Auxiliary Services made the switch to a new late night meal service called GET Food.
On Jan. 24, a campus-wide email was sent out by Auxiliary Services discussing their new and returning services for the spring semester. In the email, Auxiliary Services announced that their new service called GET Food, would be replacing Webfoods. Auxiliary Services also stated that in order to use the new service, students were required to create a new account, with GET Food.
In mid-to-late July, Auxiliary Services received notification from CBORD that they were discontinuing Webfood as of December 2015. Auxiliary Services tried to get CBORD to hold out until the end of the academic year, but had to make the transition from Webfood to GET Food by December 2015.
The quick transition from Webfood to GET Food led to some glitches and difficulties. If students are running into issues they should contact webfoods@oswego.edu.
“We haven’t gotten around to changing the name yet,” Steve McAfee, director of cash operations and catering in Auxiliary Services, said. “Partly because students have the contact in their phone, but we will probably change the email in the future.”
There are a couple new features to GET Food, including an app designed for Apple products, Android products and tablets. The app has faster loading and has a pick-up option, in addition to the delivery option.
Another new feature is the adding of a credit card. Under ‘Quick Links’ on GET Food, students can add a credit card to pay for their order.
“For the customer experience, the new app runs traditionally like an online order service,” McAfee said.
Local restaurant owner Jason Shi likes the new convenience of the app.
“Students are able to use iPhone and Android, now they can place an order from their iPhone,” Shi said. “I think more people order with the new system.”
Shi owns Wonzones Calzones, located at 118 W. Second St., in downtown Oswego. Since the transition from Webfood to GET Food, he has noticed around a 30 percent increase in his sales.
“I am turning on a pick up option so students can order their calzones from their phones and pick up their food before returning to campus,” said Shi.
His hope is that with the convenience of the app, students will use the new pickup feature. Shi also hopes to create business and make the new features on the app known by using special promotions catered to Oswego State students.
A new feature of GET Food has people talking. GET Food gave Auxiliary Services the choice of starting delivery at 5 p.m. or 7 p.m., but they were unable to start both in the way they wanted to. The board decided on 7 p.m. in order to make it the best option for students and vendors.
With the way GET Food is now, vendors need to contact any customer placing an order to a campus residence hall, which would result in challenging situations for the customers and the vendors.
“While not ideal, it was the one that allowed us to maintain the program as intended by our board directors when it was originally started,” McAfee said.
Some students are very welcoming to the change and enjoy using GET Food.
Alex Masterson, a freshman, said that he likes the new system.
“GET Food is a lot faster, and the menus are well organized,” Masterson said. “It is also a lot easier to understand and use.”
Other students, such as Derek Hempstead, a freshman, weren’t quite ready to embrace the change, but over time, have come to like GET Food.
“At first I was skeptical about GET Food after being unable to order one night,” Hempstead said. “But since then, I have not had any issues, and it seems to be working better than Webfood ever did.”
McAfee is hopeful for the new system.
“GET Food doesn’t operate the same as Webfoods, so there is still a lot of work to get done,” McAfee said. “We’ve had some difficulty with some of the installation and we’ve run into a few glitches but we are working with the developers to get the pieces that are missing.”
