Sodexho recently completed its customer satisfaction surveys for the RPI account. The amount of people satisfied or highly satisfied with resident dining, which excludes the Union food services, has risen consistently from 85 percent in 1998 to 98 percent in the most recent survey. Two dollars per survey were donated to Joseph’s House and Unity House of Troy, with a total of 651 surveys having been completed.
Olivier Sunier, marketing director, said one goal has been to push people who are not satisfied into the satisfied category and people who are satisfied into the highly satisfied category. The amount of highly satisfied people has risen from 23 percent in 1998 to 67 percent. Out of approximately 960 Sodexho college accounts, RPI has “always managed to hit two of the top three spots,” said Sunier, with its residential and Union services. Last year RPI was ranked first out of all Sodexho-run campuses, but data is not yet available this year as all campuses have not completed their surveys.
According to Paul Keck, operations manager, the national average of highly satisfied people last year was 45 percent, while RPI has 63 percent satisfaction. Referring to satisfied and highly satisfied customers, Keck said, “To hit a number of 98 percent, what we hit on this campus…we were thrilled to death about that.”
When Hudson Brower ’07 learned of the 98 percent satisfaction rate, he said, “I’m surprised. I’d think more people would be dissatisfied with all the complaints I hear … I’d say I’m moderately satisfied. Every time I think about visits to other campuses and their food, I feel good about this.”
Sunier said that variety has been a common complaint on the surveys in the past years. To help fix this, a nacho bar, pretzel bar, and fry bar appear as pace changers every few weeks. He says these pace changes have been met with success.
Freshman Colin Donahoe said, “I like the taco bar … They should have that once a week or something.”
Exhibition cooking has become a trend on college campuses and RPI has adopted it. Keck says that “bringing the kitchen out front” has proved tremendously popular. Students do not have a problem waiting for food as they know it is fresh when it is cooked right in front of them. He also noted Tofu Tim’s following and that sometimes 40 people wait in line for him to prepare their food.
Keck said, “We have an excellent team on campus … a lot of our cooks and chefs are culinary grads.” He also cited low turnover among the 230 employees as one reason for high quality.
Presentation has also changed. Instead of bins of food heated from below, the Commons has moved to heat lamps to keep food warm while the food rests in silver trays. “It’s not only what we cook and how we cook, but how we present it.” Keck said.
Student opinions vary on the quality of the food.
Oren Eizenman ’07 said, “I think it’s pretty good. There’s definitely a lot of it. They do a really good job for the amount of students they have to feed.”
However, John Sawyer ’07 said, “Am I satisfied? Sometimes. It depends on what they’re cooking. Like the chicken …. some days it’s bad and some days it’s good...Like spaghetti, it’s usually decent, but then there are times when it’s half cooked.”
The satisfaction rate also varies according to dining hall. BARH scored the highest in satisfaction with 75 percent of people being highly satisfied. Sunier attributes the high level of satisfaction of BARH diners due to the food being tailored to more individual need. Approximately 400 people eat dinner in BARH per night, while 1500 diners eat in the Commons.
Jared Seaman ’07 said, “Food at Sage is much better as I learned last night. It’s not the best food I ever had. It’s better than MacDonald’s or something or high school cafeteria food.”
Sunier says that the quality of dining services is based on student feedback. There are three food committee meetings each semester and there is a 24 hour response time on comment cards. If students do not give feedback, then Sodexho has no way of knowing that a problem exists. “The bottom line is we really do care. We really do care what students think about dining services,” Sunier said.
