Chefparade service design
Increasing returning guest numbers through research
Although Chefparade’s courses achieved exceptionally high satisfaction ratings, most guests returned only once or twice. The project aimed to understand where the customer relationship breaks down and which experiential or operational factors would encourage more regular attendance. To do so, we conducted competitor analysis, data analysis, stakeholder and customer interviews, a website audit, and a questionnaire survey involving 1,440 respondents.
The research’s most important insight was that the issue lay not in the quality of the experience, but in the continuity of the guest relationship. After the first course, there was no deliberate approach to building the experience and relationship that could have fostered long-term engagement.
During the research, we developed a motivation-based rather than demographic segmentation. We found that guests come for the same service for very different reasons: some want to learn, while others are primarily looking for a shared experience. By mapping the full customer journey, we identified pain points and opportunities for improvement at every touchpoint, then turned these into a strategic roadmap for communications, the digital experience, the loyalty programme and service development.