After the small fortune students pay for a meal plan, we expect a bang for our buck. While we may partake in the dining halls’ exquisite cuisine, we do like to take the casual break from the monotonous mashed potatoes and slices of pizza. The new Atrium, the food court in Talley, as well as the diner-style Wolves’ Den offer a variety of options for your eating enjoyment. However, the one item the food court in Talley does not offer is the core of the food industry’s professionalism — customer service.
My experiences with workers for University Dining at Talley show they lack the first bullet point in any employee handbook. Their lack of customer service pulls down the standards set by the other University Dining locations on campus. I’ve seen employees from the food court in Talley texting in front of customers, taking breaks in front of the establishments, violating dress code and even using profanity in front of customers. These are only a few of the complaints. Not only do they make customers feel uncomfortable, but they also place the customer second when they should be first.
Thankfully, this clear disregard for customers rarely goes beyond the bounds of this particular food court. By comparison, the experiences at Talley’s Wolves’ Den and the Atrium meet and sometimes exceed the expectations of customers. At these places, you not only see employees pulling their own, but managers getting involved at busy times of the day.
University Dining employees at these establishments should be held accountable for their actions that are not to standard. In the professional world, employees are instructed to uphold the company policy with the utmost respect and customer service. By ignoring customers and making inappropriate comments that make customers feel uncomfortable, these employees are deliberately not following these instructions. This will only hinder them once they enter in the real business world.
On the other hand, employees cannot be held fully responsible since it is their managers and supervisors’ jobs to make sure they follow such a code while in their uniforms. Their managers should not only uphold these values themselves, but also enforce them like they would in an actual business environment. One would think a university with such a prominent College of Management could produce managers who could display the values of customer service at their dining locations. This not only reflects poorly on the managers themselves, but on the overall environment of the eating establishment they are running.
While it is procedure to hand an employee a manual to read, they should also go through a brief training session on how to act in an environment with such a high priority on customer service. We deserve the same service we would receive if we were handing them actual money.
