The Customer Experience
67% of consumers consider customer experience a primary criterion when choosing a brand. Customer experience is the #1 pillar of differentiation. Discover how to measure and improve it.
67% of consumers consider customer experience a primary criterion when choosing a brand. Customer experience is the #1 pillar of differentiation.
01. Customer Experience
How many times have you left a shop or a restaurant saying to yourself, "I'm never coming back!"? And yet, the food was good, the dress was beautiful, the place was luxurious. What kind of publicity will you give to that brand or establishment?
How many times have you stayed on the line with a customer service department that hung up on you 7 times without addressing your complaint? And yet, the offer was unbeatable, the carrier offered 8G, and the salesperson gave you a great discount. Are you going to recommend this carrier?
I want to share an anecdote with you. One of our clients, who owns a magnificent hotel establishment on the Riviera by the lake, called on our services for one reason and one reason only. He himself had a most strange experience at a renowned establishment on the French Riviera.
Having booked a beautiful suite with his family for a week, when it came time to settle the bill (€4,347), he noticed that items from the mini-bar were listed on the bill even though he hadn't consumed anything. He asked the receptionist why the additional charges were listed. She retorted: "if it's written down, it's owed, and you have to pay."
The little ordeal lasted a good half-hour until the manager of the establishment arrived to smooth things over. Upon his return, our client quickly looked for a partner to create annual mystery guest campaigns and to implement training so that this kind of situation would never happen in his establishment.
Do you think it was the receptionist's fault? If she didn't know how to react, it's simply because no one had given her the procedure. Imagine this situation happening in your company! Every day, hundreds of customers pass through your virtual or physical points of sale and find themselves in an identical situation. The tap is wide open and no one sees the water flowing.
02. Customer Service
Customer service is not limited to simply setting up a phone number for your clientele; it is a state of mind. The goal is to satisfy your customer to build loyalty. A satisfied customer can become an ambassador for your brand.
A positive impression from a customer is valuable to your business because the customer is likely to share their experience with friends and family, which influences the company's reputation in both directions. Conversely, an unsatisfied customer will also share their negative experience, often with even greater impact, and will lastingly harm your brand image.
03. Put the Customer Back at the Heart of Your Strategy
"Customer first" is the motto of companies that have integrated successful new orientations. Communication is the key to creating a bond with their internal or external customers. Interpersonal skills and a lack of sales and communication techniques are often the missing links in customer satisfaction.
Isn't a company's main business to create a link between the brand, employees, and customers? How do you create this interaction? By creating a touchpoint between "customer first" and "Employees First, Customers Second." The goal is not to pit these two approaches against each other, but to articulate them: valued and trained employees naturally provide a better experience to customers.
04. Measuring Customer Experience
"What gets measured gets improved." — William Edwards Deming
Use Mystery Shopping as a measurement tool! The main challenge of a Mystery Visit or Mystery Shopping is to send one or more "trained customers" into a company to evaluate the quality of customer service using precise evaluation criteria and a short scenario to follow, which will allow them to test the company's strengths and weaknesses.
Mystery shoppers pose as normal customers, ask questions, buy products, or make complaints. This approach allows for an objective and unfiltered view of the experience actually lived by customers, unlike internal audits where teams know they are being evaluated.
05. Advantages of Mystery Shopping
"It is easier to love a brand when it loves you back." — Seth Godin
Use Mystery Shopping as a growth tool! Why hire a mystery shopping agency? To check the upkeep of your points of sale, the quality of your customer relations, or the effectiveness of your work methods.
You can now use mystery shopping campaigns and their mystery shoppers to evaluate the effectiveness of your services. You can choose to conduct your own investigation or turn to agencies specialized in this type of mission, such as Swiss Audit Shop.
06. A 5-Star Service
Specializing in evaluation and Mystery Shopping for 14 years, our agency offers its mystery shopper services throughout Switzerland.
Our job is to simulate a real customer in a purchasing situation according to one or more visit scenarios to allow the measurement of the quality of the welcome or the service rendered in relation to the objectives of your quality charter.
Our mystery visits allow us to see through the eyes of professionals. They lead to reflection and the definition of a targeted corrective action plan.
Our mystery shoppers cover the sectors of restaurants, hotels, wellness, aesthetics, retail, leisure and entertainment, and ready-to-wear clothing.
07. Our Agency
Specializing in evaluation and Mystery Shopping for 14 years, our agency offers its mystery shopper services throughout Switzerland. Our job is to simulate a real customer in a purchasing situation according to one or more visit scenarios to allow the measurement of the quality of the welcome or the service rendered in relation to the objectives of your quality charter.
Our mystery visits allow us to see through the eyes of professionals. They lead to reflection and the definition of a targeted corrective action plan. Our mystery shoppers cover the sectors of restaurants, hotels, wellness, aesthetics, retail, leisure and entertainment, and ready-to-wear clothing.
Conclusion
With 67% of consumers placing customer experience as the main criterion for choosing a brand, customer experience is no longer an option but a decisive competitive advantage. The anecdote of the Riviera hotelier perfectly illustrates how a single poorly managed interaction can turn a loyal customer into a detractor. Mystery shopping offers a way to objectively measure this experience, identify missing links—often related to training and procedures—and implement a targeted corrective action plan. By placing the customer at the heart of the strategy and relying on a rigorous measurement tool, companies transform every interaction into an opportunity for loyalty and growth.
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