Recruiting Overseas Undergraduate Students: Are their Information Requirements being Satisfied?

This paper examines the information provided by English Universities to overseas students enquiring about undergraduate courses. Previous research confirms the importance of information during the pre–consumption stage within a service setting such as Higher Education and yet suggests that there is a reluctance by Universities to provide such information. This paper tests the findings of these studies by requesting information from English Universities through the post and analysing their postal response. Results indicate that there is a lack of market orientation and customer focus in the service being provided and that Universities could achieve a competitive advantage in the short and long term if they became more aware of the needs of overseas students and improved the level of customer service provided.