Mystery shoppers who visited a total of 800 sales points in the region, in various sectors, including car industry, petrol stations, financial industry, retail, tourist and hospitality facilities, and service facilities, gave Bosnia and Herzegovina the best ranking among the six countries of the region.

This year Bosnia and Herzegovina topped the ranking, with a score of 83.93%, down by 3.69 percentage points from last year. It was followed by North Macedonia (78.63%, up by 3.04 pp), Slovenia (78.60%) and Montenegro (73.33%). Serbia ranked last, with a score of 66.31%, down by 1.61 percentage points from 2022.

Croatia fell from fourth place in 2022 to fifth place, scoring 69.68%, 2.7 percentage points less than in 2022.

Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia scored below this year's regional average of 73.94%.

The survey, entitled “Regional Service – GUEST”, measured the basic elements of service quality, such as greetings, determining customers’ needs/desires, knowing the product, suggesting an additional product and thanking for the visit. The title of the survey is the acronym for Greet, Understand, Explain, Suggest, Thank, according to Croatian Hina news agency.

The category in which all six countries of the region achieved the best overall result, as in previous years, is the product knowledge category, 93.81%, although this is also less than the previous year.

As in previous years, the worst-ranked category is the offering of an additional product, which achieved a total result of 38.17%, and at the same time recorded the biggest drop compared to the previous year – by 10.21%.

Observed by activities, this year the largest increase by 8.13% and the best result (89.63 percent) were achieved by service activities, removing the auto industry from the long-standing first place.

For several years in a row, retail has stood out as the activity with the most room for improvement, and this year it achieved a result of 67.56%, and a drop in the quality of service compared to the previous year, by 3.14%.

A decrease compared to the previous year was also recorded at gas stations, by 3.29 points.