The first greeting comes late
Ninety seconds at the counter before anyone looked up. Both staff were mid-task.
- The fix
- One person on the door each shift
- Cost
- No new equipment
Guest experience evaluations · Wilmington, NC
The quietest way to lose a guest is to be fine.
You know your place from behind the counter. I come through as a guest and find the moments that make the visit harder than it needs to be. You leave with the first three things to change, the good parts to protect, and a plan you can put to work with your team.
Prepared for [your business]. Visit: Tuesday, 4:04 to 5:12 pm.
- 2The pickup point is hard to findDuring the visit
- 3The goodbye has no next stepDeparture
Three practical changes, with the evidence behind each.
GuestcraftersSample finding
What I do
Know what to change first, and what to leave alone.
I come in as a guest. No announcement, no special treatment. I pay attention to the things you stopped seeing once you'd walked past them a thousand times: the lot, the first ten seconds inside the door, the handoff from one person to the next, the walk back to the car. Some of it works better than you realize, and that gets written down too; I don't want you fixing the good parts by accident. The report starts with the three changes I'd make first. Each finding shows what happened, how it affected the visit, and what the fix would take. Then we stand where it happened and work through the plan together, so you can hand the next steps to your team.
Why it works
Most evaluations happen in one mode or the other.
Send in a mystery shopper with a rubric and you get a checklist that misses how the place felt. Ask a regular guest and you get a feeling with no explanation attached. I do both at once. I learned sleight of hand as a kid, and the lasting thing it teaches you is how to feel the effect and track the method at the same time. So the report can tell you where the visit stopped feeling good, and the specific thing that caused it.
The rest comes from years of studying how Disney plans a guest's whole day, one designed moment at a time. Most of it scales down to a dining room or a front desk just fine.
The walk
You see your business from behind the counter. Your guests see it in order.
Most places run the middle of the visit well. The before and the after are where the cheap wins are, and almost nobody is looking there.
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Before the door
The lot, the sign, the window: everything that tells someone who's never been here where to park and which door is the door.
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The first ten seconds
Whether somebody says hello before you’ve had time to wonder, and whether a first-timer can tell where to go next without asking. Most lobbies make new people stop and look around. That pause is the first thing I write down.
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The thing they came for
The meal, the game, the appointment, the haircut. And every small friction around it: the wait, the explanation, the moment one person hands you to the next.
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When something goes wrong
If something goes wrong, what counts is whether anyone notices and takes care of it. A thoughtful recovery can change how a guest remembers a problem. I learned that behind the counter at a game store: the people whose order we'd botched and made right were the ones who kept coming back.
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The last thirty seconds
Paying, the goodbye, the walk back to the car. It's the part people remember, and almost nobody gives it any thought.
Running under all of that is the mood of the place: the music, the light, what there is to look at while you wait. I spent years running lighting for live shows, and light and sound can change how a room feels. I look for whether they suit the visit, and which small adjustments are worth trying.
The evaluation
A plan for a better visit, for one flat price.
See your place from the guest’s side, decide what matters most, and leave with changes your team can make.
- The visit
- Unannounced. I book like anyone else and go through the whole thing as a guest, on an ordinary day.
- The report
- The first three changes to make, with the observations behind them. You also get the parts to protect and a few additions worth trying. Each recommendation says what the work would take.
- The walkthrough
- I come back and we go through it in your space, standing where your guests stand.
Who it's for
Any place where the visit is the product.
If people come to you in person and leave with a feeling, that feeling is worth a look. Here's who tends to get the most out of it.
Entertainment and attractions
Escape rooms, family entertainment centers, laser tag, arcades, mini golf, axe throwing, trampoline parks, museums, local tours. The whole product is a good time, and one rough edge undoes it.
Restaurants and hospitality
Themed and experience-driven restaurants, breweries and tasting rooms, coffee shops, inns. The food can be great and the visit still fall apart around it.
Dentists, doctors and personal care
People walk in a little nervous already, which makes the small comforts count double. Dental and orthodontic offices, med spas, wellness clinics, optometry, veterinary.
Retail and fitness
Boutiques and showrooms, salons and barbershops, fitness, yoga and cycling studios. You pay a lot to get someone through the door once. What happens during the visit is what turns them into a regular, or doesn't.
If your kind of place isn't up there, ask anyway. The question is the same everywhere: whether the visit was put together on purpose, or just happens to people.
Who's behind it
Kevin Stauss
Wilmington, NC
Kevin Stauss
I film weddings with my wife Haley under Heartline Films. That's years of standing quietly in the corner of other people's biggest day, watching guest experiences succeed and fail in real time. I've also spent years in live production, running lighting, sound and video for shows where a mistake is public, and a while behind the counter at a game store here in Wilmington. My day job is managing ad accounts, which is where I learned to turn “the exit felt bad” into what it costs.
Next
How an evaluation runs
The visit, the report, and the walkthrough, in the order they happen. Plus the test I apply to every room.
Read the method