The evaluation
Here's the whole thing, price included.
One offering, and the number is right here on the page. No “starting at,” no tiers built to nudge you up one, no form that hides the cost until you've handed over your phone number. Showing the price up front is the first thing that sets this apart from most consultants you've dealt with.
Is it worth it?
Run the quick math with me.
Say a regular is worth $40 a visit and comes in twice a month. That's around $1,000 a year, from one person. Lose a dozen of them over a slow season, no scene, no complaints, and you're down about $12,000 before anyone has said a word to you about it.
Run your own numbers; you know them better than I do. The evaluation isn't priced against my time. It's priced against what a fixable problem costs you every month you can't see it.
Whatever you spend getting new people through the door, this is aimed at the other side of that ledger: keeping the ones you already paid for.
Also included
Three things people assume will be extra.
01
The travel
Baked in. One flat price holds across the whole service area, from Wilmington out to Raleigh. No mileage, no separate line.
02
A guest's-eye view
Photos and notes from the walk, where they help. You get to see the moments you can't see from behind the counter.
03
A plan you can start Monday
The findings are ordered so you know the first three things to change, and which ones cost you nothing but attention.
How it goes
From booking to your walkthrough
Start to finish, an evaluation usually runs about two weeks. Here's the shape of it.
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1
You book
A short intake tells me your business type, your location, and what prompted this. We find a window for the visit.
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2
I visit, unannounced
Sometime in the agreed window, I come through as an ordinary guest. Your team won't know which visit it is, which is the whole idea.
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3
You get the report
A few days later, the written findings land in your inbox, prioritized and plain.
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4
We walk it together
We meet at your place and go through everything on-site, where the findings actually live. You leave knowing what to do first.
A few honest answers
Questions owners tend to ask
If yours isn't here, just ask. I'd rather tell you plainly than have you guess.
Why one price instead of tiers?
Tiers exist to nudge you toward the bigger one, and that's a small game baked into the sale. The work doesn't change from one client to the next, so the price doesn't either. You get the visit, the report, and the walkthrough for one flat number.
How is this different from a mystery-shopping company?
Most mystery shopping sends a stranger to score you against a checklist you wrote, then emails you the form. This is one person who studies guest experience for a living, watching the whole visit in order, then sitting down with you in your space to talk it through. You get judgment and context, not a spreadsheet.
You're new at this, aren't you?
Guestcrafters is new. The eye behind it isn't: fifteen years of reading rooms for a living, and a long stretch spent taking apart how the best-run places engineer a visit. I'd rather you know that going in than find out afterward. It's also why the first five evaluations are $800 instead of $1,200, and why I'm telling you that rather than dressing it up as a limited-time offer.
What if you don't find much?
Every space has things its owner has stopped noticing; that isn't a knock on you, it's what proximity does. If yours turns out to be the exception, I'll tell you plainly rather than pad a report, and you'll have outside confirmation that your experience is in good shape, which is worth knowing too.
Can you evaluate more than one location?
Yes. Each location is its own visit and its own report, since each one has its own quirks and its own team. Tell me how many and we'll work out an order and a schedule that fits.
How often should we do this?
Once gives you a full read. After that I'd suggest once or twice a year, or whenever something real changes: a remodel, a new manager, a rough patch of reviews. The point of a second visit is seeing what moved and what slipped back.
What if I'm out toward Raleigh?
Same price. Travel across the service area is built into the flat number, so a business in Wilmington and one near Raleigh pay the same thing.
Do you help us actually fix the problems?
The evaluation is built to hand you a plan you can run yourselves. For teams that want a hand doing the work, that's something I'm starting to offer; mention it and we can talk.
Will my staff know they're being shopped?
No. The visit is unannounced and looks like any other. This isn't about catching anyone out; it's about seeing the real, ordinary version of the experience your guests get.
One visit could pay for itself in reviews you didn't lose.
The intake takes about two minutes. Tell me a little about your place and what's going on.
Not there yet? Send one question about your place to kevin@guestcrafters.com and I'll answer it. No pitch attached.