Nobody is assigned to the front door
Ninety seconds at the counter before anyone looked up. Both staff were mid-task.
- The fix
- One person on the door each shift
- Cost
- None
Guest experience evaluations · Wilmington, NC
The quietest way to lose a guest is to be fine.
Nobody writes a bad review about fine. They just don't come back, and they don't say why. I come through your business as an ordinary guest and write you a report on what's working and where the visit slips. Then we walk it together, so you know what to keep, what to fix and what to add.
Prepared for [your business]. Visit: Tuesday, 4:04 to 5:12 pm.
- 3The side lot looks like staff parkingp. 6
- 4There is nothing to do during the waitp. 7
Findings 5 to 14 continue
Guestcrafterspage 4 of 22
What I do
I find out how your place feels to visit, and what would make it feel better.
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 I'll say so; I don't want you fixing the good parts by accident. Then you get the report. It runs long. Every finding in it says what the problem is costing you and what the fix would actually take, whether that's five minutes at the start of a shift or a contractor and a real budget. And then we go through it together, standing in your space.
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 the big theme parks plan a guest's whole day, one moment at a time. Most of what they do 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
Something always does. What counts is whether anyone notices before the guest has decided how they feel about it. A problem caught and fixed earns more loyalty than a smooth visit. 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 a room that's a little too bright puts everyone on edge; nobody knows why, they just feel it. Getting the mood right is usually the cheapest upgrade in the building.
The evaluation
One evaluation, one price, and the price is on the page.
The price isn’t hiding behind a quote form. Here’s what’s in it.
- The visit
- Unannounced. I book like anyone else and go through the whole thing as a guest, on an ordinary day.
- The report
- Thorough and specific. What’s working and why, what’s slipping and what it costs you, and what you could add that guests would notice. Every finding comes with the fix, in the order I’d do them.
- 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.
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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