Qualitative Research: Retaining Customers

At Clemson University, students are required to purchase a dining hall pass for their freshman year. These passes allow students to enter any of the dining facilities around Clemson’s campus. Although keeping retaining 100% of consumers as loyal customers is a lofty goal, returning students rarely purchase a dining pass again. To uncover insights as to why students were not renewing their pass, we conducted a series of research inquiries utilizing multiple qualitative research methods. Each is listed and explained further below.

Focus Group Work

In this project, our team was tasked with utilizing focus groups to discover what meal options students prefer in dining halls. Specifically, we dove deep into “healthy options” and what a good healthy menu is to students.

In this project, our team dove deep into online communities to gather data on consumer sentiments towards dining halls nationwide. Conducting our research in this way allowed us to discover what worked well at other facilities, and how we could improve at Clemson University.