How SPAR captures willingness to recommend right at the checkout and brings shopper feedback into day-to-day store operations

Shoppers form their opinion of a store while shopping: when finding a product, in contact with staff or at the checkout. These experiences influence whether customers are satisfied, come back and would recommend the store.

The challenge for retailers: feedback has to be captured while the shopping experience is still fresh. Classic surveys often create too much distance or too much friction. That is why SPAR starts right at the checkout.

SPAR focuses on customer experience

From 2019 to 2021, SPAR ran an NPS customer survey via chat dialog. The solution was used in around 200 SPAR stores. In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated restrictions on brick-and-mortar retail, the project was ended in 2021. A QR code at the checkout invites customers to take part with the message "Your opinion matters to us". After scanning, the dialog opens in the smartphone browser.

Instead of a long form, the chat guides customers through three key questions:

1. How likely is it that you would recommend SPAR to a friend or a colleague?
2. What is the main reason for your rating?
3. What could we do better?

In addition, the dialog asks about shopping frequency and offers the option to subscribe to the newsletter.

From rating to usable feedback

The first question measures the willingness to recommend. The follow-up questions show what shaped the rating and where customers see room for improvement.

In this way, the dialog combines a standardized metric with qualitative feedback. NPS becomes not just a score, but a system of measurement, explanation and continuous use. It guarantees neither loyalty nor growth, but it can serve as a shared reference point for customer centricity.

From feedback to store-level work

During the project period, thousands of SPAR customers took part in the NPS survey. The answers were visible to SPAR in real time on the DiALOGiFY dashboard.

The results were discussed with the store teams every month. In addition, each SPAR store receives a monthly NPS report with its customer data via an email link. The feedback does not stay locked in a central reporting system. It is regularly fed back to the teams who shape the shopping experience on the ground.

"The NPS question measures. The follow-up questions explain. The store teams make the insights operationally useful."

Three principles of a Net Promoter System

This turns individual responses into a continuous foundation for operational customer centricity.

Conceptual outlook: from feedback to the next action

Note: the following points are conceptual and were not part of the SPAR implementation described above. They do not represent measured results.

The existing NPS logic can serve as a starting point for a more advanced retail activation. The dialog would then not end with the rating, but enable a fitting next action depending on the feedback.

Always-on feedback

A more advanced dialog could deepen positive and negative ratings, capture suggestions for improvement and structure the insights per store for retail marketing, operations and CRM.

Feedback would then work not like a static form, but like an ongoing, usable conversation.

Voluntarily activating Google reviews

In case of positive feedback, shoppers could be invited voluntarily to share their experience as a Google review for the store in question. The decision to leave a public review or recommendation would always rest with the shopper; DiALOGiFY would never write or publish a review itself.

Negative feedback could instead be routed internally to the retailer or the responsible teams. This way, problems could be identified, prioritized and handled operationally.

Making recommendations actionable

The willingness to recommend is already measured in the NPS dialog. A possible next step would be to invite satisfied shoppers, voluntarily and directly in the dialog, to make a recommendation.

The dialog could start a simple recommendation journey or a referral flow and connect it with further CRM or loyalty activities. Recommendation would then not only be captured as a metric, but translated into a concrete next action.

Connecting retail activation where it is decided

For retailers, the potential does not lie in yet another isolated survey. It lies in connecting feedback, store steering and follow-up activation. A more advanced dialog could link feedback directly to next steps:

• positive experience → voluntary review or recommendation
• critical experience → internal routing
• suggestion for improvement → handover to store or operations
• interest in communication → CRM, newsletter or loyalty activation

This could bring feedback, store steering and follow-up activation closer together. Contributions to visit frequency, basket size or repurchase remain strategic possibilities, not proven results of the SPAR implementation.

What other retailers can learn from this

If you …

• want to capture feedback right at the relevant touchpoint with a low barrier to participation
• want to understand not just a score, but the reasons behind it
• want to make responses visible per store
• want to feed customer feedback back into day-to-day store work on a regular basis

… then you need more than a one-off survey. You need a system that captures feedback continuously, explains it and feeds it back into operational store work.

Summary

• In around 200 stores, SPAR collected NPS feedback via a QR code chat dialog at the checkout.
• The dialog captured willingness to recommend, reasons and suggestions for improvement.
• Thousands of customers have taken part; answers are visible in real time and discussed with store teams every month.
• Always-on feedback, Google reviews, internal routing and referral flows are possible conceptual extensions.