With spring upon us, we’ve been fielding questions from colleges and universities about how to better assess the impact of their dining and auxiliary services. Health care systems and corporate clients are also looking for information to ensure their onsite food and hospitality services are delivering. Data is essential to drive quality assurance decision-making.

We recently had the opportunity to share our perspective in an article in Food Management magazine. We’ve identified five key elements essential to gathering good data for a quality assurance program – and to put it into action. You can read the entire article online here.

Below are some highlights:

  1. Set standards. A quality assurance program rests on two principles: establishing standards and collecting data. Our team of evaluators spends a good deal of time before each visit working with campus leaders and department stakeholders to determine just what those standards are and what items will be tested. One college knows speed of service is a problem, so we can emphasize that. Another university thinks its staff needs more safety and sanitation training, so our first evaluation can help benchmark that – and assess improvements during later evaluations.
  1. Look at all levels. Collecting solid data allows campus leaders to see issues at both the macro and micro level and make improvement decisions appropriately. For example, at the macro level, the four most common shortfalls that our evaluators see in campus dining facilities include food temperature issues; proper product labeling and dating; accurate pricing and signage; and cleanliness of hard-to-reach areas and glass surfaces. At the micro level, a thorough quality assurance evaluation can identify the specific lines with temperature issues or the exact kitchen areas that need attention.
  1. Move with speed. Any quality assurance program also needs to be fast, delivering data in real time with rapid recommendations for immediate improvement. Any industry rooted in customer service can’t wait weeks for an evaluator to retype hand-scrawled notes, consult with a manager, and package the recommendations. Especially on a college campus, word of mouth about a negative experience can spread quickly and harm the reputation of your auxiliary services. Results of any assessment must be delivered quickly.
  1. Dig into the details. We don’t always acknowledge an issue until it’s right in front of us. An evaluation report must be as granular as possible in its observations. If a deficiency is found, reports must be detailed enough that campus leaders know exactly what the problem is and how to correct it. We also know that seeing is believing – and that a picture is worth a thousand words. We attach photographs of key areas to every problem item that we evaluate. Images are data points, too, and can serve as a teaching tool for everyone from directors to line workers.
  1. Do it again. Studying and executing on those action plans is only the start of the journey toward continuous quality improvement. Good leaders know they can’t just fix something and walk away. Quality assurance relies on repeat evaluations and continued data analysis. In the case of Stevens Institute of Technology, we perform twice-annual evaluations across its campus dining, retail cafes, catering, and coffee bars to ensure that changes have taken hold and are reflected in survey results. And they have: Stevens’ overall student satisfaction in dining quickly rose from the 50th to the 85th percentile, the highest in campus dining history.

If your college or university is committed to improving the quality of your auxiliary services, these five elements are critical to creating your data-gathering and action plan process. Educating and inspiring stakeholders, partners, and students is at the center of our quality assurance work – and assuredly at the heart of your college’s mission.