Emerging Themes Regarding Customer Perception of a Third-Party Online Food Delivery Provider and the Implications for Operators

This study discusses third-party online food delivery providers' (OFDPs) continuing dominance post-pandemic and provides recommendations for providers and foodservice operators by analyzing customer comments regarding a third-party OFDP. Thematic Analysis, a data-driven inductive approach, was applied in this study to identify four emergent themes. 1) App Technology- Oriented Quality Attributes, 2) App Service-Oriented Quality Attributes, 3) Delivery Person's Performance, and 4) Restaurant Food Quality. Technology-Oriented Quality Attributes had the highest frequency of mentions (533), followed by Deliverer's Performance (531), Service-Oriented Quality Attributes (524), and Restaurant Food Quality (115) for a total of 1,703 mentions of which 461(27%) were positive and 1,242 (73%) negative. Theme 1 had the highest percentage of negative comments at 86%, followed by Theme 2 at 85%, Theme 4 at 77%, and Theme 3 at 48 %, the only surfaced theme that did not have more negative than positive comments.