Sodexo Eickhoff Dining Hall

A Market Research Study by Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, INC.

5/3/2012

MKT 310 Dr. Tucci Kevin Mulcahey Michael Spekhardt

2 Letter of Transmittal 5/3/2012

Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, INC. The College of New Jersey 2000 Pennington Road P.O. Box 7718 Ewing, NJ 08628

John Higgins, TCNJ Sodexo Marketing Director Eickhoff Hall 150 The College of New Jersey P.O. Box 7718 Ewing, NJ 08628

Dear Mr. Higgins, Enclosed is the market research project report for Sodexos TCNJ division at Eickhoff Hall that you requested on January 15, 2012. Our study began on February 4th, 2012 and was completed on April 20th, 2012. Our data analysis and report was compiled and completed today, May 3rd, 2012. We have received full cooperation from Sodexo and The College of New Jersey to conduct this study. Our firm has made it our goal to discover the independent variables that affect the purchase of meal plans on the TCNJ campus. In order to accomplish our objective, our group utilized surveys that were dispersed throughout the TCNJ campus using non-probability sampling. Included in this report is an executive summary with recommendations from our study, the background of the research topic, our data analysis, and tables. Attached is a sample survey that was used in the data collection portion of our project.

Best, Kevin Mulcahey and Michael Spekhardt Co-Presidents Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, INC. Spekham@MSCG.com Mulcahk@MSCG.com

Letter of Authorization January 15, 2012 John Higgins Sodexo TCNJ Marketing Director Eickhoff Hall150 The College of New Jersey Higgins@Sodexousa.com

Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, Inc. The College of New Jersey 2000 Pennington Road P.O. Box 7718 Ewing, N.J. 08628

Dear Mr. Mulcahey & Mr. Spekhardt, As Marketing Director of TCNJ Sodexo, I authorize Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, Inc. to conduct marketing research on Eickhoff Dining Hall. This letter authorizes that you may survey students of The College of New Jersey regarding the Eickhoff Dining Hall. The data and information gathered is property of Sodexo and TCNJ and consequently must remain confidential.

Best, John Higgins TCNJ Marketing Director Sodexo Higgins@Sodexousa.com

4 Table of Contents 1. Executive summary -----------------------------------------------------------------------------a. Major findings ------------------------------------------------------------------------------b. Conclusions----------------------------------------------------------------------------------2. Problem definition------------------------------------------------------------------------------a. Background to the problem-------------------------------------------------------------b. Statement of the problem---------------------------------------------------------------3. Approach to the problem---------------------------------------------------------------------4. Research design---------------------------------------------------------------------------------a. Type of research design------------------------------------------------------------------b. Information needs-------------------------------------------------------------------------c. Data collection from secondary sources---------------------------------------------d. Data collection from primary sources------------------------------------------------e. Scaling techniques------------------------------------------------------------------------f. Questionnaire development and pretesting----------------------------------------g. Sampling techniques----------------------------------------------------------------------h. Field work------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 5, 6 6, 7 7 7, 8 9, 10 10 11 11 11 11, 12 12, 13 13, 14 14, 15 15, 16 16

5. Data analysis-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------a. Methodology-------------------------------------------------------------------------------b. Plan of data analysis----------------------------------------------------------------------6. Results---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7. Limitations and caveats------------------------------------------------------------------------8. Conclusions---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

16 16, 17 17, 18 19-25 25, 26 26, 27 28-48 28-32 33-48 33,34 34 35 36-39 40 41-45 46 47-48

9. Exhibits---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------a. Questionnaire-------------------------------------------------------------------------------b. Statistical output---------------------------------------------------------------------------i. Table A1-A3--------------------------------------------------------------------------------ii. Table B1-B3--------------------------------------------------------------------------------iii. Table C1-C3-------------------------------------------------------------------------------iv. Table D1-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------v. Table E1-E3--------------------------------------------------------------------------------vi. Table F1-F2--------------------------------------------------------------------------------vii. Table G1-G5------------------------------------------------------------------------------viii. Table H1-H6-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Executive Summary Sodexo representatives from The College of New Jersey sought the services of Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, Inc. to collect data on Eickhoff Dining Hall. The main interest of TCNJ Sodexo was to discover if the overall satisfaction of students (both on and off-campus) has improved since the recent changes to their business model, as well as the facility. The relationship between the TCNJ Eickhoff Dining Hall, Sodexo, and the students is crucial to the success of the Sodexo Company. Through finding whether or not students are largely satisfied with the food and facilities at Eickhoff, Sodexo can alter their processes to retain their customers and sell the most profitable meal plans. The first step of the research process was developing and identifying ten hypothesizes that would be tested. To answer these hypotheses, the data collection stage is crucial. The instrument that our team used to collect the data was a questionnaire comprised of thirty-two questions. These questionnaires were issued to eighty college students at TCNJ, at four different campus locations. The data was gathered, and, using the computer program SPSS 19, it was analyzed. A) Major Findings The findings of Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, INC. are invaluable to The College of New Jersey and Sodexo management. According to the frequency distributions (Table 1B) a mere 14.7% of students on campus purchase the most profitable meal plan on campus, Carte Blanche C. Furthermore, as far as the overall satisfaction at Eickhoff Dining Hall, only 7.5% of respondents issued a score of 9 out of 10, and an even smaller 1.3% of respondents issued a perfect 10 (Table 1C). When a one-sample t-test is run on the data, the mean overall satisfaction of TCNJ students is 6.71, which is good but has room for improvement.

While running crosstabs on the data and separating on-campus and off-campus students, another interesting conclusion was made. According to the output, off-campus students ranked the facilities at Eickhoff higher than on-campus students did. Although this may be because offcampus students are enjoying the opportunity to eat out rather than cook for themselves, this may indicate that the daily operations of Eickhoff are suffering. The on-campus students have the most knowledge of the day-to-day quality of Eickhoff Dining, and are the main customer base. An additional important find on the part of Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting is that students who were on campus prior to the renovations at Eickhoff ranked overall satisfaction and food variety lower than students who did not witness the old Eickhoff Dining Hall. This is a critical marketing management observation, and the solution to this problem will be addressed in the subsequent conclusion portion of the executive summary. B) Conclusions Given that students do not pay for the most expensive meal plans on campus, Sodexo management needs to work on improving the perceived benefits on plans like Carte Blanche C. A cost-benefit analysis of whether adding a few more points to the plan would improve sales may be in order. Furthermore, given various open-ended responses and correlation matrices, management should improve upon the cleanliness, and healthy choices, waiting time, and good tasting food. Respondents mentioned these as the most important factors relating to their overall satisfaction. One demographic in particular that Sodexo management should focus on is off-campus students. These students ranked the Eickhoff facilities even higher than on-campus students did. This could provide a major source of sales for Sodexo and TCNJ, but they would need to change

their product from the perspective of meal plan offerings. As of right now, only on-campus students can buy meal plans. If they wish to keep this business model, they should offer additional types of block plans to their off-campus customers. Currently there are only two types of meal plans for off-campus students with either 25 or 50 meals. If they could make plans with 100 or 200 swipes, they would easily pull in additional revenue. Finally, it appears that Eickhoff Hall and Sodexo should increase their marketing efforts regarding the improvements that have been made to the facility. The 2 mean independent samples t-test run on TCNJ students before Eickhoff renovations versus TCNJ students after Eickhoff renovations reveals interesting information. According to the data, students who were on campus prior to the renovations exhibited a lower mean statistic for overall satisfaction, as well as the variety of the food. The test is also extremely significant, with very low p-values. Our recommendation is that Sodexo management increase all fliers, website information, pamphlets, posters, and napkin dispenser advertisements regarding the improvements to Eickhoff. Since 2010, Eickhoff has had an overwhelming variety of food, and off-campus students could still be biased from experiencing the previous form of Eickhoff Dining. If management could convince the older students of the improvements made to Eickhoff, they may experience an increase in day-to-day transactions, as well as the long-term upperclassmen block meals bought.

Problem Definition A) Background Sodexo, INC., according to Sodexousa.com, is the, leading provider of integrated food and facilities management services in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Sodexo has made it clear to

their customers that the company prides itself on five main organizational goals; these include sustainability, ethical business practices, diverse employment, wellness, and community involvement. These goals are achieved through the companys green initiatives, healthy food choices, well-documented nutritional facts, and charitable work through the Sodexo Foundation, such as their Fight Against Hunger campaign. In terms of overall national ranking, the Sodexo company is ranked second in the category of Most Diverse Companies to Work For - 2011. From a marketing perspective, the Sodexo Companys strengths are knowledge for the target market, college students, and the ability to personalize menus and programs to fit the specific needs of each student on campus. In order to concentrate the vast organization of Sodexo into one precise problem, our consulting firm focused on the Eickhoff Dining Hall located on The College of New Jerseys (TCNJ) campus. Sodexo is the company that receives all of TCNJs outsourcing for food needs. The outsourcing entitles not only Eickhoff Dining Hall but also convenience stores, cafes, pubs, and other eating venues located around campus. The main dining area is Eickhoff Hall, which was constructed in 1990. The Eickhoff Dining Hall recently went under a major renovation in the summer of 2010. In the Eickhoff Dining Hall, Sodexo caters to the students needs through gluten-free meals, accessible nutritional facts, the option for cooking spray (as opposed to oil), and the use of whole wheat for most baked breads and bakery items. Through the online portal, students are able to purchase meal plans for each semester with levels A through D, block plans, and points. Block plans are the only plan that an off campus student can purchase. They consist of a certain amount of swipes in a given semester.

B) Statement of the Problem Marketing Management Problem How can Sodexo attract more students (on and off campus) to spend more money on their meal plans at Eickhoff Dining Hall

The overall goal of the Sodexo Company is to sell as many meal plans as they can to TCNJ students. Sodexo and TCNJ sell a large amount of their meal plans to students that live on campus, because they are required to purchase a meal plan. Since the students that live on campus are required to buy a meal plan, Sodexo can improve upon sales by selling the pricier plans. The more expensive the meal plans allow additional points to be used at the Eickhoff dining hall. In addition, the more expensive plans include breakfast, whereas Carte Blanche A does not. A student that lives on campus can swipe in and out of Eickhoff an unlimited amount of times during the course of the day. However, if they wish to pay for someone else to come in and dine with them they need to use points. A focus of the questionnaires should be to discover ways in which Sodexo can make meal plans with more points appealing. Another focus is to determine how to get the off campus student population to buy more meal plans because they are not required to do so. On the account that they are not required, selling meal plans to off-campus students is particularly challenging. In order to accomplish these goals and sell more expensive meal plans, Sodexo Management would like to discover how to influence overall satisfaction at Eickhoff Dining Hall. Through discovering these factors and making the appropriate changes, Sodexo and TCNJ will create positive word-of-mouth advertising, as well as retain current customers.

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Marketing Research Problem- Which variables impact overall satisfaction of students regarding their eating needs at Eickhoff Dining Hall?

In order to discover the market research problem, many factors were discussed and analyzed that could influence the overall satisfaction of TCNJ students. Some of these factors include good tasting food, clean facilities, healthy options, waiting time for food, and fair pricing. There is also demographic information that is particularly relevant to our study that may influence the overall satisfaction at Eickhoff for different segments of our target market. These include whether or not a student is on or off-campus, as well as their class membership. Another important piece of information is whether the surveyed student was on campus before the renovation to Eickhoff Dining Hall.

Approach to the Problem In order to discover how to improve the overall satisfaction in Eickhoff Dining Hall, as viewed by the students of TCNJ, our firm conducted extensive market research. By using a nonprobability sample of 80 students and hand-made questionnaires that were distributed to these students, we discovered the variables that were useful in determining the overall satisfaction of Eickhoff Hall. Satisfaction is a critical aspect to improving the sales and retention of students who decided to eat at Eickhoff. Upon receiving the responses, we ran multiple tests including frequency distributions, correlations, one way ANOVA analyses, and independent sample means tests.

11 Research Design

A) Type of Research Design Due to our restrictions on obtaining a list of TCNJ students from The College, our market research team found that non-probability sampling was the most appropriate research design. Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting elected to use a sample size of 80 TCNJ students comprised of 20 freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Students were surveyed through questionnaires which contained various Likert scale and open-ended responses. Our firm researched the attitudes, opinions, likes, and dislikes of these 80 students in order to discover the variables that affected the amount of meal plan purchases at Eickhoff Hall through Sodexo, INC.

B) Information Needs In order to find out the significant predictors of the amount of meal plan purchases, as well as the opinions of the TCNJ student body, our consulting group needed 80 completed surveys. In addition, secondary data was necessary in order to provide background on the overall marketing management problem. As far as the information needs prudent to TCNJ Sodexo, their company wanted to know which major areas of improvement would increase sales. Namely, the factors regarding improvements to Eickhoff Hall included advertising efforts, facilities, food quality and variety, healthful options, and convenience of hours and location.

C) Data Collection from Secondary Sources Secondary research is an invaluable resource in order to provide background on an overall marketing management problem. Magazines, trade organizations, and census data can provide a wealth of information regarding the strategies of competitors as well as understanding your target market.

12 The National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS) is the primary dining college dining trade organization in the United States. This trade association places a large amount of emphasis on the ability of dining halls to provide nutritional options for their students. The association encourages college dining facilities to utilize the expertise of full-time, registered dieticians, as well as displaying nutritional facts in front of various eating areas within dining halls. NACUFS has also put on a webinar, along with the Culinary Institute of America and the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network, to enlighten college dining companies on the importance of healthy eating and various food allergies. The organization is dedicated to providing resources and professional development opportunities to help members navigate the difficulties associated with providing healthful options to students. Healthy eating is crucial to many students throughout the United States, and if a dining facility cannot provide them, sales will almost assuredly decrease. Another useful secondary data source came from the offices at TCNJ. The TCNJ Common Data Set is a publication providing various statistics on the demographics of students on and off campus. According to the Common Data Set, the years following the renovations to Eickhoff Hall in 2010, the number of undergraduates who chose to live off campus fell from 62% to 58%. This provided valuable background to discover whether or not the renovations encouraged students to stay on campus because of the dining facilities at Eickhoff. Due to the popularity of Eickhoff following the renovation, this statistic enlightened our firm about the importance of the following hypothesis test: The awareness of advertisements on campus will affect the likelihood that a person will pay for meals at Eickhoff.

D) Data Collection from Primary Sources The primary sources from our data collection process came primarily from the students on campus. The aforementioned 80 students (20 freshman, 20 sophomores, 20 juniors, 20 seniors) provided invaluable information regarding the attitudes and preferences of the target market TCNJ students. For our data collection, we decided to get an equal amount of students, not only to comply with the nonprobability sampling specifications, but also to receive a reasonable amount of off campus input. Our

13 consulting firm believed that studying the responses of students who do not have full-time meal plans would provide insight as to why these more expensive (and lucrative) plans were avoided.

E) Scaling Techniques A majority of the questions in our survey use rating scale techniques. These questions usually range from adjectives such as very poor to excellent and only include 5 terms. This allows for a neutral response, and it is less likely that respondents will get confused. If there were a rating scale with 11 words, it would be virtually impossible for the respondent to quantify their attitude on a given subject. Similar to the rating scale is the Likert scale question. The only difference between the Likert item and a rating scale item is the word choice. Rather than very poor to excellent, the Likert question ranks from strongly disagree to agree. This allows the respondent a reasonable amount of flexibility to give their own input on a question without confusing them. Our survey also exhibited several forced-choice or nominal questions. In these types of questions, respondents were asked to choose their two favorite meal-plan options. We also asked respondents questions concerning advertising efforts on campus, such as when the first heard of Eickhoff and through what venue. Demographic questions were utilized in our survey as well, and were crucial to our data analysis. From finding out where respondents lived (on or off-campus), as well as their class membership, we were able to run several tests on different segments of students. This information was particular useful in independent samples t-tests. The final type of question our survey used was open-ended response questions. These questions are exactly as they sound respondents are able to write freely and express their thoughts on a given topic. We posed questions to respondents such as, Have the renovations to Eickhoff Hall influenced any of your meal plan purchasing decisions, and, Do you have any additional comments regarding Eickhoff Hall? Although we did not receive an adequate amount of responses to utilize responses for data analysis, the specific answers are useful for management to review. Several students noted that they

14 would like friendlier workers or quicker service, or that the renovations caused them to purchase a larger meal plan.

F) Questionnaire Development and Pretesting The questionnaire was our primary data-gathering instrument for the Eickhoff Dining market research project. In order to form the questions in our survey, our team came up with ten hypotheses that would discover the explanatory variables relating to our dependent variable of overall satisfaction at Eickhoff Hall. By relating the questions to variables that we thought were relevant to satisfaction, we hoped to code the responses into useful data in SPSS and interpret the output. The 10 hypotheses that influenced our questionnaire are listed below:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Good tasting food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall. Clean facilities affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall. Healthy options affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. Waiting time for food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. 5. Fair pricing affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. 6. Each additional year spent at TCNJ decreases the students overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining Hall. 7. Whether a student is on or off-campus influences the students overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining Hall. 8. Whether a student is on or off-campus influences students thoughts on their own cooking versus the dining hall food. 9. Whether or not a student was at TCNJ before the renovation to Eickhoff will affect the students overall satisfaction. 10. Whether or not a student was at TCNJ before or after the renovations to Eickhoff Hall will affect the students thoughts on the variety of the food. As for the rest of our questionnaire, we made sure that each question had sufficient directions so that respondents would answer them correctly. This was crucial in reducing our non-response error. Another way that our questionnaire reduced non-response error is that openended questions had the phrase, Please take no more than 5 minutes in your response, in the

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directions. While this may appear to be a minor detail, it allows respondents to answer the question without the pressure that they need to write an extensive paragraph response. Our team also made sure that our questionnaire was pretested prior to handing them out to our sample respondents. Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consultants each took their own survey once, and gave additional surveys to their close business partners to answer prior to data collection as well. G) Sampling Techniques Our sampling techniques involved a 5-step process. First, we defined the population. Our population included students at TCNJ, on and off-campus. As for our sampling units, we further classified our population as being students who have eaten at Eickhoff Hall. The extent of our population was the campus at TCNJ, because both on and off-campus students can be found at locations such as the dining hall, the library, and the student center. Second, we identified the sampling frame. Due to various restrictions regarding the privacy of students, we were not allowed to obtain a list of students for our sampling frame. We decided to use our judgment of which areas would contain our target population. Third, we defined our sample size. The sample size for our project was 80 students (N=80). We expected that 80 students would be large enough to form accurate inferences onto the population but small enough to complete our project in a timely fashion. The next step was our sampling procedure. Again, due to privacy restrictions, our market research team decided to use nonprobability sampling. More specifically, we decided to use quota sampling using the following chart:

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H) Field Work Mulcahey & Spekhardt Consulting, INC. also conducted the field work in collecting the data from our sampling frame. As previously mentioned, we used written questionnaires, which were distributed to all respondents. In order to get the most typical respondents, our team went to Eickhoff, the library, the student center, and the freshman dorms (Travers and Wolfe) at the time of day with the heaviest traffic of students. Lunch and dinner hour at Eickhoff and the student center provided the majority of our responses. As for the library and the freshman dorms, evenings were the most popular time for students to study or relax. Our team decided that physically handing out the questionnaires would be the best way to get true responses, as students felt pressured to answer appropriately with the researcher present.

Data Analysis A) Methodology For the data analysis portion of our market research report, we used SPSS statistical software. Although there are many choices for statistical software such as excel, SAS, and Statistica, and Minitab, we chose to use SPSS because it is particularly useful for entering survey

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data. After coding all of our survey data into numbers and entering all 80 cases into SPSS, we ran multiple tests on the data. Although not all were useful, we tried using frequency distributions, one mean sample t-tests, two mean independent sample t-tests, regression, oneway ANOVA analysis, correlation matrices and crosstabulations. We did not use the regression in our final report, but the other tests resulted in largely significant output.

B) Plan of the Data Analysis In planning our data analysis, we created a chart in order to figure out which tests to use for which hypotheses and which questions were related:

Hypothesis # 1

Hypothesis

Good tasting food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall. Clean facilities affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall.

Related Question # 3, 27

Test Used Correlation matrices, Frequency dist.

3, 25 Correlation matrices, Frequency dist.

Healthy options affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall.

3, 21

Correlation matrices, Frequency dist.

Waiting time for food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall.

3, 26

Correlation matrices, Frequency dist.

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Fair pricing affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall.

3, 20

Correlation matrices, Frequency dist.

Each additional year spent at TCNJ decreases the students overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining Hall. Whether a student is on or offcampus influences the students overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining Hall. Whether a student is on or offcampus influences students thoughts on their own cooking versus the dining hall food.

3, 31

Oneway ANOVA

3, 29

Crosstabs, Independent samples t-test

3, 4

Independent samples t-test

Whether or not a student was at TCNJ before the renovation to Eickhoff will affect the students overall satisfaction. Whether or not a student was at TCNJ before or after the renovations to Eickhoff Hall will affect the students thoughts on the variety of the food.

3, 18

Independent samples t-test

6, 18

Independent samples t-test

10

As previously mentioned, other tests were used in our extensive analysis, but the tests in the above chart proved the most valuable in discovering the relevant market segments and variables in our study. Also, after running the various types of data analysis, our team restructured some of our hypotheses in order to report the most useful recommendations and results.

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Results Hypothesis 1: Good tasting food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall. Ho : p = 0 Ha : p 0 Our first hypothesis determines whether good tasting food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. We used the correlation matrix to determine whether the variable was significant (Table D1). The correlation coefficient is .521, which is significant at the .000 level; we can reject the null hypothesis. We can conclude from this data that our hypothesis is correct and the better the food tastes at Eickoff, the higher the student levels of satisfaction will be. The main function that Eickoff Dining Hall serves is to feed the student body at TCNJ, thus one of the significant variables that affected satisfaction was good tasting food. Hypothesis 2: Clean facilities affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall. Ho : p = 0 Ha : p 0 Our second hypothesis deals with whether or not clean facilities affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickoff Dining Hall. We used the correlation matrix to determine whether the variable was significant (Table D1). The correlation coefficient is .379, which is significant at the .001 level; we can reject the null hypothesis. We can conclude from the data that our hypothesis is correct and the cleaner the facilities at Eickhoff, the higher the student levels of satisfaction. It is intuitive that students desire a clean facility at Eickhoff Hall. It is hard to maintain an appetite if tables, plates, cups, and chairs are unclean. Additionally, our society and our government place a great emphasis on health inspections, and it is clear that clean

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facilities would be a significant important variable in regards with satisfaction for TCNJ students. Hypothesis 3: Healthy options affect the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. Ho : p = 0 Ha : p 0 Our third hypothesis deals with whether or not healthy options affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. We used the correlation matrix to determine whether the variable was significant (Table D1). The correlation coefficient is .354, which is significant at the .001 level; we can reject the null hypothesis. We can conclude from this data that our hypothesis is correct and the more healthy options at Eickhoff, the higher the student levels of satisfaction will be. In our society, the government spends money and time instructing the youth on how to be active and make healthy choices while eating. The food pyramid was recently redesigned to help guide people with healthier food choices. With the awareness of future health problems such as cardio vascular complications, diabetes, and high blood pressure, it is logical that the students at TCNJ are concerned with healthy choices. Hypothesis 4: Waiting time for food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. Ho : p = 0 Ha : p 0 Our first hypothesis deals with whether or not waiting for food affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. We used the correlation matrix to determine whether the variable was significant (Table D1). The correlation coefficient is .346, which is significant at a .002 level; we can reject the null hypothesis. We can conclude from the

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data that our hypothesis is correct, and that overall student satisfaction is inversely related to waiting time. With classes and other activities, the students of TCNJ have very cluttered schedules, and time management is crucial to academic success. When the students are able to get their food faster they can allocate their precious time to more pressing issues. It is also a general rule of thumb that no one likes waiting for food; this can be attributed to the popularity of fast food chains in the United States. Hypothesis 5: Fair pricing affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. Ho : p = 0 Ha : p 0 Our first hypothesis deals with whether or not fair pricing affects the overall satisfaction students have with Eickhoff Dining Hall. We used the correlation matrix to determine whether the variable was significant (Table D1). The correlation coefficient is .319, which is significant at a .005 level; we can reject the null hypothesis. We can conclude from this data that our hypothesis is correct and the more fair the prices are at Eickhoff, the higher the student levels of satisfaction will be. Even though good tasting food was a significant variable, it does not matter how good the food is if the prices are rendered unreasonable. The prices need to fit the demand for the product; Eickhoff Dining Hall will experience great satisfaction with its customers if the pricing is considered fair. Hypothesis 6: Each additional year spent at TCNJ decreases the students overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining Hall.

H0 = 0 Ha 0

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Our sixth hypothesis involves whether or not students become increasingly tired of Eickhoff Hall as class rank increases. The output utilized for this hypothesis is Oneway ANOVA analysis (Table C1-C3). After performing a global F-test, we fail to reject the null hypothesis (Fvalue of .508), and we can conclude that there is no significant difference between class rank and overall satisfaction of Eickhoff Dining (Table C3). Despite the lack of significance found in the output for the ANOVA analysis, there was an interesting result within (Table C1). Upon reviewing the mean satisfaction of freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, it is evident that this value decreases over time. The mean satisfaction of freshman regarding Eickhoff Hall is 7.09, followed by sophomores (6.75), juniors (6.44) and seniors (6.36). There are two possible reasons as to why the significance level was above our alpha-level of .20 despite this information. The first reason is that our sample size is quite small, and a large amount of respondents wrote down the incorrect class membership in the survey. Second, the disparity between the numbers is not very large between 7.09 for freshman, and the lowest ranking of 6.36 for seniors. Nevertheless, it is interesting that the mean satisfaction value each year. Hypothesis 7: Whether a student is on or off-campus influences the students overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining Hall.

H0: 1 = 2 Ha: 1 2 Another hypothesis tested by our group involves whether the place of residence of students affects overall satisfaction. We reasoned that off-campus students would appreciate Eickhoff Hall when they ate there because they would not have to cook their own meal. Underclassmen, on the other hand, eat every meal at Eickhoff Hall, so we assumed that they

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would provide a lower value of satisfaction. When a Crosstabs Chi Square was run on Satisfaction*on/off-campus students, the chi-square had a p-value of .000, as shown by Table E3. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis that on or off-campus does not affect overall satisfaction and accept the alternative hypothesis. According to the data, it appears that our assumption was correct. The T-test Group Statistics (Table F1) shows that Group 2 (off-campus students) ranked the variable Overall Satisfaction higher than on-campus students did. The off-campus students also ranked Good Tasting Food and Ease of Selecting Food Choices higher than they were ranked by the oncampus students. These two variables were deemed the most significant, with p-values of .084 and .110 (Table F2).

Hypothesis 8: Whether a student is on or off-campus influences students thoughts on their own cooking versus the dining hall food. H0: 1 = 2 Ha: 1 2 Given our eighth hypothesis, our group assumed that an off-campus student, as opposed to an on-campus student, would be significant in determining which respondents believed their own cooking to be better than Eickhoff Dining. This is a reasonable assumption, because offcampus students cook for themselves daily, whereas on-campus students consume several meals per day in Eickhoff Hall. Surprisingly, our rationale was incorrect. According to Table G3, the independent samples t-test proved the null hypothesis to be true. In determining whether on or off-campus influenced the cooking variable, the p-value was an overwhelmingly high level of .80. This is not statistically significant.

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Hypothesis 9: Whether or not a student was at TCNJ before the renovation to Eickhoff will affect the students overall satisfaction.

H0: 1 = 2 Ha: 1 2 Hypothesis nine involves determining whether or not being a student at TCNJ before or after the renovation to Eickhoff Hall affects attitudes of overall satisfaction. Interestingly enough, an independent samples t-test proves this output very significant with a p-value of .067 (Table H4). This means that we reject null hypothesis that being a TCNJ student before or after the renovations to Eickhoff Hall are not significant, and accept the alternative hypothesis. Students who were not on campus before the renovation rated Eickhoff Hall with a mean score of 6.98, while students who were on campus before the renovation rated Eickhoff Hall at 6.23 (Table H1). This could indicate that students who already experienced the old Eickhoff were biased toward the dining facility despite the new changes, whereas the students with a fresh perspective rated the facility higher. Hypothesis 10: Whether or not a student was at TCNJ before or after the renovations to Eickhoff Hall will affect the students thoughts on the variety of the food. H0: 1 = 2 Ha: 1 2 The old Eickhoff Hall facility involved less variety, because students would largely retrieve their own food. The renovated Eickhoff Hall has taken on a new structure, with servers that cater to students various tastes and preferences. In hypothesis ten, our group tested whether or not there was a difference in means of food variety between TCNJ students who experienced Eickhoff before renovations and students who had not. Strengthening our conclusion from hypothesis nine, there is an indication that students

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who experienced Eickhoff before it was renovated may be biased toward the facility. Given the low p-value of .17, we can reject the null hypothesis that the two means are the same (Table H4). Furthermore, students who did not experience Eickhoff before its renovations rated the variety of the food at 3.83 out of 5, as opposed to students who experienced the old Eickhoff who rated the food at 3.23 (Table H1). These results may indicate that management at Eickhoff should increase their advertising efforts to boast its changes to the food variety as well as the overall facility.

Limitations and Caveats As with most studies, our team experienced several limitations and caveats. One immediate hurdle is that our team was unable to obtain a list of students. Due to this limitation, we were forced to use nonprobability sampling. Because of this, our sample was not a random sample, and we had to deliberately handout questionnaires to students on campus. This can significantly influence our results, as bias and other undue influences could have been inflicted on our 80-student sample. Even if our team tried to be as objective as possible and give out questionnaires at random, there may have been some bias as far as who received our surveys. Another limitation would be the size of our sample. Due to time and cost restraints, our team was only able to utilize 80 respondents. While this may seem like a large enough sample, a greater amount of respondents would have most likely changed some of the significance of our data in our favor. We believe that the high p-values in the tests run on the various class membership levels fell victim to this issue. Once an 80-student sample is divided into four subsections, there is no longer an adequate amount of respondents.

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Another difficulty associated with this project is that respondents will not always be honest, and may cause response-error and missing values in your overall dataset. On several occasions, when a respondent claimed to be a junior or a senior, they were in fact a freshman or a sophomore. This may have skewed some of our results in favor of the underclassmen. A probability sample would eliminate such a problem, because an equal amount of each class would respond from campus-wide email list. One final caveat to note from this project is the old adage, correlation is not causality. Although we can draw conclusions about what Sodexo should improve and which variables are causing which results, we can never be sure. There are most likely other factors at play that our consulting firm would need additional time to study.

Conclusions Overall, the results from our questionnaires and data analysis have provided TCNJ and Sodexo with significant results and recommendations. Sodexo management should focus on improving the healthy options, cleanliness, and taste of the food at Eickhoff, while decreasing the wait time. According to respondents, this will greatly improve their overall satisfaction with Eickhoff Dining. Concerning Eickhoffs advertising efforts, they should seriously consider targeting their campaigns toward older students. According to our 2 sample means tests, students who were on campus before the renovations to Eickhoff Hall rank their satisfaction lower than students who never experienced the old Eickhoff. Due to the bias of viewing the older facility, there appears to be a stigma attached with the name of Eickhoff Hall. Sodexo and TCNJ can provide a plethora of posters and information to students in order to stress the changes made to their facility.

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Additionally, TCNJ and Sodexo management should target off-campus students. According to the crosstabs and t-tests, off-campus students ranked various categories of Eickhoff higher than on-campus students did. Although this may be a result of the fact that they do not need to cook while at Eickhoff, it is important to target this market segment. Eickhoff Hall only offers two small plans for off-campus students who may be willing to spend more money on block plan purchases. Eickhoff Dining Hall is a largely successful facility and provides an adequate mean overall satisfaction rate of 6.71 out of 10. However, there is room for improvement. By implementing the above suggestions, Sodexo and TCNJ can raise the amount of perfect responses (a mere 1.3%), as well as the students who purchase the most expensive Carte Blanche C meal plan (which is only 14.7%).

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Eickhoff Hall Questionnaire

This survey for Market Research 310 will attempt to discover the variables that affect meal plan purchases at Eickhoff Hall. Your multiple choice and open ended answers will aid in the process of finding out how TCNJ Dining can better suit your needs. We greatly appreciate your time and effort.

Hypothesis # Please fill in or answer the appropriate blanks.

1. When did you first see the dining facilities at Eickhoff Hall? (Please choose one.) ____ On a TCNJ Tour ____ Upon Arrival to School ____ A High School Event ____ Other, please specify ______________________ ____ Dont Know/Cant Remember

2. From which source did you first hear of Eickhoff Dining? (Please choose one.) ____ Poster on Campus ____ TCNJ Dining Website ____ From Another Person ____ TCNJ Magazine ____ TCNJ Signal ____ Other, Please Specify _____________________ ____ Dont Know/Cant Remember

3. Please enter a number from 10 (very satisfied) to 1 (very dissatisfied) to show how you feel about the Eickhoff Dining facility. ___________

29 4. The food at Eickhoff is better than what I cook (Please check one). Strongly Agree ___ Agree ___ Neutral ___ Disagree ___ Strongly Disagree ___

5. Please select your 2 favorite meal purchase options from below. Refer to the two diagrams given below while selecting your choices.

Carte Blanche Plus Carte Blanche A Carte Blanche B Carte Blanche C 25 Block Plan 50 Block Plan Meal Points (1 pt=$1) Preparing your own meal Dining out off campus

_____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

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6. What do you think of the variety of the food at Eickhoff Hall? (Please check one.) Excellent Good Average Poor Very Poor _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

Please rate the following dining areas to the best of your ability using the following scale: Scale 5= Excellent 4= Good 3= Average 2= Fair 1= Poor

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

C Street Grill (Chicken and Hamburgers) Bliss Bakery (Pastries and Desserts) Veggie Loop (Pasta) Ceva Pizza Roscoes Tacos 31 North Deli (Sandwiches and Wraps) 91.3 Wok (Hibachi Grill) Omelet Bar Green Farms (Salad Bar) My Zone (Gluten-Free) Bamboo Gardens (Sushi)

____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

18. Were you on campus before the renovation to Eickhoff Hall? If yes, please go to question #19. If no, please go to question #20. (Screening Question) Yes No ____ Please go to question #20.

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19. Have the renovations made to Eickhoff Hall influenced your meal plan purchasing decisions? If so, please explain below. Please take no more than 5 minutes. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

Please rate the following dining areas to the best of your ability using the following scale: Scale 5= Excellent 4= Good 3= Average 2= Fair 1= Poor 20. Fair Pricing 21. Healthy Options 22. Convenient Hours 23. Convenient Location 24. Friendly Workers 25. Clean Facilities 26. Waiting Time for Food 27. Good Tasting Food 28. Ease of Selecting Food Choices ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

29. Do you live on or off campus while attending TCNJ this semester (Please check one)? On Campus A Less than 15 Minute Drive from Campus (one way) More than 15 Minute Drive from Campus (one way) ____ ____ ____

32 30. What Meal Plan do you currently have? Please fill in your answer below. Carte Blanche Plus Carte Blanche A Carte Blanche B Carte Blanche C 25 Block Plan 50 Block Plan Meal Points (1 pt=$1) _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

31. As of April, 2012, what is your class membership at TCNJ? Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Graduate _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

32. If you have any other additional comments about TCNJ Dining, Sodexo, or Eickhoff Hall, please write them below. _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________