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All businesses must accept that change is a regular occurrence due to technology disruption, pandemic crises, etc., that affect consumer behavior (Pleasing customers during a pandemic, 2020). According to crisis management, the supporting theory to use to guide organizational management is contingency theory. It is an approach to organizational behavior in which explanations are given as to how contingent factors influence the design and function of organizations (Jesmin & Hui, 2012). Especially, entrepreneurial decisions like that to enter or literally create a specific market with a particular product, can barely be described in terms of isolated one-time decision problems that can be solved just once and permanently (David & Michael, 2021). This conveys the functional change in accordance with the organizational adaptation by means of entrepreneurship via marketing function as a key front-line process (Fiore et al., 2004). Recently, consumers have been struggling with the problems of external environments that limit their consumption. From the perspective of customer value and satisfaction, customers expect an offering from a product owner with a customization strategy (Kotler et al., 2018; Slater & Olson, 2001).
A marketing strategy that sets too high or too low levels of expectations causes a negative effect on consumer behavior. In a normal situation, consumer expectations of market offerings are satisfied with basic needs that are related to the type of product or service. Especially in the case of changes in consumption behavior during the crisis, it is more necessary to understand and lead to product adjustments to meet the demand at that time (Simonson, 2005; Fiore et al., 2004).
During the pandemic crisis, many restaurants used the mass customization strategy (MC) for customer retention. MC is applied by adapting products that are suitable for eating at home with a cooking experience and responding to the atmosphere of eating. As a result, product adaptation and providing a consumption experience go hand in hand. Lack of study in MC view of the restaurant sector is crucial knowledge due to most of the research being conducted in the manufacturing industry (Gilmore & Pine, 1997; Qiang et al., 2001; Vinodh et al., 2010). To investigate customer insights to ensure the effectiveness of the MC strategy is our objective.
The paper is organized as follows. The next section analyzes the literature on marketing strategy and the development of the framework. The subsequent sections describe the design and present the results and discussion, respectively. The final section identifies the limitations and addresses avenues for further research.