Publicerad: 2013-10-16
ISBN: 978-91-7519-482-0
ISSN: 1650-3686 (tryckt), 1650-3740 (online)
For companies it is important to create positive customer experiences. This paper suggests one customer-sensitive way to get information to improve the customer experience. This is done by conducting non-managerial employee walkthrough audits with those employees who take care of the service processes and the facilities in daily manner. The assumption is that those employees have first-hand understanding of the customers and their experiences. The method is tested by conducting walk-through audits in in two Finnish wellness centers. The staff members were interviewed while they were walking around in the service provide’s premises. Additionally in the other site there was a managerial workshop to gain the management view on the customer experience. The walk-through audits gave several suggestions for actions to improve the customer experience and they were seen as a powerful way to understand the customer experience. On the other hand it was acknowledged that the employee understanding of the customer is limited and there are spaces and processes in the wellness centers where the employees rarely go. Thus relying solely on employee understanding in fine-tuning the customer experience would be limited and would not cover all aspects of the customer experience.
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