Satisfaction Research For Student Canteen Service Based On College Students’ Diet Consuming Behavior

According to the statics published by the Ministry of Education, there are23.856million college students including full-time undergraduate students and postgraduate students in universities in2010. Such a huge group of students majorly take three meals a day in the universities’student canteens. These canteens provide quality catering services to meet the diet needs of students. It means that these services do not only need to ensure the student eat well but also need to ensure that students have adequate nutrition to meet the needs of their physical growth and development. Student canteens’catering service for college students are belonged to public sector. This kind of service is the most important part of logistical work in university. The quality and running of one student canteen’s catering service directly influences the life, study and mental condition of college students. It then relates to the security and stability of one university as a whole.The current researches and studies on universities’student canteen mainly focus on questions of these canteens which relate to canteens’management, costing and service quality. However, this research stands upon a fresh perspective which is conducting this research based on the theories of consumers’behavior and satisfactory. This research takes the example of Southwest Jiaotong University. It theoretically studies college students’ consumer behavior and consumer style on catering and the division of market on college students’catering consumption. This research then pays attention to the evaluation of consuming behavior on college students toward student canteens’catering service. The research also constructs models to demonstrate the relationship between students’life style and their consuming behaviors as well as their consuming loyalty. In a word, this research is empirical. It attempts to improve the quality of student canteens’management and propose ideas and directions on managing students’canteens with student-orientation.By comparing the statistics on students’consuming behavior in catering in past three years, this research has accurate data and ideas on college students’catering consuming behaviors, consuming preferences and ideas as well as these differences in diverse age groups. Accordingly, this research concludes seven major features on college students’ consuming behaviors in catering service. And then, this research proposes detailed opinions in four fields including dishes improvement, canteen management, dishes innovation and human resources management. These ideas are proposed by the result of analyzing consuming behaviors in catering service, consuming preferences and consuming ideas. These analyses aim at meeting the needs of students’diet consuming in order to improve the students’satisfactory in catering consumption in student canteens, and eventually improve the managing quality of college student canteen.Based on the scale tables of the Food-Related Lifestyle (FRL) this research designs scale tables of FRL for Chinese college students in students’catering life. By surveys and factor analysis, this study divides college students’catering life in seven levels. It utilizes structural equation modeling to test and verify credibility and effectiveness in this factor analysis. Consequently, this research uses analyzing methods with two phases of groups to identify four groups on college students’catering life styles which equal to four market segments in catering service including unconcerned catering style, enjoyment catering style, modern catering style, and traditional home-based catering style. The statistics suggests that there are remarkable differences in97%groups. It demonstrates that difference groups are remarkably different in satisfactory and loyalties in attitudes and behaviors as well as consuming behaviors. Furthermore, it expresses that different groups are different in gender and grades based on the age factors. These results suggest that dividing students’catering market by different catering styles is effective and significant.This research constructs measurement scale on satisfactory toward college students’ canteens. It utilizes factor analysis to collect the major factors which affect satisfactory toward college students’canteens. These factors are canteen product perception, service quality perception, catering environment and catering conditions. By examining the credibility and effectiveness, this study uses Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to exam the measurement scale and factor structure. It then conducts the satisfaction model parameter estimation and model on college students’ canteen service. The result demonstrates that this model has higher target reliability and the overall fitness. Moreover, the four factors of this model significantly influences satisfactory which provides scientific foundations on improving the service of students’canteens.By analysis, this study finds out that demographic variables cannot affect satisfactory and loyalty in most time. In case there could be some influences which are not in formation with certain randomness. Due to that satisfactory and loyalty is closely related to certain outside environment and inside management such as market price fluctuations, the university’s support to canteens, change of catering environment in canteens, canteens’ domestic managing changes, the technical differences of canteen staffs and students’ individual features. Accordingly, this study argues that there is no significant connection between demographic variables and canteen satisfactory and loyalty.It is a hot topic that studying at the relation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. However, this research suggests that the relation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in students’canteens which are kind of public sector is a positive linear relationship. This argument is based on the statistics which come from the orthogonal polynomial regression analysis method. At the same time, this research relationship models between college students’catering style, customer satisfaction and attitude loyalty. And then, this research utilizes structural equation modeling to testify them. It finds out that catering style directly affects customer satisfaction and behavior loyalty, and indirectly affects attitude loyalty and behavior loyalty. Furthermore, it suggests that customer satisfaction directly affects attitude loyalty and behavior loyalty. Meantime, customer satisfaction indirectly affects behavior loyalty through attitude loyalty. Eventually, this research identifies that catering style cannot directly influence attitude loyalty.This study is based upon the theory of customer satisfaction and customer behavior. It discusses the issues of managing college students’ canteens. It proposes that conducting the research aiming at catering consuming behaviors could help the service of students’ canteens and fulfillthe students’need. By analyzing college students’ catering lifestyle, it is necessary to establish an effectiveconsuming market segments in students’ catering service. This study is targeted to propose managing strategies on running college students’ canteens, which are①identifying the target market, implementing different operation;②improving meal quality, paying attention to meal features;③introducing food culture and brand awareness;④innovating catering management and serving college students. Furthermore, this study suggests that it should construct a management system with students’satisfaction orientation. Moreover, it should paying close attention to the short board which influences students’satisfaction on student canteens. After all, this study believes throughout conducting previous initiatives, it should improve the students’satisfaction toward students’canteens and then attract more loyal customers. Eventually, it could be beneficial for social and economic income. This research has realistic significances in guiding dietary workers to purposefully help students to establish a correct concept of nutrition, developing a healthy diet consumer behavior, meeting students’ demand for food consumption, helping catering workers accurately understand the students’ satisfaction toward university’s canteen service and improve the university canteens’meals and management quality. Part results of this research have been applied in the managing practices in the students’ canteens in Southwest Jiaotong University which has achieved significant results.