Hospitality service must 'warm up' if customers are to stay loyal, a mystery shopping survey reveals

1st July 2010, 2:13pm

When it comes to establishing customer loyalty, 'warmth' is the critical factor – that's according to the findings of a mystery shopping scheme study by the National Skills Academy for Hospitality.

More than 1,000 businesses from the hospitality sector were included in the hospitality benchmarking survey, which provides users with feedback from professional customers of their operation.

Fast food eateries to Michelin-starred restaurants, pubs and hotels were among the businesses making up the benchmark, which was scored using a points system to judge performance.

The average score in hospitality was 74 out of 100, with 15 businesses achieving 100% and 69 scoring more than 95%. Those faring less well were found to have lost points on warmth and hospitality while being stronger in areas like process and systems.

The study also found that in 60% of visits where a problem was reported staff failed to use the opportunity to set a good example afterwards. It also found that in every sub-sector and region, businesses scored higher on skills-based questions than on personality-related questions. Restaurants with hosts were crowned best performers and in 37% of occasions a staff member acted beyond expectations.

David McHattie, chief executive of the National Skills Academy for Hospitality, said: "Our aim was to develop a benchmark that was open to all. The benefit to those using the hospitality benchmark is the valuable insight the collective information offers which focuses on the customers' perceptions of the experience and their willingness to return and recommend.

"If you don't know how well you are doing its difficult to know what to or how to improve."

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