Industry overview
What is shaping food & beverage
Food and beverage brands compete on taste, price, health perceptions and shelf presence. Small changes in pack, recipe or price can shift share quickly.
- Health and natural claims influence choice
- Quick commerce and modern trade change shopping habits
- Taste remains the deciding factor at repeat
Client background
A quick-service restaurant chain, working in Indonesia & Malaysia. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.
- Organisation
- A quick-service restaurant chain
- Sector
- Food & beverage
- Team engaged
- Market Research
- Services
- Offline data collection, Data analytics & dashboards, Reporting & insights
Client challenge
The chain had expanded quickly, and complaints about slow service, cold food and incorrect delivery orders were rising. Head office had operating standards but no independent measure of whether outlets met them.
Research objectives
- Deliver on the brief: mystery dining across a quick-service restaurant chain.
- Produce results that can be compared across groups and locations.
- Set up a repeatable measure the client can track over time.
Target audience
Scope: 320 outlets, 960 visits per wave.
Audiences we typically reach in food & beverage
Shoppers and consumersHouseholdsRetailers and kirana ownersQuick-commerce usersFood-service buyers
Geographic coverage
Coverage: Indonesia & Malaysia. Markets: Indonesia and Malaysia. 320 outlets covered.
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
Research methodology
A structured quantitative design, so results could be compared across groups, locations and time.
- 1Brief
- 2Mystery dining visits
- 3Delivery order audits
- 4Outlet scorecards
- 5Insight
Trained mystery diners visited outlets at lunch, dinner and late-night periods, scoring greeting, order accuracy, waiting time, food temperature, cleanliness and staff behaviour. Separate delivery orders through apps measured accuracy, packaging and arrival temperature. Each visit was photo-documented, and results were shared as outlet scorecards with regional managers.
Offline data collectionData analytics & dashboardsReporting & insights
Sampling strategy
- Respondents were selected across Indonesia & Malaysia using quotas set in advance for each location and respondent type, so no single area or group dominated.
Data collection
- visits
- 960
- Trained local-language interviewers conducted interviews in person, supervised in the field.
- Auditors and mystery shoppers followed a standard checklist, recording evidence at each visit.
Data quality & validation
- Back-checks on a share of completed interviews
- Time and location checks on field interviews
- Supervisor accompaniment in the field
- Photo or document evidence for audit points
- Second-reviewer checks on scores
- Logic and range checks on the final data
- Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures
Data analysis
- Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
- Significance testing on the differences that mattered
- Interactive dashboard for ongoing tracking
Key findings
- Late-night service and delivery order accuracy were the weakest areas.
Measuring delivery separately revealed problems dine-in visits would have missed.
Recommendations
- The chain revised staffing for late shifts, added an order-check step before delivery handover and linked part of outlet bonuses to scorecard results.
- Share the findings with the teams closest to customers so they can act quickly.
What we recommended, and the client put into practice
Business impact
- Scores improved steadily over the following quarters.
Deliverables & next steps
- Insight report and management presentation
- Cleaned data file and data tables
- Interactive dashboard
- Continue the routine and review results every period.
- A natural follow-on question: how healthy is the brand?
Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.