Student loyalty based on relationship quality: an analysis on higher

The purpose of this research is to verify how loyal students are to higher education institutions. According to this research, it was noticed that relationship marketing is critical to create and maintain a relationship between institutions and students, such relationship being developed towards customer retention and loyalty. The survey involved 352 students reading Business Administration at three institutions in the State of São Paulo. Data was analyzed through Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. The results showed that student-customers are prone to being loyal to their higher education institutions. The constructs behind student-customer loyalty are: Perceived Quality, Satisfaction, Emotional Behavior and Trust, responsible for 46% of data variability. From these results, many academic and management implications were discussed, showing that student-customer loyalty is an important strategic goal to be pursued by such companies.