Mystery guest audits for restaurants, hotels and spas in Armenia

Why service is measured in money

Friday, 9 pm, a restaurant in central Yerevan. A party of four sits by the window; the waiter leaves the menus and vanishes for twelve minutes. Meanwhile they choose a bottle of red, then decide not to wait and order a glass each. The bill is paid, nobody complains or writes a review. But the unopened bottle and the dessert nobody offered never make it into that evening's takings.

In a hotel, this happens at reception. A guest lands at Zvartnots on a night flight, and the receptionist finishes a call without looking up. HVS estimates that guests in Armenia stay 2.0-2.5 nights on average, so a hotel has almost no time to undo a first impression.

Till reports miss such episodes, and guests rarely mention them. A mystery guest audit finds them and puts them in a manager's terms: which stage, how many minutes, which point of the service standard was missed, what to change by the next shift.

In shops and salons the same method is called mystery shopping. The principle holds: someone walks the customer journey from first question to payment, and you see where it breaks down.

Services

The Services page sets out what each service includes and how to combine them into one programme.

Who we work with

We audit restaurants and cafés, wine bars, hotels and guesthouses, spas and resorts, shops, beauty salons and fitness clubs. Each loses guests at different points: in a restaurant the guest tires of waiting for the bill, in a guesthouse they get lost at check-in, in a salon their message goes unanswered and they go next door. So we build the checklist for your format, not a generic one. What we look at in each industry is on the Industries page.

Cities

Vanadzor, Goris, Yeghegnadzor and other cities on request. All locations are on the Cities page.

How an audit works

Work starts with a 30-40 minute briefing: what concerns you, which shifts and channels matter, whether you have your own standard. From it we draw up a checklist where every item has a wording, a weight and clear answer options. The mystery guest comes as an ordinary guest on agreed days and times; staff do not know the dates. They note the time of key stages, keep the receipt, photograph dishes and table setting, and write up observations straight after the visit.

A methodologist checks every report, and you receive it within 72 hours. A repeat audit shows what has changed since the debrief with your team. Every step is in our methodology, and an illustrative sample report shows the result.

If anything in the report seems inaccurate, tell us, and the methodologist will review the disputed item against the visit materials. The manager and the team are left with one version of the evening to work with.

Why GOSTI

• Your standard drives the score. We carry your rules into the checklist with your wording; if you have no standard, we adapt a base one to your format.
• Every score rests on an episode. Behind each mark is a specific moment of the visit, with a time, photo or receipt.
• A methodologist reads every report. Before sending, they check scores against the visit materials and write recommendations.
• Any item can be challenged. The methodologist reviews it against the visit materials, and every score change is logged.
• Staff do not know the dates. The team works as on any evening, not for an inspection.

Frequently asked questions