interviews with management in public universities. The proposed components that have been extracted are academic support services, financial assistance, administrative services, student facilitation and technological support services. The current research will be highly instrumental for improving student engagement and loyalty through higher customer satisfaction.