Croatia ranks third in the quality of retail service among six countries in the region, according to a study by the mystery shopping agency Heraklea conducted during June and July in 800 locations.
As last year, Croatia secured third place while Slovenia took the leading position. Slovenia is first in offering additional products and thanking customers for their visit/purchase, while Serbia ranks first in the category of greetings, identifying customer desires/needs, and product knowledge, overall placing second. Macedonia is fourth, while the last two places are occupied by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
This year, Croatia did not secure first place in any category, and it has the most areas for improvement in identifying customer needs/desires, where it has the worst result in the region. The best results were achieved by employees in Croatian car dealerships, while the most areas for improvement are in supermarkets.
The research was conducted from June 13 to July 30, 2015, and mystery shoppers visited 800 different locations such as car dealerships, banks, gas stations, retail outlets, supermarkets, telecommunications company sales points, tourism and hospitality facilities, and service industries. Five basic elements of service quality were measured: greeting, identifying customer needs/desires, product knowledge, offering additional products, and thanking for the visit.
The product knowledge category achieved the best overall result of 89 percent, but with a decline of two percent compared to last year. All countries achieved equally good results in this category except Montenegro, which, with a result of 78 percent, has the most room for improvement, reported Herraklea. In the greeting category, Serbia achieved first place with a result of 86 percent, while Montenegro ranked last again this year with a result of 60 percent. Croatia achieved a result of 83 percent in this category, positioning itself as third in the region. Thanking for the visit is most practiced in Slovenia, where 86 percent of employees do so, while in Croatia, it is 74 percent. The category of identifying customer needs/desires achieved a result of 71 percent, with Serbia standing out as the leading country with a result of 84 percent. Croatia performs relatively poorly here, with a result of 60 percent. The lowest-ranked category is offering additional products, with a result of 37 percent. Slovenia is in first place with 62 percent, which is 20 percent better than second-placed Croatia.
Looking at the results by industry, car dealerships performed the best with a result of 96 percent, marking a seven percent increase in service quality compared to last year. Supermarkets, as in the previous year, stood out as the industry with the most areas for improvement with a result of 58.
