Customer Engagement in Higher Education: How Important the Role of Social Media Marketing, E-Service Quality and E-Satisfaction for Generation Z Students?

Abstract

The industrial era 4.0 had lead big changes for companies in managing their business, such as carrying out marketing and service strategies. Social media and digital technology provided faster and more responsive service to customers. The use of social media was considered important to increase engagement of students from Generation Z and to improve academic achievement. The objective of the research was to examine the effect of social media marketing, e-service quality, and e-satisfaction on customer engagement. The research was conducted at Bina Nusantara University (Binus) with a sample of 100 students from Generation Z using quantitative approach with data collection by distributing questionnaires to be analyzed using path analysis. The findings show that social media marketing and e-service quality significantly have impacts on e-satisfaction and customer engagement, while the e-satisfaction does not significantly impact customer engagement. Therefore, the development of digital technology in higher education becomes the main focus for supporting services and activities.