15 years ago, mystery guest reports were very much about ticking boxes:   ‘Was cutlery delivered on a tray?’ ✅  ‘Was your beer set down with the label facing you?’ ✅ ‘Were you offered coffee?’ ✅   Then, the nitty gritty, protocols became more relaxed, and the mystery guest reports became more about engagement and subjectivity, focussing on how customers were made to feel:   ‘How did you rate the food/service/ambiance? Please explain’. 💯   Subjective

Karen Bosher wrote a great post about the sadness of the demise of another burger chain and how many hospitality groups are only surviving through perpetual investment. It prompted the expected cheerleader comments of “here, here” support. Except for one comment from an MD, not in hospitality, which got me thinking. He said it was down to ‘poor business planning, and that ‘the market is saturated with food joints’.  Harsh! But is he wrong?    

I run a mystery guest company which aggregates reviews as one of its services but, I’m ashamed to say, even I have fallen foul to a company that faked its reviews. It cost me thousands and I had a near breakdown as they failed to build a time-critical e-commerce website. Google didn’t give two hoots, nor did Trust Pilot, and, nor did the Action Fraud or HMRC when, further down the line, we discovered that

How Mystery Shopping can identify the small things so that your customers leave on a high and not on a sigh! This was my lunch earlier this week. After several attempts to open the ‘sachets of dread’, I went without vinegar. For my life! I don’t know why we still have these tiny packets of frustration. I don’t know the percentage of the human race that can open them, but it must be under 5%,

In the hospitality industry the dropout rate for customer surveys, which take 10+ minutes, is around 30–40%.  For shorter, well-designed surveys, dropout rates are still typically around 20–30%. What’s the impact of this? Well, you might say that ‘it doesn’t matter if some customers drop out as we have plenty that do complete them’. But what you may not be factoring in is that many customers lose interest and click at random to get through

How important is it for restaurants to provide vegan and vegetarian options? We have silent customers turn down visits because there aren’t enough veggie options on the menus. Searches for vegan restaurants in the UK have tripled over a four-year period, from 60,000 in 2017 to over 200,000 in 2020, highlighting the rising interest in plant-based dining options Food that doesn’t contain bits of animals isn’t a fad. And don’t assume that a roasted cauliflower or