Factors affecting online customer experience of food delivery services during crisis: TISM and Delphi techniques

Abstract

This article adopts the online customer experience framework to explore how enhancing customer experience by presenting transformative value propositions to mitigate vulnerabilities in online food delivery services during natural disasters or crises. Disasters shift people from stability to vulnerability, requiring innovative service access. Thus, it becomes imperative for service-oriented companies, especially online food delivery platforms, to craft a transformative value proposition by discerning the factors that enhance customer experience. In this regard, a case study focusing on the customer experience of Snap Food in the online space of the food delivery sector in Iran was conducted in order to investigate the factors affecting the online customer experience and also to determine the interrelationships between these factors. After reviewing previous studies, 39 factors were obtained, which were screened after three stages of the Delphi method and the opinion of 15 experts, and 22 factors were finalized as factors that influence online customer experience. To determine the interrelationship between the factors, analysis was performed using the Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) approach. These factors were placed in 6 levels. Following this, the Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) was applied to classify the factors into different clusters based on their impact on others. The study revealed that 'Human-to-human interaction,' 'Demographic experience,' 'Consistency,' and 'Services standardization' indicators are critical drivers of customer experience. This research aids online food delivery platforms in understanding and prioritising factors to create a transformative value proposition for improved customer experience during crises.