Customer Satisfaction in Online Food Ordering during COVID-19: The Role of Hygiene Factors in Bangladesh

Abstract

It has been self-evident that consumers are essential stakeholders in companies, and their satisfaction is management’s top concern. In recent years especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the usage of online food delivery applications has drastically increased along with the embracement of new technologies in almost every corner of Bangladesh. Thus, with increased competition in the market, quality of service has become an essential aspect of customer satisfaction. Considering the hazard of COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) strictly emphasizes on maintenance of hygiene along with other guidelines. The relationship between customer satisfaction with hygiene factors has been confirmed by some researchers, although few studies have been conducted solely on the topic. This descriptive research aims to identify and examine the relationship between customer satisfaction and hygiene factors while ordering food online during COVID-19 in Bangladesh. A combination of simple random sampling under the probability sampling techniques and snowball sampling under the nonprobability sampling techniques has been used to collect quantitative data from customers of Dhaka city. Reliability tests, Multiple regression analyses, and Pearson correlation have been conducted with the help of SPSS to analyze the data. Findings suggest that hygiene factors should be prioritized to ensure customer satisfaction. Quality of food and packaging of food has been found to be two of the most important variables under hygiene factors from this study. It has provided results that could be useful to managers and employees in the online food delivery industry for strategic planning and to achieve a sustainable business model.