Factors Influencing Satisfaction Among Food Panda Users: Evidence in Malaysia

Factors Influencing Satisfaction Among Food Panda Users: Evidence in Malaysia

Siti Noor Aishah Mohd Sidik^*, Noor Zalikha Mohamed Arib, Puteri Nurul Raudhah Ramli, Siti Najihah Sulaiman, Nurain A’fifah Binti Abu Bakar, Ezzah Syahidah binti Mohd Nasir

Faculty Business and Management, University Technology Mara Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia

^*Correspondence author

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.908000550

Received: 14 August 2025; Accepted: 21 August 2025; Published: 20 September 2025

ABSTRACT

Customer satisfaction has a significant effect on company revenue and loyalty. Customers are also concerned about the brand reputation and quality provided by the service provider and hope they will receive the best service from the company. This expectation is a challenge to food delivery companies since they must provide extraordinary service to compete with the competitors. The aim of this study is to determine the factors that influence satisfaction among foodpanda users. Important factors such as application design, security, food quality, and delivery are all being investigated. The sample size included 136 students in Terengganu, and questionnaires were distributed online. The questionnaire feedback was analyzed using SPSS to assess the correlation and regression effect of each research variable. The study discovered a positive relationship between application design, security, food quality, delivery, and satisfaction. Regression analysis also reveals that application design is the most important factor influencing user satisfaction. The findings serve as a guideline for food delivery companies to always improve the quality and convenience of their application designs. Gathering feedback on customer satisfaction also enables the company to always find areas for improvement and boost satisfaction.

Keywords: Satisfaction, application design, security, food quality and delivery

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, the buying behavior of customers is changing in line with technology advancement. The customer prefers using online food delivery to get a desired food and save their time. The development of online food delivery services has surged aggressively following the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020. The most familiar food delivery service in Malaysia is foodpanda. The company started early operation in Malaysia in the year 2012 and is present in more than 100 cities and towns nationwide. The company service offer food delivery from restaurants and cafes, pandamart for groceries and essentials, shops for retail products, and Pandago for same-day parcel delivery. In a competitive environment, food delivery companies need to enhance their service. In Malaysia itself, foodpanda must ensure that their service is unique to compete with other competitors such as GrabFood, ShopeeFood, and Misi. In fact, offering excellent service to is crucial in every service industry (Caro & Garcia, 2007). Companies must always make improvements, such as providing convenient websites and effective in-app ordering. This platform is a key advantage to grab customer emotion to choose the same company in the future (Song, Jeon, & Jeon, 2017; Choi, 2020; Lin, Au, & Baum, 2024). However, in any case, company always faced a negative reaction from the customer. The customer expresses unsatisfied feelings related to the quality of the product, the speed of delivery time, refund, and complaint handling. Foodpanda is currently facing technical issues, which require users to select cash on delivery when placing orders. Foodpanda also cancelling orders that were taking over an hour to settle. This situation indirectly will affect the brand reputation of the company. Customers who experience bad service will share negative feelings on social media and affect brand trust and consumer behavior (Budi, Hidayat, & Mani, 2021; Chen, Samaranayake, Cen, Qi, & Lan, 2022). Previous studies in Malaysia revealed that factors such as hedonic motivation, customer service, payment type, perceived usefulness, trust, and brand image (Irshad, Hussain, Fahim, & Ghias, 2022; Lee & Bakar, 2023; Esa, Muhamad, Zabidi, Hussin, Miskan, Zainol, & Naseri, 2023; Gan, Kuek, Rout, Sharihan, Qanietah, Omar, & Ong, 2022) is a main factor that influences user satisfaction. However, the impact of factors such as security, food quality, application design, and delivery on customer satisfaction among Foodpanda users is still underexplored and warrants further investigation.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Satisfaction:  Satisfaction is an important indicator to evaluate company performance. Satisfaction refers to a passionate or psychological reaction such as desires or user experience after receiving a service. It is a judgment that a product or service that the customer receives fulfills their consumption. Nowadays, customers actively use foodpanda to make a food order. Moreover, customers who are satisfied with a food delivery provider will engage to share positive reviews about the company (Van Tonder & De Beer, 2018; Gong & Yi, 2021; Ru & Jantan, 2023). The positive review increases other customers’ trust in selecting the recommended food delivery service. In a competitive environment, delivery service, time, security or privacy, and price were found as significant factors that influence customer satisfaction (Tan, & Kim, 2021). Visual, navigational, and information design also drive satisfaction and loyalty (Pal, Funilkul, Eamsinvattana & Siyal, 2021). In fact, students appreciate the convenience of food delivery services and have concerns about the overall user experience. However, there is still limited research that focuses on the relationship between application design, security, food quality, and delivery among foodpanda users in Malaysia.

Application Design: Application design is concerned with developing a software architecture and detailed design for a system that meets the requirements and is maintainable, reliable, and efficient (Sommerville, 2011). Companies that develop efficient application design will get competitive advantages. The flexibility of the application directly shapes how users interact with a product or service and create enjoyable user experiences. In fact, the quality of application design determines performance, security, and maintainability, which affect user trust and satisfaction (Pressman, 2010). Previous studies revealed that application design is an important factor that influences satisfaction among users (Song, et al., 2017; Pal et al., 2024). The characteristics of the application, including informativeness, payment security, usefulness, and convenience, affect customers’ emotions when using delivery apps. Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

• Hypothesis 1: There is a significant relationship between application design and satisfaction

Security: Security is the protection of information and systems from unauthorized access, modification, disclosure, or destruction to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability (Pfleeger & Pfleeger, 2011). Generally, customer satisfaction is influenced by the level of security of the food delivery app. The customer is concerned about their privacy since the application stores sensitive information like names, addresses, payment details, and order history. The application with the data system indirectly can reduce the uncertainty of the customer. In fact, a secure app fosters confidence that personal data and transactions are protected. Customers who trust the application also more likely to continue using and recommending the food delivery service to other customers (Gefen, Karahanna, & Straub, 2003; Khan & Maqbool, 2024). Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

• Hypothesis 2: There is a significant relationship between security and satisfaction

Food Quality: Food quality refers to appearance, flavor, texture, and safety and determines the acceptability of a food product to the consumer (Lawless & Heymann, 2010). Every customer will order food based on the illustration and picture in the food delivery application. They are hoping will receive high-quality food with good taste, freshness, and presentation. In fact, if the food doesn’t match the app’s description or photos, customers will be unsatisfied and feel disappointed. The positive eating experience is important to create joy, while a negative one leads to complaints and viral effects about the company (Lawless & Heymann, 2010). Previous research also revealed that food quality is most crucial to influence customer satisfaction (Kannan, 2017; Abdullah, Hamir, Nor, Krishnaswamy, & Rostum, 2018; Atsnawiyah & Rizan, 2022; Abdullah, Sufi, & Kumar, 2023). Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

• Hypothesis 3: There is a significant relationship between food quality and satisfaction

Delivery: Delivery is an important element in service performance. Delivery refers to the manner, speed, and reliability of service provided to the customer (Kotler & Keller, 2006). In a delivery context, the provider must ensure the food is delivered on time based on the customer order. The delayed delivery process can affect customer emotion, and they reject using the same service in the future. The attitude and behavior of the delivery rider also will affect the customer’s final impression. The friendly, professional riders improve satisfaction among the customers. This is in line with previous research that found that delivery speed influences the satisfaction of the customers (Park & Bae, 2020; Nayan & Hassan, 2020; Siddiqi, Rahman, Tanchangya, Rahman, Esquivias & Rahman, 2024; Kumar & Mishra, 2024). Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

• Hypothesis 4: There is a significant relationship between delivery and satisfaction

Based on the discussions above, a conceptual framework is developed, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework Factor Influence Customer Satisfaction

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This study uses correlational research to investigate the relationship between application design, security, food quality, and delivery. Quantitative techniques and questionnaires were used to gain information on the relationship between all research variables.

Data collection method

This research gained feedback from 136 university students in Terengganu. The questionnaire was issued via WhatsApp group (operation management) after getting permission from the respondents. The random sampling method was used to collect the survey. The samples were chosen by selecting any two students from a list on the WhatsApp group. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to evaluate reliability, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression. The item for all research variables is adapted from Shipman (2019). Respondents assessed their degree of agreement to questions using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (disagree) to 5 (extremely agree).

Reliability Analysis

A reliability test was conducted to examine the internal inconsistency of the instruments employed in this study, which are application design, security, food quality, and delivery. The questionnaire was sent to the 38 students online. Table 1 shows the result of reliability analysis for each variable.

Table 1: Reliability Analysis for Research Variables.

Satisfaction has the highest Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.873. This score indicates the strength of association between items is excellent. This was followed by delivery (0.858), food quality (0.851), application and design (0.842), and security (0.841).

FINDINGS

136 students answered the questionnaire via random sampling. Table 1 lists the demographic profile of the respondents.

Table 2: Demographic Profile of Respondents

Table 2 illustrates that the majority of respondents are female (67.6%) and male (32.4%). The student age is between 22 and 24 years (70.6%), and they are from semester 5 (58.8%). The student also prefers to use the Foodpanda service once a week and once a month (35.5%) and is likely to visit the Foodpanda application weekly (49.3%).

Table 3: Descriptive Analysis for Research Variables

Table 3 illustrates descriptive analysis for research variables. The mean for satisfaction is 4.218. Application and design show the highest mean value (4.29), followed by delivery (4.223), food quality (4.209), and security with a mean value of 4.064.

Correlation Analysis

Table 4: Pearson Correlation Result

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

Correlation analysis was run to examine the relationship between the research variables. This study found that all the research variables positively correlated with customer satisfaction. The R-value for application design is r = 0.622, security is r = 0.464, food quality is r = 0.611, and delivery is r = 0.555. This indicates that all these variables have moderate correlation with student satisfaction.

Regression Analysis

Multiple regression analysis signifies the predictive power of independent variables towards the dependent variables. The coefficient of determination R² value indicates model fit; an R² value of 0.02 indicates poor model fit or weak contribution of the model; an R² value of 0.13 is considered a moderate level of model fit, whereas an R² value of 0.26 and above indicates substantial contribution of the model, or, in other words, it indicates good model fit.

Table 5: Regression Analysis Result

Based on Table 5, the largest beta value is application design (β 0.411, ρ≤0.05). This indicates that the application design is a very important factor that influences customer satisfaction. This is followed by food quality (β 0.361, ρ ≤ 0.05). However, security and delivery negatively influence customer satisfaction with β 0.076, ρ ≥ 0.05 and β 0.096, ρ ≥ 0.05. Based on the R-squared result, all the research variables (application design, security, food quality, and delivery) contribute 56.5% toward customer satisfaction. Which is highly significant, and the model is fit as the F statistic is 42.552 (F≥1) and the ρ-value is 0.000 and less than (ρ≤0.05).

DISCUSSION

This study found that all research variables have a positive relationship with customer satisfaction. This is consistent with recent research, which also revealed application design has a significant relationship with satisfaction (Funilkul et al., 2022; Jamil et al., 2024). Foodpanda’s application design is important for influencing customer satisfaction because the app is the main touchpoint between the company and its users. If the design is intuitive, visually appealing, and functional, it directly shapes the customer’s perception of the brand and their overall experience. Security is also an important factor that influences customer satisfaction. Customers who feel secure with the website and ordering app are more trusting and confident in choosing the same provider (Uthamaputhran, Shuaib, Isa, Hasan, & Zaato, 2021; Yesmin, 2024). Customers always perceived the company could protect sensitive information such as personal details, payment data, and location. This is in line with who also revealed that security influences satisfaction among university students in Malaysia (Azman, Mashuri, & Ibrahim, 2021). This study also revealed that food quality influences the emotion and experience of the customer. The company must ensure the food is delivered to the customer in high quality. If the food is tasty, fresh, and matches expectations, customers are far more likely to be satisfied and loyal to the same provider (Yoopetch, Siriphan, & Chirapanda, 2022). Customers also always perceived they received an order in limited time. This study found that the speed of delivery indirectly influences the satisfaction of the customer. The delivery efficiency can reduce customer frustration, and long waits make customers irritable, especially if they are hungry or have time constraints. Timely delivery also prevents negative emotions from affecting the overall experience. This is consistent with those who also argue that delivery service can influence customer satisfaction (Siddiqi et al., 2024; Kumar & Mishra, 2024).

Managerial Implication

This study provides a clear view of how foodpanda can boost customer satisfaction. In a marketing context, satisfaction is the main root of the business. The happier a customer feels with the company, the more they will engage in positive voluntary behavior, such as recommending the service to other customers (Balaji, 2014; Zhu, Sun, & Chang, 2016; Ru & Jantan, 2023). In fact, negative delivery experiences such as late, cold, or incorrect orders can drive customers to switch to other competitors. Nowadays, the food delivery market is highly competitive. Hence, understanding what satisfies customers allows a company to differentiate itself. This finding also serves as a guideline to other competitors such as GrabFood and ShopeeFood to always improve their service. Continued improvements in satisfaction can lead to big gains in market share. Moreover, to enhance customer satisfaction, a company must recheck the operational efficiency based on customer feedback and comments (Barlan-Espino, 2017; Lekshmi, Rani, & Arasuraja, 2021; Bhatti & Alawad, 2024). Feedback on satisfaction delivery will reveal any issue on logistics, packaging, or communication that may be breaking down. This approach enables the company to optimize delivery routes, train drivers better, or improve restaurant coordination. In fact, in the digital age, customer reviews (on apps or social media) greatly influence brand perception. Customers who feel unsatisfied with the service will express their feelings on social media by posting negative comments and will influence other customers’ perceptions of choosing Foodpanda service. The most important thing is that the reaction from an unsatisfied user can tarnish brand reputation with just one click. Therefore, to always be the top, the companies must always improve the service and hear the customer voice to ensure they are loyal to the company and use the same service in the future.

Limitation

This study has several limitations, which are that it only focuses on public universities in Terengganu. Therefore, the result cannot be generalized to other public universities in Malaysia. Future research can select more universities in Terengganu to enhance the generalizability of the finding. Potential factors such as customer loyalty and customer citizenship behavior also need further exploration to see the reaction of satisfied customers whether they are willing to be loyal to the same provider, engage in recommendations and providing feedback to the companies.

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