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Chartwells Web Site Wins Innovation Award
(Grapevine, Texas) December 12, 2005 – During the 10th Annual Foodservice Technology Conference (FS-TEC), Chartwells was honored as the recipient of the 2005 On-Site Technology Innovation Award, presented by Nation's Restaurant News, Microsoft, Savista and Accuvia, for its new Web portal http://www.dineoncampus.com.
“We originally set out to develop a Web-based nutrition information program for students on our college campuses. However, as with most successful programs, DineOnCampus (DoC) was customer driven, and evolved into a comprehensive resource center based on student feedback,” explained Dean Lowden, vice president – Support Services for Chartwells Higher Education Dining.
What followed was the development of a revolutionary campus dining solution. “Based on our research on the Millennial generation, we determined that these students are typically technologically savvy, and use the Internet as their primary source of information gathering. We listened to our students and decided to design the DoC Web portal as a fun, one-stop-shop for all their campus dining and nutrition information needs,” stated Lowden.
DineOnCampus.com allows students to purchase meal plans and add declining balance dollars via a secure encryption transaction. Additional functions allow students with the ability to view campus specific menus; create their own nutritional journal to track what they have eaten; and provide them with a myriad of health and wellness tools and calculators. Instant feedback from students can be obtained through the customer feedback and polling feature.
With 43 college sites live already and 70 sites in development, Chartwells has mapped out an aggressive launch strategy to activate 200 campus dining sites within the next year. “We're not aware of any other dining site or group of sites, featuring real-time meal plan and declining balance transactions, in-depth nutritional information, or many of the robust features that sets Dine On Campus apart in the food service industry”, stated Dylan Bromby, president of RoaringSky, the developers of DineOnCampus.com and exclusive partners for Chartwells’ Internet venture.
Since the launch of DoC, nearly a quarter of a million visitors have frequented the site, several thousand of which have signed-up for a personalized nutrition journal. According to Bromby, “We had worked on projects within the foodservice industry for several years and had seen the potential for dynamic, semi-custom, transaction-oriented Web sites for dining services in the higher education market, but Chartwells turned that potential into reality with a vision and commitment unparalleled in the foodservice industry.”
Chartwells will soon be launching a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program tied to DoC. This CRM module will enable the Chartwells Marketing Department to communicate directly with students and market to their individual needs.
Planning for expansion, evolution and upcoming trends, the team developed DoC to be flexible and responsive. “RoaringSky’s Web application platform gives us the ability to make instantaneous changes to the site in ‘real time’. In a very short amount of time, we can add or subtract modules from our site, which enables us to be very proactive to our students and clients needs” concluded Lowden.
About Chartwells
Chartwells, a division of Charlotte- based Compass Group, provides dining services for over 225 colleges and universities. With revenues of $1.1 billion and serving more than 1 million college students each day, Chartwells employs over 23,000 associates. For more information please visit http://www.dineoncampus.com or www.eatlearnlive.com
About Compass Group
Charlotte-based Compass Group, The Americas Division is the leading contract foodservice company with more than $7.5 billion in revenues and more than 152,000 associates throughout the US, Canada and Latin America. Its parent company, UK-based Compass Group PLC was ranked the 12th largest employer by Fortune magazine in 2005. It has worldwide revenues of $23.5 billion with over 400,000 associates working in more than 90 countries. For more information about Compass Group, The Americas Division, visit www.cgnad.com.
Original article can be found HERE
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