By: Mike Borges, President of State and Nutrition Solutions | LINQ
How We Helped Make Back to School Easier for Districts This Year
The back-to-school season is a crazy time for school districts, even when everything goes according to plan. Over the past 20 years of working in school nutrition, I’ve watched and observed districts across the country plan and prepare for the weeks on either side of opening day, and it never ceases to amaze me how resourceful and resilient K-12 nutrition leaders can be.
From preparation throughout the summer to greeting students on the first day of school with a delicious breakfast, school nutrition professionals follow a meticulous checklist to get there. Behind the scenes preparation includes cleaning and organizing kitchens, making sure trucks and kitchen equipment are working, and ordering and receiving food deliveries. And then there is staffing and (re)training the team. Most are onboard early. They’re part of the planning and understand the drill. Others come back from summer and need refreshed training.
Students feel the strain, too. They’re returning to new teachers, making new friends, and adjusting to waking up early and new daily schedules. However, they can always count on the cafeteria to be their comfort zone. It’s a place to relax, socialize, and refuel with a healthy nutritious meal.
Customer Feedback Shaped Our Preparations for a Record-Breaking Year
We highly value customer feedback to help us guide and prioritize investments in product development, customer support, and resource allocation.
Leading up to preparation for this school year, our LINQ leadership services teams crisscrossed the country leading town halls, conducting lunch and learns, and presenting at SNA events to meet with customers. Their questions, concerns, and feedback led to setting impactful priorities for a successful back-to-school season.
Guided by customer feedback and suggestions, we invested in product architecture and performance improvements to meet the growing demand of our customer base. We also gave our Support team AI-driven resources to facilitate customer inquiries and faster support response and resolution. This included intense focus and preparation months in advance to ensure the following critical back-to-school readiness initiatives were in place:
- Rebalancing systems to enhance performance and reliability during busy times
- Expanding our online library of training and knowledge resources
- Adding 24/7 AI chat support to resolve inquiries faster than ever
- Setting up our Back-to-School Command Center to quickly resolve more complex support inquiries quickly and collaboratively
Additionally, we launched the LINQ Support Hub portal, a single online location where customers can quickly find answers, track their support ticket status, and reach out to us for help with any LINQ product.
Tapping into customer feedback helped us deliver what schools needed to seamlessly serve meals reliably and on record pace this back-to-school season.
The results tell an exciting story. We’re thrilled to celebrate the success our customers are reporting. From record meal transactions and digital payments volume to nearly instant on-call support, here’s why customers are telling us this is their best back-to-school season yet.
Voices from the Cafeteria
Our district partners and people are the heart of what we do, and words speak volumes.
School nutrition leaders have called this back-to-school season their best yet, specifically praising the LINQ POS reliability for their success.
In the Phoenix suburbs, Gilbert Public Schools report that their integrated front-to-back of house nutrition software enables their team to tackle a wide range of challenges head-on.
Serving over 87,000 students, Alpine School District also reports that LINQ Nutrition helped them warmly welcome students back this year. They said, “Thank you for your partnership and all your efforts for a smooth back to school.”
Testimonials like these help confirm that our priorities are in the right place.
Setting a New Standard in School Nutrition Software and Support
We understand how crucial it is for nutrition staff to get answers quickly, especially during the bustling back-to-school season. Investments in LINQ support resources paid dividends for our customers this year with answer times that set a new standard.
Lightning-fast POS performance enabled our customers to process a record number of meal transactions. It’s a direct reflection of the vital role a supportive technology partner plays in enabling school districts to achieve their strategic goals. As our customers continue to grow, we’ll be here supporting them.
We published this data in a new report available now. Open it now to find the full data readout and analysis from this record-setting back-to-school season. It’s packed with exclusive LINQ data, analysis, and customer testimonials.