AI-Enabled service quality in university foodservice: The mediating role of perceived value in customer satisfaction

Abstract

AI-enabled foodservice increasingly combines operational benefits with data-related concerns, yet these attributes may shape customer evaluations differently. Focusing on efficiency and privacy as salient performance and data-protection attributes, this study examines their direct and value-mediated associations with customer satisfaction. University canteens provide a high-frequency, routine service setting in which users repeatedly encounter digitally mediated services. Survey data from 596 users at three Chinese universities were analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modeling and bootstrapping. Efficiency was strongly associated with satisfaction both directly and indirectly through perceived value, indicating a substantial dual pathway. Privacy was positively associated with perceived value but had no significant direct association with satisfaction, producing a much weaker, primarily value-mediated pathway. Perceived value was positively associated with satisfaction. These findings reveal attribute asymmetry in AI-enabled foodservice: efficiency operates through strong direct and value-mediated pathways, whereas privacy contributes more modestly and mainly through customers’ value evaluations of routine service experiences.