THE IMPACT OF FOOD SERVICE ATTRIBUTES ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF CAFETERIA SERVICES AT A STATE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN MINDANAO

The study focuses on determining the impact of food service attributes on customer satisfaction in cafeteria services at the State University of Northern Mindanao. The respondents of this study were selected based on non-random criteria and from the general community of the university, namely students, teachers, office staff, and other personnel. Among the 126 respondents, 25% were aged between 16-25, 25% were between 26-35, 25% were between 36-45 and 25% were between 46-65 years old. Furthermore, approximately half of the respondents were staff of the cafeteria (50%), 24% were instructors and 26% were students. The findings revealed that food service attributes like quality of food and beverage (mean=28), quality of service (mean=16), quality of setting (mean=17), and price and value (mean=7) have a highly positive correlation with the customers' overall satisfaction (mean=14). Furthermore, the study showed that 68.4% of the quality of food and beverage, 45.8% of the quality of service, 62% of the quality of setting, and 61.9% of price and value contributed to overall customer satisfaction. This means that food service attributes posited a highly positive impact on customer satisfaction and therefore all the hypotheses of this study are accepted.