Contact CU Independent News Staff Writer Sydney Worth at sydney.worth@colorado.edu.
Hungry Buffs may begin to face some competition with the arrival of the new online delivery app Tapingo. The San Francisco-based company has stakes on 125 college campuses in both the U.S. and Canada, and it already has a deal with Chipotle — something Hungry Buffs does not.
The company is making a play on campuses through its emphasized focus on the college market itself, and it seems to be working.
“On every single one of our campuses, we’ve seen an increase in student engagement along with positive feedback,” said Leanne Reis, Tapingo’s public relations manager. “Tapingo is the ideal solution for the on-the-go, on-demand generation, and we anticipate that CU students will benefit from our solution.”
Tapingo’s integration of campus cards and meal plans gives students and faculty a chance to gravitate away from the dining halls without the guilt of using their own money.
Kaycee Morgan, a sophomore at CU, expressed an interest in the company.
“It definitely would’ve been easier to order food when I was a freshman,” Morgan said.
Tapingo’s other features include mobile technology that allows students to schedule their order for pickup or delivery, and low delivery fees. Reis also emphasizes its success in developing a relationship with its consumer community and its “360-degree approach to mobile commerce,” meaning no kind of customer feedback gets ignored.
“Once a campus is launched, our main goal shifts to enhancing the customer experience on the app,” Reis said. “We take feedback…very seriously, and use it to help inform strategic decisions for additional features and improvements.”
Competition is coming for CU students’ beloved delivery service, but Anthony Wyatt, a representative of Hungry Buffs, doesn’t think they have anything to fear.
“We welcome all competition to Boulder,” Wyatt said. “We have some exciting established restaurant partnerships (over 100 in Boulder) and we will keep working hard to bring our customers more options.”
On top of mountains of homework, clubs and other typical college responsibilities, CU students will soon be faced with yet another stress: Which delivery service do I choose?
Tapingo doesn’t have a launch date just yet, but the company has reached out to get the ball rolling. The only thing keeping this delivery service from making a stake on campus is a partnership with CU.
“We’ve found that students get super excited about the prospect of never waiting in line again,” Reis said,”and it’s this excitement from students is what helps us get there faster.”
