The Influence of Service Quality on Customer Retention: A Systematic Review in the Higher Education

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the influence of service quality on customer retention and the factors that affect this relationship using a systematic review and meta-analysis method to use in the second stage in examining the relationship of service quality on customer retention in higher educations. A systematic review method was conducted to select the studies that will assist in the current studies. This systematic review covered 32 research articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 1996 till 2018 and were reviews critically. The main findings of the study indicate that service quality-related factors is the most common factor, flowed by customer satisfaction, trust, commitment, and loyalty. Moreover, it has been noticed that the quantitative method using questionnaire was found to be the primary relied upon research methods for collecting data followed by a focus group. Furthermore, 75% of the analyzed studies recorded positive research outcomes. Most of the analyzed studies that had a positive outcome were conducted in the United Kingdom followed by the United States in terms of the context, most of the analyzed studies where done for Banks, followed by Mobile Service Industry, Retailing industry, Small firms, Steel industry, Tourism industry, Airline industry, Zoo, and Advertising service respectively. To that end, this systematic review attempts to investigate the relationship between service quality and customer retention and the factors affecting this relationship.