Assessing Customer Satisfaction with Non-Profit Organizations: Evidence from Higher Education

This study empirically examines several key issues concerned with assessing customer satisfaction in the context of higher education. Data were obtained from 1475 students, with various characteristics, who were enrolled at four large universities. The results indicate that dissatisfied and satisfied students are significantly different when assessed in terms of five education service attributes. The performance model is found to be capable of explaining customer satisfaction more powerfully than either the disconfirmation or the multi-attribute model. In addition, some student characteristics are considered to be crucially important in their effects on expectation and performance of education service attributes, which, in turn, exert influence on assessment of customer satisfaction.