Expected Service Quality as Perceived by Potential Customers of an Educational Institution

Researchers studying the ‘service quality’ construct have typically measured it by comparing the expectations of consumers with their perceived experience with that service. The subjects of all studies in the past have been consumers who had consumed that service. However, till date, there has been no research measuring the ‘service quality’ as perceived by potential consumers before they make their purchase/consumption decision. An organization should try to find out not only how its present customers perceive the quality of its services, but also how potential customers perceive the quality of its offerings. These potential customers may have never consumed the services of the organization, but may have formed their opinion about the quality of service offered by the organization. This opinion could be based on what they may have heard, read or seen about the organization's service in the mass media or it could be based on word-of-mouth. Whatever the case may be, new customers are crucial to an organization's future growth and survival, and an organization needs to attract these new customers. An organization should thus try to find out what these potential customers think about its ‘service quality.’ The organization can then make appropriate changes in its offerings to convert these potential customers to actual customers. This study attempts to find the ‘service quality’ as perceived by potential consumers of that service. The study uses opinions of potential customers instead of customers who have already consumed the service, i.e., a pre-consumption attitude as opposed to a post-consumption attitude. For this purpose, the study uses the setting of a university and surveys its potential students (i.e., those who have never consumed the service before) and attempts to find the quality of a university's offerings, as perceived by potential students. When measuring service quality as perceived by potential consumers, this study proposes using two new constructs - ‘expected quality,’ and ‘expected performance’ -to replace the currently used constructs ‘perceived quality,’ and ‘perceived performance,’ respectively.