What frustrates students most? Service failures in higher education

Purpose – Service failure is common, despite the enormous efforts made by many service companies to offer high-quality services. It is hard to achieve zero failure in the higher education sector due to the variety of consumers and different service delivery stages, but the context of higher education is still understudied in terms of service failure and recovery. The aim of the study is to explore the various service failures that students in higher education institutions encounter to close this gap. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a qualitative research methodology. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 30 students from higher education institutions in Klang Valley, Malaysia, using a purposive sampling technique and evaluated using thematic analysis. Findings – Findings of the study show that service failure types can be divided into four categories, such as service delivery failure, students' needs and requests, and unprompted and unsolicited activities and infrastructure failure in higher education. Service delivery failures have been the most frequently reported incidents, followed by students' wants and requests, unprompted and unsolicited activities, and infrastructure failures with the fewest incidents. Originality/value – This study's findings contribute to theory and novel awareness of service failure and recovery in the higher education domain. The empirical findings of this study should be used as indicators by management in educational institutions to pinpoint factors that affect their operations and the areas that require development. However, the findings are limited by the small sample size and focus on one geographical region, which may affect generalizability; future research should examine other contexts and larger populations.