“A Campus Dining Story” is a series based off fictional events that help better demonstrate the pain points of any college campus dining operation. While the story is fabricated, the quality of our products and tools is not. We hope you enjoy this story and the many more that are to come!
The dream of many campus dining operators is to maximize efficiency for students and staff daily. Having a line out the door may seem like a positive thing, but students want to get their food and go on about their day.
What if we had tools to help you manage your dining hall better?
Instead of just telling you about these tools, we created a fictional scenario to help better illustrate the tools in action and to show how they can help your campus succeed.
At Red Valley College, the dining halls were abuzz with student activity. From early morning coffee runs to late-night study snacks, the staff put in endless hours serving hundreds of students daily. But behind the scenes, the cracks in their outdated Point of Sale system were beginning to show and widen.
"It’s not built for the way we operate, actually," Maggie, dining manager, groused during a staff meeting. "We’ve got meal plans, declining balance accounts, mobile ordering requests non-stop, and it can't keep up with that. The students are frustrated, and so are we."
Maggie’s words struck a chord. Complaints were clearly mounting, it seemed. Lines at the registers stretched on forever, orders placed via mobile often became lost in the ether, and balancing accounts at the end of the month was nothing short of a logistical nightmare for the accounting team.
That night, determined to find a solution, Maggie began researching. She read reviews, forums, and looked for options specific to higher education dining services. Then, one name kept popping up: FullCount Education.
The more Maggie learned, the more excited she became. FullCount Education promised to handle everything Red Valley needed: multiple meal plans, mobile ordering, and real-time account management. Even better, it offered tools for reporting and analytics that could help her team optimize operations and cut down on waste.
The next morning, Maggie marched into the campus director’s office. “I’ve found the solution,” she declared. She showed off FullCount Education’s features:
FullCount Engage would allow students to view and manage their meal plans, reducing confusion and complaints. Mobile ordering would integrate seamlessly, reducing congestion at the registers. Reporting tools would let dining staff forecast demand and plan menus more efficiently.
A few calls with the finance and IT staff, and the college was ready to roll. A month later, FullCount's implementation team arrived on campus to begin training staff and customizing the system to suit Red Valley's needs.
From the start, the difference was night and day. The mobile orders began flowing in, unclogging the lines in the dining halls and freeing up students to do other things. The meal plan management system eliminated reconciling headaches, saving hours of back-office work every week.
But Maggie’s favorite feature was the data dashboard: through analyzing the trends in student dining habits, her team could adjust inventory and plan promotions for underused dining options. The changes didn't just save money but also reduced food waste – an imperative alignment with Red Valley's sustainability goals.
On a crisp autumn afternoon, Maggie stood by the counter, watching as a student scanned their ID at one of FullCount's self-serve kiosks. The line flowed, students grabbing meals to head off with big smiles to their next classes.
"Hey, Maggie!" one of the chefs said, waving her over. "Did you see that? Lunchtime traffic was smoother than it's ever been."
Maggie grinned. “I know. It’s like we’ve stepped into the future.”
Later that week, Maggie received an email from a student named Mia. “Thanks for upgrading the dining system,” it read, “I don’t miss standing in line for 20 minutes to grab a snack between classes. The mobile app is a game-changer!”
As she closed the email, Maggie was struck with a true sense of pride: FullCount Education didn't just resolve their POS problems; it really transformed the concept of dining across campus. Her team could devote themselves for the first time ever to just what mattered more: creating experiences within a dining framework on campus that enabled the students at Red Valley College, one meal at a time.
If your campus is ready to answer the needs of today’s students, then find out how FullCount Education will help deliver a seamless experience.
