[Customer Experience Management in UK Higher Education]

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses the use of Customer Experience Management (CEM) and the use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the context of Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the United Kingdom. It provides the information on the objectives defined for this thesis and its relevance. In this chapter, a review was made on the theoretical concepts of quality, service quality, satisfaction and loyalty. And also, we presented the quality management systems, the national quality awards, models of national index of customer satisfaction. (Argyris 2002 78) (Athiyaman 2007 528)

Quality is defined by several authors following different approaches, however, there is a common thread to these definitions, and it is the customer. Some make this relationship directly and others indirectly. Both product quality and service quality should be taken into account by firms due to which they complement each other for better performance of the company to the customer. Customer satisfaction is not a new topic, but previous studies were focused on measuring it as a numeric value. However, at present, studies try to understand what factors influence satisfaction. (Bell 2003 47)

The topic of customer loyalty first emerged as evaluating the repetition and frequency of customer purchases; however, with the emergence of the psychological approach, loyalty tends to be regarded as being more than just a buyback to be an attitude the client to a particular brand. A current example is the importance of recommendation or word of mouth word that former clients or customers, with low frequency of purchase, are for new customers. (Boulding 2003 27)

The National Quality Awards and ISO 9000: 2000 consider the theme of customer satisfaction as being essential to the performance of the company. Managing an organisation with a focus on customer guarantees the future performance of the company. (Brown 2001 44)

Models Indexes National Customer Satisfaction came with two main objectives of understanding the factors that influence satisfaction and customer loyalty, and as a source of information for benchmarking practices among companies. In the evolution of these models, some constructs have been removed or replaced or subdivided. (Brysland 2001 389)

The latest model is the model proposed by Johnson et al. (2001), based on previous models, with eight constructs in its structure: customer satisfaction index, price, quality drivers, claims management, affective commitment, commitment, calculated, corporate image and customer loyalty. The model used in this research was an adaptation of the Norwegian model of customer satisfaction. (Carlzon 2007 74)

Theoretical Framework

In this dynamic environment, comparable to the future achievements of information centres based ...