Education Marketing; Examining the Link between Physical Quality of Universities and Customer Satisfaction

The relevance of service environment in the delivery of quality services can not be over emphasized. The simultaneity of production and consumption of services makes it necessary for the students (consumers) to be in the servicescape. This unique feature makes qualitative infrastructure and enabling environment very crucial for quality delivery system. Educational services must embrace quality delivery system if it must remain the platform for true and sustainable development. This study explores the link between the physical quality (enabling environment) of Nigerian Universities and customer satisfaction. Survey method and stratified sampling technique were employed for this study. Nine Universities were selected proportionately from Private, State and Federal Universities in south west, Nigeria. Two hypotheses were raised in the study. Descriptive statistics, ANOVA and regression analysis were employed for the test of the hypotheses. The findings revealed that there were significant differences among the three categories of Universities in terms of their physical quality imperatives. It was also confirmed that physical quality has significant effect on customer satisfaction. It was therefore recommended that concerted efforts must be made by the education stakeholders to invest on improving the infrastructural facilities of the Universities for better positioning in the global market place.