“I know when to go out, and when to stay in…,” English rock star David Bowie once confidently sang in his hit single Modern Love. However, when it comes to matters of dining, the decision claimed (声称) by the singer-songwriter is more confusing than one can hope for. As for me, I agree that it is better to dine out than to stay in and order home delivery.

To begin, dining out is not simply the act of leaving our house and eating outside of it. When we set foot in a restaurant, we are immediately greeted not only by a server ready to seat us, but also by a flooding of senses. In other words, to dine out is to experience an atmosphere, one that is unique to each café and restaurant. Besides, going out for a meal can be a break from the hard boring work of domestic (家务) living. We could take it as an opportunity for self-care-a chance to treat ourselves by dressing up and arriving in style at a fancy restaurant.

Some food delivery app users would reason that it is too much of a hassle (麻烦) to dress up and go out to eat, and that it is much more convenient to dine at home. However, it is worth noting that we may not always receive our food in the most satisfactory condition when choosing home delivery. There is the risk of receiving food orders with missing items or even entirely wrong orders that cannot be sent back. Consequently, it might make more sense to make the trip out to dine out, rather than risk disappointment by ordering home delivery.

All in all, dining out can be a breath of fresh air to step outside the four walls of the house every once in a while and reap the many benefits of patronizing (光顾) a dining place.

I had moved to Japan for a long- term client consulting engagement. After a few days in a Tokyo hotel I moved to an apartment. After being moved in by my colleagues, it was time to get dinner. I found a pizza deliver flyer in my mailbox, and decided to simply order a pizza as. I might have the previous week in Manhattan. The phone call to Cali Pizza was easier than anticipated and while waiting for the pizza I set about unpacking.

Unfortunately, after 45 minutes no pizza. I figured that my “easy” call really wasn’t and that I would need to make alternate plans for dinner. While thinking about what to do next, my phone rang. It was Cali Pizza calling to say that they could not find my apartment based on the address that I had given them. Once it was determined that I had provided an incorrect address, the clerk on the phone asked me to describe what I could see from my window. After some back and forth they seemed satisfied that they knew where I was.

A few minutes later the pizza arrived, This is when my “customer delight” experience took over. First, the delivery person apologized repeatedly for being late, then he showed me the small blue metal plate on my building with the correct address, and finally he refused to accept payment for the pizza because he was late. Net result: one delighted customer (me), and frequent orders from Cali Pizza during my two-year stay in Japan.

Such “customer delight” experiences become stories I have used to illustrate what it means to truly delight a customer.

Download an app, open it, place your order, and wait for your food to be delivered to your home — this is a picture of how many people eat in China these days. According to the latest data from the China Internet Network Information Center, 421 million Chinese people use online food delivery services. That’s equal to half of the total number of internet users in China.

Which group of people is ordering food online the most? Unsurprisingly, it’s mainly young people. A recent report that was jointly (联合) published by the China Hospitality Association and Meituan, a food delivery service, showed that 86.3 percent of the service’s users are between 20 and 34 years old. These people, who are more likely to live in small families, are the major force driving the development of the food delivery industry.

Small families depend greatly on food delivery services. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Chinese families have changed in size over the past decade. In 2002, only 7.7 percent of families were single-person households. But this number increased to 15.6 percent in 2017. The percentage of two-person families rose from 18.4 in 2002 to 27.2 in 2017. For small families, relatively, people spend more time and resources in cooking, they think it’s a waste of time and resources, so ordering food online has become more popular, which is so convenient.

The improvement of China’s food delivery services has also attracted more customers. According to Meituan’s report, the average time it takes to make a food delivery dropped from 38 minutes in 2016 to 29 minutes in 2019. Many delivery platforms are also offering more services, delivering products such as toys, fruits, vegetables, medicine and flowers, even furniture and electrical equipment and so on. As its services continue to improve, it’s more likely that the food delivery industry will keep growing.

When do people order food online?