Chasing student satisfaction in the delivery of property higher education

Purpose:Customer satisfaction has been a goal within the services marketing area for many years. There has been considerable debate over whether higher education students are customers. Funding sources for higher education (HE), regard student satisfaction as one of the measurable components of a university’s success in Australia. If it is accepted that HE students are indeed customers, then the marketing models that are applied to services marketing clients could also be applicable within the higher education arena.Methodology Approach: The research methodology chosen for this paper is a combination of Interpretivism and Critical Incident Theory. The authors have used open interviewing and open ended questionnaires to encourage open dialogue between the researcher and those being questioned. A questionnaire was developed using Qualtrics, which was delivered to every property undergraduate student in Australia.Findings: The current Australian HE student is contributing towards the cost of their tertiary education in a considerable way. For this reason and many others, modern HE students have different needs and expectations from students in the past and they are similar to any other service customer. Responses from the interviews and the questionnaire indicate a degree of dissatisfaction with issues around teaching quality and delivery, out-dated and inappropriate materials and the lack of practical application such as formal work experience, site visits and case studies.Originality: This research seeks to evaluate higher education property student satisfaction and identify important factors that universities can concentrate on in their goal of improving the student experience.