A Comprehensive Model for Student Relationship Management Based on Interpretative Structural Modelling: The Case of Yazd University

Today, respect for customer and customer satisfaction have turned from a mere strategy into an essential law in competitive business fields. Management of customer relations, therefore, is central to modern business. When applied to higher education systems which are entitled to human resources development, it leads to a new notion known as Student Relationship Management (SRM). In the present study, the authors configured the notion of SRM by means of a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed through construct and content validity and whose reliability was verified with a Cronbachʹs alpha of 0.982. The population included undergraduate students of Yazd University (Iran) who were above the third semester. 149 students were selected as our sample. Finally, based on the dimensions obtained by Varimax rotation and by means of ISM, a comprehensive model of levels and connections among the dimensions of SRM was developed. The results show that, from among the six dimensions, needs analysis and strategy are most fundamental to SRM and should become the first priority of managers and organisational strategists. On the other hand, the dimension of employees, as the output and the most influenced element of the model, was determined to be of the lowest priority.