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5 Questions to Ask Before Building Your 2027 Customer Experience Strategy

Before setting next year’s CX goals, take a closer look at what your customers are experiencing today.

Annual planning naturally pushes organizations to look forward. Leadership teams begin discussing new goals, budgets, KPIs, technology investments, training initiatives, and opportunities for growth.

When it comes to customer experience, however, we believe one of the most important parts of planning for the future is understanding the present.

At BARE International, we work with organizations around the world to measure what customers actually experience, identify where expectations and execution diverge, and turn those findings into actionable business intelligence. One lesson we see repeatedly is that a strong CX strategy cannot be built on assumptions.

Before deciding what customer experience should look like in 2027, organizations need a clear picture of what it looks like today.

As planning conversations begin, here are five questions we recommend bringing to the table.

1. What Are Our Customers Actually Experiencing Today?

Most organizations have a clear idea of the experience they intend to deliver.

There are brand standards, training programs, service expectations, operational procedures, and customer journey maps.

But intention and execution are not always the same.

The more valuable question is whether those expectations are consistently translating into real customer experiences.

Consider what happens when a customer enters a location, contacts a service team, completes a transaction, interacts with a digital channel, or needs assistance. Are the behaviors and standards designed by the organization actually showing up in those moments?

This is why establishing a current-state baseline is so important.

Before setting improvement targets for 2027, organizations should have objective visibility into what is happening across the customer journey today. Mystery Shopping, Customer Satisfaction research, operational audits, and other forms of CX measurement can help replace assumptions with evidence.

You cannot accurately measure improvement if you do not know where you started.

2. Where Are We Losing Consistency?

Averages can tell an important story, but they can also hide one.

An organization may have a strong overall customer experience score while individual locations, regions, teams, channels, or touchpoints tell a very different story.

That is why we encourage organizations to look beyond the topline number.

Perhaps one region consistently delivers an exceptional welcome while another struggles. Customers may have an excellent digital experience followed by a frustrating in-person interaction. A service standard may be performed consistently during one part of the customer journey but frequently missed during another.

These variations matter because customers do not experience an organization through an average score. They experience individual interactions.

As you prepare for 2027, identify where consistency breaks down and look for patterns behind those differences.

The goal is not simply to find poor performance. High-performing locations and teams can be equally valuable. Understanding what your strongest performers are doing differently can reveal behaviors and practices that may be replicated elsewhere.

Consistency turns a great customer experience from an isolated success into a repeatable business standard.

3. What Matters Most to Our Customers?

Not every moment in the customer journey carries equal weight.

Organizations often dedicate significant resources to measuring what is easiest to track rather than what has the greatest influence on the customer experience.

Those are not always the same thing.

One of the most valuable questions leaders can ask during strategic planning is:

“Which moments, behaviors, and interactions have the greatest impact on how our customers perceive their experience?”

Customer feedback can help reveal what customers value, where friction occurs, and which interactions influence satisfaction. When those insights are combined with observational and operational data, organizations gain a much richer understanding of the experience.

This distinction becomes especially important when determining where to invest.

If a particular interaction consistently influences satisfaction, loyalty, or customer perception, that insight should help inform training, operational priorities, measurement, and resource allocation.

A successful CX strategy does not attempt to improve everything at once. It identifies what matters most and focuses attention accordingly.

4. Where Are Our Biggest Experience Gaps?

Once you understand what customers are experiencing, where performance varies, and what customers value most, the next question becomes clearer: where is the experience falling short?

At BARE, we often think about CX gaps as the distance between two realities:

  • Brand promise and customer reality.
  • Standards and execution.
  • Customer expectations and actual experiences.
  • Customer priorities and organizational priorities.

A gap does not automatically mean something is fundamentally wrong with the business. In fact, identifying one can be extremely valuable.

A gap creates visibility, and visibility creates an opportunity to improve.

The challenge arises when organizations enter another planning cycle without recognizing those disconnects. The same service inconsistencies, operational misses, and customer frustrations can quietly follow the business into another year.

This is where multiple sources of customer intelligence become particularly powerful. Mystery Shopping may reveal whether a standard is being executed. Customer Satisfaction research may tell you how customers feel about the interaction. Audits may uncover operational or compliance issues. Competitive Intelligence can provide context for how your experience compares within the marketplace.

Looking at these insights together can help organizations move beyond identifying symptoms and begin understanding what is driving them.

“BARE International has been instrumental in our success by allowing us to monitor our service and make immediate adjustments.”

– COO, Health and Fitness Franchise

5. What Should We Measure in 2027?

This question should come after the first four, not before them.

Organizations often enter annual planning with an established set of KPIs and carry those measurements forward automatically.

But a new planning cycle creates an opportunity to ask whether those metrics still answer the questions the business needs answered.

  • Are you measuring the behaviors that influence the experience?
  • Can you identify differences across locations, channels, or customer journey stages?
  • Are you capturing both what happened and how customers felt about it?
  • Can your data help leadership determine where action is needed?
  • And ultimately, does the information you collect help your organization make better decisions?

The right measurement strategy will look different for every organization.

For some, Mystery Shopping may provide the clearest visibility into execution. Others may need deeper Customer Satisfaction research, Audits, Competitive Intelligence, or a combination of methodologies.

“There is no one-size-fits-all approach to measuring customer experience. The most effective programs are built around what an organization needs to understand, the decisions they need to make, and the experiences that matter most to their customers.”

— Michele Jowdy, Global Business Development Manager, BARE International

The goal is not to collect more data simply because more data is available. The goal is to build a measurement strategy that produces useful intelligence.

Better Questions Build Better Strategies

Your 2027 customer experience strategy does not need to begin with all the answers. It should begin with the right questions.

Before determining where you want to go next year, understand where you stand today.

  • What are customers actually experiencing?
  • Where is performance inconsistent?
  • What matters most to your customers?
  • Where are the gaps?
  • What information will help you make better decisions going forward?

Starting these conversations before the year-end rush gives your organization time to establish a meaningful baseline, gather the right intelligence, identify opportunities, and build priorities based on evidence rather than assumptions.

At BARE International, our role goes beyond collecting customer experience data. We help organizations understand what that data means, connect insights across the customer journey, and determine how those findings can support smarter business decisions.

Because the strongest 2027 CX strategies will not simply define where organizations want to go; they will be grounded in a clear understanding of where their customers are today.

Start Building Your 2027 CX Strategy

Ready to understand your current customer experience and identify the opportunities that should shape your 2027 priorities?

Talk with BARE International about building the right CX measurement strategy for your organization. https://www.bareinternational.com/request-a-quote/

At BARE International, we pride ourselves on helping businesses decode customer behaviors. Whether it’s uncovering hidden trends or designing feedback loops for continuous improvement, our research empowers brands to stay ahead of the curve.

Reach out to us today to explore how our tailored research can take your CX strategy to new heights.

Tell us about your business and what keeps you up at night. We can help.

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BARE International Expands Middle East Engagement as GCC Brands Focus on Consistent Customer Experience

BARE International is strengthening its engagement across Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the wider GCC, helping growing brands gain greater visibility into customer experience and operational performance. Read more

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The Growth Gap: What Three Years in Spain Reveals About the Future of Customer Experience

By Jenő Zsiga, General Manager for Europe, BARE International

Growth does not only expand markets. It changes customers. The organizations that recognize this early, and adapt faster than expectations evolve, will be better positioned to define coming years of competitive advantage.

Success Can Become a Blind Spot

Ask most leadership teams what keeps them awake at night and the answers are familiar: economic uncertainty, artificial intelligence, talent shortages, geopolitical risk. Rarely does anyone mention a word that sounds overwhelmingly positive: growth.

Yet sustained growth creates one of the most underestimated business risks I have encountered during my career. It changes customers faster than organizations often change themselves. What once felt exceptional becomes ordinary. What once differentiated a brand becomes expected. Expectations evolve while internal assumptions can remain surprisingly static.

Over the past three years, while leading BARE International’s expansion in Spain, I have seen this pattern emerge across industries. What began as a local growth opportunity became a front-row seat to one of Europe’s most interesting business transformations.

Spain Is Not Just Growing. It Is Becoming More Complex.

Spain’s recent economic performance tells a remarkable story. According to CaixaBank Research, the country welcomed 97 million international visitors in 2025 and recorded €135 billion in tourism expenditure. The same analysis projects Spanish tourism GDP growth of around 2.5% to 2.7% in the coming years. (1)

Those figures are impressive. But for executives, the more important question is what that growth does to the customer experience. Every visitor creates dozens of interactions across hotels, restaurants, retail stores, airports, banks, healthcare providers, automotive dealerships, and more. Each one is a moment where expectations are either confirmed or challenged.

Growth is not simply increasing demand. It is increasing the complexity of delivering consistent experiences across every touchpoint. That is a very different leadership challenge.

The Real Shift Is Happening in Customer Expectations

One statistic from CaixaBank Research captures this transformation particularly well: luxury tourism represents only around 3% of international card spending, yet accounts for 20% of in-person spending by foreign tourists in Spain. (1)

This is more than a tourism insight. It reflects a broader shift in how value is created. Increasingly, organization depends on customers whose expectations are shaped by the best experiences they have anywhere, not only by direct competitors.

A traveler who experiences seamless digital check-in at a luxury hotel expects similar efficiency from an airline. A client who receives highly personalized service from a private bank may expect the same level of attention from a healthcare provider. Customers no longer compare businesses within industries. They compare experiences across their lives.

For executives, this changes an important assumption: competitive advantage is no longer built solely by attracting more customers. It is increasingly built by understanding the customers who create the greatest long-term value, and by delivering consistently against their rising expectations.

The Hidden Cost of Growth

Growth has a habit of hiding operational problems. Revenue increases. Locations expand. Customer numbers rise. From the boardroom, everything can appear healthy. Meanwhile, at the front line, execution may begin to drift.

Consider two flagship stores belonging to the same international retailer. They sell the same products, follow the same brand guidelines, use the same technology, and receive the same training. One exceeds expectations. The other feels merely acceptable.

Leadership may assume the explanation lies in location or demographics. Often, the difference is execution. Did employees create confidence? Did they actively listen? Did they recommend the right solution? Did they make customers feel valued?

These moments rarely appear clearly in executive dashboards. Yet they influence loyalty, conversion, and reputation every day. The greatest operational risk is rarely poor service in isolation. It is inconsistent service.

The Growth Gap

Over the past three years, I have returned to the same observation. I think of it as the Growth Gap: the distance between how quickly customers evolve and how quickly organizations adapt.

  • Expectation Gap: customers change faster than businesses understand them.
  • Execution Gap: service begins varying between locations, teams, and channels.
  • Insight Gap: leadership relies on assumptions instead of observing real customer experiences.
  • Performance Gap: loyalty weakens; conversion slows, and competitive advantage quietly erodes.

Most organizations do not notice these gaps until commercial performance begins to suffer. The strongest organizations identify them much earlier.

Three Years in Spain Reinforced One Conviction

This year marks three years since BARE International established its office in Madrid. During that time, according to BARE International internal operational data, the team has welcomed 13 new clients, expanded its network to more than 4,200 active evaluators across Spain, and supported customer experience programs throughout the Mediterranean region. (2)

Those milestones matter not simply because they reflect growth, but because they have allowed us to observe thousands of customer interactions across retail, hospitality, financial services, healthcare, automotive, restaurants, airports, and luxury brands.

Across these industries, the leadership questions remain consistent: How do we deliver greater consistency? How do we protect our brand while expanding? How do we anticipate changing expectations rather than react to them? How do we ensure strategy becomes reality at the front line?

Three Questions Every Leadership Team Should Ask

Before investing in the next technology platform, launching another customer initiative, or expanding into a new market, executive teams should pause and ask:

  • Are our customers changing faster than our organization?
  • Where is execution least consistent across our business?
  • What assumptions about our customers have we not challenged recently?

The answers may reveal opportunities more valuable than the next marketing campaign or operational initiative.

The Organizations That Learn Fastest Will Lead Next

Markets will continue evolving. Artificial intelligence will transform industries. Customer expectations will continue to rise. What will distinguish tomorrow’s market leaders is more fundamental: their willingness to keep learning.

Looking back over the past three years, that may be the most important lesson Spain has reinforced for me: growth creates opportunity, but understanding creates advantage. The businesses that combine both will define the next decade.

Explore More

At BARE International, we help organizations replace assumptions with evidence through customer experience measurement, mystery shopping, operational audits, and market research. Our work gives leaders objective insight into how customers actually experience their brands across locations and channels.

Sources

  1. CaixaBank Research, Tourism in Spain 2026: New Opportunities for Sustainable Growth / Spanish Tourism Sector: From Post-Pandemic Rebound to Sustainable Growth(2026). Data referenced includes international visitor arrivals, tourism expenditure, projected tourism GDP growth, and luxury tourism indicators.
  2. BARE International internal operational data (2023–2026), including Madrid office milestones, client growth, evaluator network expansion, and regional program activity.

At BARE International, we pride ourselves on helping businesses decode customer behaviors. Whether it’s uncovering hidden trends or designing feedback loops for continuous improvement, our research empowers brands to stay ahead of the curve.

Reach out to us today to explore how our tailored research can take your CX strategy to new heights.

Tell us about your business and what keeps you up at night. We can help.

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More Than an Award: What ShopperFest Reminded Us About Our Industry

By Marguerite Turner, Operations Manager at BARE International

Every year, ShopperFest brings together mystery shoppers, MSPA member companies, and industry professionals from across the country. It’s an opportunity to learn, network, and celebrate the work that often happens behind the scenes to improve customer experiences.

This year’s event in Las Vegas served as a reminder that our industry is about far more than evaluations and reports. It’s about people.

Why ShopperFest Matters to the Mystery Shopping Industry

Throughout the weekend, more than 120 attendees visited the BARE International table, and one thing became immediately clear: relationships matter. Conversations weren’t limited to questions about upcoming assignments or how to register for new opportunities. They became opportunities to reconnect with evaluators who have partnered with BARE for years, meet shoppers who were curious about our programs, and hear firsthand about the experiences they’ve had working with our team.

Some of the most memorable moments came from hearing evaluators recognize individual members of our staff by name. One shopper enthusiastically shared how helpful two of our Project Managers had been throughout their experience with BARE. Those conversations are meaningful because they reinforce something that can’t always be measured in a report: the impact our people have on the evaluator experience.

Connecting with the Evaluator Community

ShopperFest also provided an opportunity to showcase how BARE continues to evolve. Visitors stopped to learn more about our growing video shopping programs, explore opportunities in locations that are traditionally more difficult to fill, and pick up a little BARE swag along the way. By the end of the evening, every T-shirt, towel, pen, and giveaway had found a new home.

Just as valuable were the conversations happening beyond our booth.

Innovation and the Future of Customer Experience

Meeting with other MSPA member companies offered an opportunity to exchange ideas, discuss where the industry is heading, and better understand how organizations are adapting to changing client expectations. Customer experience continues to evolve rapidly, particularly as technology and artificial intelligence reshape how insights are gathered and analyzed. Those discussions reinforced BARE’s commitment to continuing to innovate while keeping people at the center of every program we deliver.

One of the most inspiring parts of the weekend was discovering the diverse backgrounds represented within the mystery shopping community. Many evaluators balance mystery shopping alongside accomplished careers in aviation, operations, healthcare, retail, and countless other industries. Their professional expertise brings valuable perspective to every evaluation they complete and strengthens the quality of the insights they provide.

A Commitment to Continuous Learning

Another highlight of ShopperFest was seeing so many evaluators invest in expanding their knowledge through the MSPA certification courses offered during the conference. Attendees had the opportunity to participate in specialized sessions covering topics such as airport concession evaluations, casino and hotel mystery shopping, and video mystery shopping.

Choosing to add these certifications to an already full conference schedule speaks volumes about the dedication within this community. It reflects a genuine commitment to sharpening skills, embracing new opportunities, and delivering the highest quality evaluations possible.

To everyone who chose to earn one or more certifications throughout the weekend, congratulations. Your willingness to continue learning not only strengthens your own expertise but also helps elevate the mystery shopping industry as a whole.

What Makes the MSPA Shopper’s Choice Award So Meaningful?

The weekend concluded with an honor that made every conversation even more meaningful.

BARE International was recognized with the 2026 MSPA Americas Shopper’s Choice Award, marking our 10th consecutive year receiving this recognition.

What makes this award particularly special is that it reflects the voices of the evaluator community. It is a recognition earned through consistent communication, professionalism, and the relationships built over time.

Looking Ahead: Continuing to Raise the Standard

Awards are certainly worth celebrating, but the greatest takeaway from ShopperFest wasn’t bringing home a certificate. It was the opportunity to listen, learn, and spend time with the people who make this industry possible every day.

To every evaluator who stopped by our table, shared a story, asked a question, or simply introduced themselves—thank you.

Here’s to another year of partnership, continuous improvement, and raising the standard for customer experience together.

At BARE International, we pride ourselves on helping businesses decode customer behaviors. Whether it’s uncovering hidden trends or designing feedback loops for continuous improvement, our research empowers brands to stay ahead of the curve.

Reach out to us today to explore how our tailored research can take your CX strategy to new heights.

Tell us about your business and what keeps you up at night. We can help.

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BARE International Earns MSPA Americas 2026 Shoppers’ Choice Award for the Tenth Consecutive Year

Recognition reflects a decade of continued trust from the mystery shopping community and reinforces BARE’s commitment to delivering exceptional experiences for clients and evaluators alike.

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BARE International Celebrates Three Years in Spain and Strengthens Presence Across the Mediterranean Region

The BARE International Spain team is celebrating three years of operations in Madrid, marking an important milestone in the company’s ongoing commitment to supporting organizations across Spain and the Mediterranean region with customer experience research, mystery shopping, audits, and market research services.

Since opening its Madrid office in June 2023, BARE International has continued to expand its local presence while leveraging the strength of its global network, helping businesses gain valuable insights into customer experiences, operational performance, and growth opportunities.

Read more

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Why Inconsistent Execution Is Costing You More Than You Think

By Bijin Zachariah, Business Development Manager at BARE International SG/ME

The Hidden Cost of Small CX Failures

In many organizations, customer experience is still viewed as a “soft” business function. It is considered important for brand perception, but difficult to directly connect to financial performance.

Yet some of the biggest revenue losses businesses face today are not caused by failed strategies or poor products. They happen quietly through everyday customer interactions that seem too small to matter individually, but become significant when repeated thousands of times across locations, teams, and customer journeys.

A missed greeting. A delayed response. An employee who forgets to recommend an add-on product.

None of these moments feel dramatic in isolation. But together, they create friction that impacts conversion rates, basket size, customer loyalty, and ultimately, revenue.

In large-scale operations, even small inconsistencies can become extremely expensive.

When “Small Misses” Become Large Revenue Losses

Take a simple example. Imagine a frontline employee misses the opportunity to suggest a drink or upgrade during a customer interaction. The lost upsell might only be worth $3. On paper, that feels insignificant.

But across a network of stores, the impact grows quickly.

If a location misses just 15 upsell opportunities per day, that becomes $45 in lost daily revenue per store. Across 50 stores, that translates to more than $67,000 in lost revenue every month, all from a single execution gap.

The important point is not the exact number. It is the realization that customer experience failures rarely appear as catastrophic breakdowns. More often, they exist as small, repeated leaks that businesses fail to measure.

CX Revenue Leakage Exists Across Every Industry

This pattern is visible across nearly every industry.

Retail: In retail environments, conversion rates may fall only a few percentage points because staff engagement is inconsistent, or customer assistance arrives too late. But in high-traffic stores, even a small drop in conversion can represent tens of thousands in missed monthly sales.

Hospitality: In hospitality, missed room upgrades, inconsistent service delivery, or slow response times can quietly reduce guest spending and repeat bookings.

Banking & Financial Services: In banking and financial services, even marginal declines in product conversion rates can result in significant long-term revenue loss across branch networks.

The issue is rarely strategy alone. More often, it is execution.

The Real Challenge Is Consistency

Most brands already have service standards, sales processes, and customer experience guidelines in place. The challenge is ensuring they are delivered consistently every day, across every location and customer interaction.

That is where many businesses struggle.

Leadership teams often ask whether investments in training, customer experience measurement, or mystery shopping truly generate ROI. But the more important question may be:

What is the cost of not identifying these gaps?

Because the reality is that many organizations are already losing revenue through inconsistent execution. They simply lack visibility into where it is happening.

Making Execution Gaps Visible

This is where customer experience measurement becomes incredibly valuable.

Mystery shopping and CX evaluations do more than assess service quality. They help organizations understand where operational standards break down in real-world conditions, how staff behaviors influence customer decisions, and which locations consistently underperform despite having access to the same tools and training.

For example, one store may consistently convert customers at a significantly higher rate than another operating under the same brand standards. The difference is often not strategy. It is execution quality at the frontline level.

When those execution gaps are identified, even small improvements can create measurable financial gains.

Small Improvements Create Big Results

Increasing upsell success rates by a modest percentage, improving service responsiveness, or slightly increasing conversion rates can have a substantial cumulative effect when scaled across multiple locations.

Recovering just $20 per day in missed opportunities across 100 stores would represent more than $700,000 in annual revenue regained. This is achieved not through reinventing the business, but through better operational consistency.

Why CX Should Be Viewed as a Revenue Driver

Customer experience should no longer be viewed solely as a training initiative, an audit requirement, or a reporting exercise.

It is a direct driver of commercial performance.

Every customer interaction either strengthens value creation or contributes to revenue leakage. The brands that outperform their competitors are often not the ones with the most ambitious strategies, but the ones capable of executing consistently at scale.

Because in today’s market, consistency is not just an operational detail. It is a competitive advantage.

At BARE International, we pride ourselves on helping businesses decode customer behaviors. Whether it’s uncovering hidden trends or designing feedback loops for continuous improvement, our research empowers brands to stay ahead of the curve.

Reach out to us today to explore how our tailored research can take your CX strategy to new heights.

Tell us about your business and what keeps you up at night. We can help.

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Building Stronger Client Partnerships Through Engagement

Client relationships should not consist of a single interaction or a box checked on a task list. These are ongoing partnerships that require intention, structure, and adaptability. As programs grow in complexity and scale, the way we engage with clients plays a direct role in building trust, strengthening retention, and ensuring long-term success.  

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The True Value of Showing Up for Our Clients

Technology has made data more accessible than ever. Reports are faster. Insights travel instantly. But access to information isn’t the same as knowing what to do with it.

When a key client raises concerns about their data, the difference between a vendor and a partner becomes clear. Here’s an example of how two hours of preparation and presence helped strengthen a half-million-dollar client relationship.

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Retail Reimagined: Why Immersive Retail Experiences Need Human Insight

Over the past few years, retail has evolved far beyond the traditional “point of sale.” Today’s stores are becoming immersive environments designed to engage customers emotionally, digitally, and physically all at once.

At EuroShop 2026, I noticed a clear shift in how retailers are approaching the in store experience. Across the exhibition, brands showcased modular store concepts, adaptive visual merchandising, sustainable design, and intelligent in store technologies, all working together to create more immersive and dynamic customer journeys. The goal is no longer simply to sell products. It is to create memorable experiences.

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