Communication and collaboration are essential elements to a healthy relationship between a foodservice operation and a supplier. While it is easy to slip into complacency over the long term, actively creating and maintaining an effective communication plan can avoid the inevitable problems created by waiting for emergency to dictate engagement.
Use the following tips to help strengthen your operation with a more robust communication strategy.
Transparency between Supplier and Client.
Sometimes clients feel like they don’t have enough information to make decisions. Sharing information requires significant time and effort by management before they generate value. Any collaboration requires a change in mindset for both client and supplier – it is more than just a transactional relationship.
Any relationship is built on trust. It is a partnership! Building collaboration and cooperation leads to finding significant new sources of value that benefit them both and, in turn, the campus community — such as innovations that could boost revenues for both parties and in turn increase satisfaction among customers. How about collaborating on planning, forecasting which improves service and mitigate risk? It may be a paradigm shift for many and requires commitment from both parties.
Valuable information to share between supplier and client may include:
Timeliness of information
Type of information — access to relevant information for both parties, both positive and negative
Strategic alignment of overall goals and objectives
Creating value and sharing — giving room to grow, performance-based incentives
Investing in allocating appropriate resources to support the program
Connecting Campus Dining with the Campus Community
Campus dining should forge a deeper connection with the campus community. Customers are seeking authenticity, shared values, transparency, and on-time information! Any dining program that reflects customer interests enhances institutional reputation and student life. Of course, nobody wants negative student press or protests, so communication plays a huge role in a successful program.
There are many solutions to ensure consistent communication and engagement with the campus community. All these solutions should help inform the community about the dining strategies, strengthen relationship with stakeholders and vendors and build a stronger brand image. We’ve noticed that when choosing a foodservice supplier, our clients used community engagement as one of the main initiatives.
Annual Marketing and Communication Plans
Marketing and communication plans are not simply marketing about specials, limited time offers and voluntary meal plans. The communication plan should show the value of the brand and the value of the services. It should have strategies for two-way communication such as focus groups, social media, and responses, etc...
Internal Communication Plans
Internal communication plans make sure that what you communicate externally is also communicated internally. This can be achieved through working with HR, team meetings before a meal period, emails, staff boards, and, most of all, knowing who they can reach if they don’t know about something.
Examples of where you can involve the campus community include:
dining planning engagements
brand building
changes in meal plans
concept/menu development
operational changes
any opportunities to increase revenue and satisfaction
social justice programs such as food security, DEI, sustainability, etc…
Seek out any influencers and thought leaders to be part of this process. Communicate the results back to those involved so there is collaboration in the decision-making.
Collaboration and Partnerships with Campus Constituencies.
The campus is a whole world in itself, so how do we build those two-way relationships with relevant stakeholders?
This should be an ongoing thing and not just during emergency events. It is a critical part of any campus dining’s success because the campus system is needed to support the program from the moment a connection is made.
Educational Programs
It’s crucial to work with nutrition department or student health to introduce healthy initiatives. Student employees use dining as an educational part of their life and not just a job, so working with university HR, international students department, and other academic departments is a great opportunity for productive engagement. Other opportunities for student employees might include local suppliers, farmers markets, or even learning life skills in partnership with residence life.
Strategic planning collaborations with Student Government can help bring initiatives and ideas forth and also help communicate it to the large student body. Include members in planning meetings or choosing foodservice vendors. Any of the campus stakeholders have a stake in dining either by being impacted on the work dining does, have influence over the success of the program or may need help in getting their goals achieved. Engage student and stakeholders in a meaningful way.
Connections beyond campus include being part of professional associations and building network of similar institutions. This helps in collaborating on issues, sharing ideas and similar goals, celebrating successes, sharing resources.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully these tips can help strengthen your foodservice program through an intentional focus on communication and collaboration between suppliers, clients and employees.
As always, please reach out if you have any questions! If you’d like to stay up to date with Envision’s blogs, be sure to subscribe below!