Let’s paint a picture really quick for you.
Your name is Sam, you are a student, and most importantly—you are a millennial.
You set 3 alarms on your iPhone every morning to ensure you aren’t late for class.
You check your Waze app before heading out the door to avoid traffic on your morning commute to school.
While you’re in the car, you order your cappuccino from Starbucks using their mobile app.
Upon receiving your cappuccino, you immediately input your calories in your MyFitnessPal app so you can begin tracking your calories for the day.
Tuition is due today, so you log on to your Scotiabank mobile app while walking to class to ensure you won’t ‘enter the red’ once school steals all your money.
You are now in class.
There are 4 window tabs open your computer
1. The Lecture
2. Facebook (you’re talking to your project group, and your bae)
3. Your taking notes on Evernote
4. Youtube is playing a rerun of Keeping up with the Kardashians
You hear your stomach start to rumble and know you have only 5 minutes to get to your next class once this one is over. You take out your phone, open Hangry, and order a sushi combo that will be ready right when this class is done.
It’s not even noon, and you’ve already used at least 10 apps or services to help you get sh*t done and you’re feeling like a winner.
Why? Because you’re a millennial, and you need to get sh*t done, and technology gets it done quickly.
Right Sam?
In order to improve on-campus student satisfaction, you first need to acknowledge what makes them happy, and what is the quickest route to earn that happiness.
The word of the day is ‘Convenience’.
It might as well be a synonym for Millennials.
In order to satisfy the modern day student, you need to feed into their independence by allowing them to get everyday tasks accomplished easily and on their own.
The following are just a few solutions every school should provide to students:
- Mobile ordering solutions
- Mobile ecommerce solutions
- Mobile marketing solutions
- Mobile engagement apps
- Nutrition mobile apps
- Mobile loyalty apps
For a student, the ideal scenario would be to have all campus services available at their fingertips. That way, they are able to accomplish tasks on their own and from essentially anywhere. Therefore, if your main goal is to increase student satisfaction you need to ask yourself, ‘How can I make this service readily available to them, and put them in charge?’
Mobile ordering solutions for universities and colleges is a great example of this. Hangry, for instance, gives students full access to all school cafeteria menus, all nutritional information, and then gives you the option to order from any campus location. Through this process you are allowing the students to access information from anywhere, and they control the process. Nutritional and ordering apps like this are the bread and butter of Auxiliary Service satisfaction on campus (pun intended).
Once these mobile solutions are implemented, the next step is to start rewarding students for their active usage. If you want to make students happy—give them presents. It seems like such a silly concept, but once we’ve managed to provide these solutions for students, we now need to keep them around. Mobile loyalty apps for colleges and universities are the answer here. Loyalty apps are set in place to reward students every time they use your solution. Mobile ordering is always an easy option, but if the student is the near the cafeteria and doesn’t see a line, they might be inclined to just go in and order their food in person (THE HORROR). But if they know they’re going to earn points or rewards for using your mobile solution, they will never leave you.
So now we come back to our burning question Sam: What do we need to do to make you happy?
1. Make services available at your fingertips
2. Leave you in charge
3. Reward you for it
Want to learn more about how to keep students dining on campus?
Click here.