Page 924 - MARSIUM'21 COMP OF PAPER

925 Kelly & Mazilah (2021)
Because Because of the huge number of similar products and competitors in the food market, consumers' preferences and satisfaction
significantly influence the food industry and food companies. Therefore, this study is aimed to research customer satisfaction towards the
company so that it can help the company understand their customer satisfaction and give them a chance to improve it.

■ 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

Today's food industry customers will not sacrifice bad service for deliciousness. (Ryu, K. et al., 2012). In this market with many competitors,
it can be believed that the main point to get profit depends on providing high-quality services to satisfy customers (Han and Ryu, 2007).
Customers usually use the product, setting, and company services to evaluate the company's service quality (Ryu and Han, 2010; Namkung
and Jang, 2008). Price and value are also important factors that affect customer satisfaction (Garg & Kumar, 2017). The right combination
of these important attributes can improve customer satisfaction (Ryu, K. et al., 2012).

Customer satisfaction was important to a business or organization. This is because customer satisfaction is a factor that most influences an
organization's sales and names. Customer satisfaction cannot guarantee that customers will be loyal to the company, but if customers are
dissatisfied, it should make customers switch to other competitors (Davis & Heineke, 1998). This means if customers are dissatisfied with
the level of service they receive in the company, they will not visit and come again in the future. Conversely, if customers are very satisfied
with the company's service experience, they will continue to come again. Through word-of-mouth interactions with other potential customers,
the customer's experience in the service company may increase exponentially: if customers are satisfied with the services of the company,
they will influence other customers' expectations towards this company; if customers are dissatisfied with the company's service, they will
"spread" and influence expectations of others. Therefore, although a higher level of customer satisfaction is not necessary for a company, a
lower level of customer satisfaction will make the company face the problem of decreased sales and customers' shifting behaviour. This
means customer satisfaction is what companies need to manage and follow closely.

Managing customer satisfaction well can bring more benefits to a company. Customer satisfaction is directly related to business sales (Baker
and Crompton, 2000). If customer satisfaction is high towards the company, customers will purchase again and again. Therefore, customer
satisfaction is significant towards sales and names of an organisation. If companies can know which factors are most significant to impact
customer satisfaction, they can find a good way to manage the main factors of success and improve the failure aspects (Hwang, J., & Zhao,
J., 2010). Therefore, this survey is aimed to find out customer satisfaction towards Daily Happy Otak Otak so that more understanding about
real customer perception and satisfaction towards this company. Besides, this survey can help the company know what aspect is most
complained about by customers or certain aspects that customers most care about.

According to an interview with Xie Shun Loong – the current owner of Daily Happy Otak Otak on April 2, 2021, Daily Happy Otak Otak
was organized by Ang Bee Heong in 1981 at Parit Jawa. In the beginning, Ang Bee Heong found a Nyonya friend to learn how to do otak
otak. She learned how to do otak otak due to the need to sell otak otak to burden her big family's living expenses. Ang Bee Heong sold otak
otak at her home, not a shop. Due to her otak otak being very delicious, her otak otak became a famous food in Parit Jawa. Besides, people
who ate her otak otak will praise her otak otak and recommend it to their family and friends. Therefore, more and more people gradually
know her otak otak, so more and more people came to buy her otak otak. When Ang Bee Heong saw that her business was getting
better, she registered with the government as a Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM) in 2006.

Now, her business was succeeded by her eldest grandson – Xie Shun Loong. Xie wanted to make his family business achieve greater
achievements in his hands; he commissioned experts to manufacture Otak Otak machines from more than ten years ago to maximise their
quantity of product to meet high demand. At the same time, they also can make sure their product's quality is good. Xie also collaborates
with the tourism industry so that Daily Happy Otak Otak becomes more famous to the whole of Malaysia and also internationally. To prove
this, Daily Happy Otak Otak has become a tourist attraction and has been interviewed by many T.V. stations from national and also
international. This brought some customers to Daily Happy Otak Otak and made sales increase. Daily Happy Otak Otak is also a wholesale
business that sells otak otak to other businesses. Daily Happy Otak Otak has wholesale otak otak to Melaka, Batu Pahat, Seremban, Johor
Bahru and even exports to Singapore. Even though otak-otak is considered not a staple food, Xie's effort to introduce this to tourists and
maintain sales during Covid-19 attracted the researcher to choose the company, It is a unique situation, and the researcher would love to
explore more.

The reason for choosing this company to do research is that Daily Happy Otak Otak is the only company that sells traditional food – Otak
Otak at Parit Jawa. The company is historical and known as a tourist attraction at Parit Jawa. A food company that became a famous tourist
attraction needs a good product and good reputation. However, this company never does a customer satisfaction survey. Therefore, there are
doubts about the level of customer satisfaction in this company, how their customers' real perception and satisfaction towards this company.

Therefore, this study was started from doing a preliminary study to confirm there are problems with customers satisfaction towards Daily
Happy Otak Otak. The study was done by distributing Google Form in Whatsapp to 30 company's customers, asking them their satisfaction
and expectation towards this company. Another way of doing a preliminary study is by observing their customer's comments on their official
Facebook website. Through both ways, customer satisfaction problems can be found in detail with aspects that customers comment and reason
in Fishbone Diagram. In the diagram, the problem of customer satisfaction that Daily Happy Otak Otak faces can be divided into four aspects:
quality of food, service, setting, and price. After this, the framework similar to this Fishbone Diagram has been found and adapted to be
this research framework (Figure 3).

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