Muleskinner

Issue date: 2/1/07 Section: News

Sodexho Campus Services is continuing its online Loyalty Survey Program this semester in an effort to make sure students are pleased with their on-campus dining experience.
The program is a customer satisfaction survey conducted online over a three month time period.

Data gathered from the survey will be used to help guide Sodexho in making any changes or adjustments.

"The goal of the survey is to improve customer service, services and increase satisfaction," said Tracy Crow, Sodexho campus services marketing director for Central.

"There's an industry shift from satisfaction to loyalty … [The survey] will help judge overall strengths and areas of improvements."

Although the Loyalty Services Program officially began in fall 2006, various technical issues prevented Sodexho from conducting the survey for a three-month time period.
Sodexho partnered with Synovate, an independent market research company, to manage and conduct the online surveys.
Sodexho worked closely with Student Affairs and Central's Information Technology (IT) department to ensure e-mail addresses aren't being sold or used for any other purposes.
Crow said the survey randomly invites participants from a pool of full-time students, faculty and staff.

Each month, invitation e-mails are sent via MuleMail requesting participation in the survey.

"Only invited participants can participate with one specific URL that can be used once per person so it's not swayed," Crow said.

"[Synovate] selects a statistically valid number to send invitation e-mails each month," Crow said.

Each month Synovate calculates the results and send a monthly overview report to Sodexho.

"The monthly report isn't detailed but rather reports our totals," Crow said.

"[It] consists of comparison to other clients of Synovate and a comparison to ourselves from past months."

All tabulations are done by Synovate and not by Sodexho.
"Calculations are done very carefully to ensure statistical relevance," Crow said.

Sodexho will use the information to measure performances, identify and prioritize any opportunities for improvements, track changes over time and develop and enhance dining plans, retail products and new services.

For the past 15 years, Sodexho has done some form of customer service surveys every semester.

"Initially, surveys were done by the paper process," Crow said.
"We would set up a table in the dinning halls and ask customers to fill them out."

Crow said the information obtained from past surveys was used to make changes in the operational hours of dinning halls, extended lunch periods, late nights and Sunday night dinner.

"The food is better," said Danielle Jones, Sodexho employee.
"This semester,[there are] a lot of new items, and students like it better because of the different varieties."

One of the more recent improvements Sodexho has made from survey results is the addition of Jazzman's Cafe in the Elliot Student Union four years ago.

"Data from survey results showed that customers were requesting more gourmet coffees," Crow said.

Jones said improvements can be seen throughout Dining Services.

"We now offer circle and square pizzas… The international [station] always has different [menu] items," Jones said.
Although participants do not receive individual incentives for survey participation,

"For every survey that is completed, [Sodexho] donates a non-perishable item to the Warrensburg Food Bank," Crow said.
In the fall of 2005, Sodexho purchased and donated over 700 items to the food bank.

"We tried coupons [as incentives] but didn't have much luck with redemption.

Completing the survey is an easy way to help the [Warrensburg] community and less-fortunate ones." Crow said.

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