Service Quality and Student Satisfaction of Students in Private Universities in Nairobi County

Abstract

Private universities in Kenya like other businesses operate in a competitive environment. Knowing how to satisfy their students who are their primary customers is important because it can lead to future business. The relationship between service quality and student satisfaction is important because if it is understood properly it can enable the right decisions to be made about service quality that lead to increase in student satisfaction. The study was carried out to find out whether there is a relationship between service quality and student satisfaction of private university students in Nairobi County. About 118 students were interviewed through a survey that was based on higher education service quality model HeDPERF. It was found that service quality is positively related to student satisfaction and that some of the most important aspects of an institution that students liked most were the reputation of the university and the nature of the programs offered. This means that universities have to improve on their service quality while at the same time improving on their reputation, variety and flexibility of programs offered in order to attract more students.