Mystery Shopping Research – GUEST 2024 also answers the question this year: „Who provides the best quality of service in the region?“
In the period from June 1st to June 30th, the Croatian mystery shopping agency Heraklea, in collaboration with local Mystery Shopping agencies (in Slovenia with the agency Skrivnostni nakup d.o.o.), conducted the sixteenth regional Mystery Shopping research. The aim was to measure the basic elements of service quality to find the best service providers in the entire region.
This year, the research included five countries in the region besides Slovenia: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and North Macedonia. The research took place in over 800 different establishments, visited by mystery shoppers from authorized agencies. The evaluated establishments included car dealerships, financial institutions, gas stations, various service providers, different stores, and tourist and hospitality venues.
The research measured five basic elements of good and quality service, which are: „greeting, identifying customer needs/wants, presenting the product/service, offering additional products/services, thanking for the visit,“ which is also the acronym for the English word GUEST (Greet, Understand, Explain, Suggest, Thank).
In this year’s results, Slovenia ranked third (78.80%), with a slight improvement of 0.20 percentage points compared to last year. Bosnia and Herzegovina maintained the first place with 89.53%, showing an improvement of 5.55 percentage points from last year. North Macedonia held onto the second place with 79.73%, showing a 1.10 percentage point improvement and surpassing Slovenia again. Montenegro ranked fourth with 76%, showing an improvement of 2.67 percentage points from last year. Croatia ranked fifth with 69.50%, a decrease of 0.18 percentage points from last year. Serbia ranked last with 66.67%, showing an improvement of 0.36 percentage points from last year.
In terms of service categories in Slovenia, the country excelled in the „farewell“ category (94%). Compared to last year, Slovenia had lower scores in only two categories: greeting, where it was 8.47 percentage points lower, and questioning, which saw a 2 percentage point decrease. The largest growth was observed in the „thank you“ category, with an increase of 8 percentage points, in „additional sales“ by 6.00 percentage points, and in the „professionalism“ category by 4.69 percentage points.
Slovenia performed well in the evaluation of „Service activities“ with 91.67% and „Car dealerships“ with 88.10%. The third most successful Slovenian activities this year were „Hospitality and tourism“ and „Gas stations“ with 83.33%.
Activities that fell below this year’s average (78.82%) were „Banks/Financial institutions“ (79.17%), „Retail (68.72%),“ and „Supermarkets“ (57.42%).
In terms of additional sales by activity in Slovenia, there was a 6 percentage point improvement compared to last year. The most significant growth was observed in „service activities“ by 25 percentage points and at „gas stations“ by 21.97 percentage points. Other activities saw a decrease in additional sales, with the most significant drop in banks/financial institutions by 13.33 percentage points, car dealerships by 7.14 percentage points, and retail by 7.01 percentage points. A smaller decrease of 1.25 percentage points was observed in supermarkets and 1.15 percentage points in hospitality and tourism.
In conclusion, customers today have very high expectations, and meeting them is not always easy. Purchases are no longer just transactions or chores, even for everyday necessities and small purchases. They are primarily experiences. High levels of hospitality and good service are expected. An excellent shopping experience (CX) is planned, implemented, and monitored with various customer satisfaction indicators. It is becoming one of the main competitive advantages for companies. From the perspective of mystery shopping, which significantly measures and improves the level of excellence in the shopping experience, the quality of personal interaction and approach – hospitable service and additional sales and how they are executed are crucial. For more useful tips on the importance and implementation of an excellent shopping experience and non-intrusive additional sales (methods for immediate sales increase), visit the website: https://www.skrivnostni-nakup.com/nasveti/
Source/Photo: Graphs: Skrivnostni nakup d.o.o.