Feedback only matters if it leads to action. We don’t collect it to report on it, we collect it to improve the experience.
Visit Bruges is the official tourism organization of the city of Bruges, a UNESCO World Heritage destination in West Flanders. The organization manages a broad range of visitor interactions, from welcome desks and events to digital channels such as the website and walking app, and works closely together with tourism operators across the city.
Bruges welcomes several million visitors each year, alongside a significant number of digital visitors via its online channels. This combination of physical and digital touchpoints makes it essential to understand experiences in context, and to continuously improve them.
Within the organization, Wouter Devroe leads research and data-analytics, while Emmy Lagast is responsible for the digital rollout and adoption across teams.
Before working with Hello Customer, Visit Bruges was already collecting feedback, but the insights remained fragmented and underused.
The key challenges were:
In addition, Visit Bruges looks beyond visitors alone. Feedback from colleagues and tourism operators is also essential to get a complete and realistic view of what is happening on the ground.
Visit Bruges selected Hello Customer based on two key principles.
1. Simple feedback collection
The approach is intentionally minimal: one score and one open question. If needed, a limited number of additional questions are included in the questionnaire to build a client profile.
This ensures a low threshold for respondents, while still capturing what really matters.
By keeping the survey simple, we avoid steering visitors too much. The open feedback allows us to detect issues we might not have thought of ourselves.
2. Actionable insights through AI
The added value is not in the questionnaire itself, but in how feedback is analyzed.
The AI component makes it possible to quickly identify recurring themes and issues, helping the organization focus on what requires attention.
Visit Bruges has developed a clear approach to feedback across the organization, built on three principles:
1. Listening broadly
Feedback is collected across a wide range of touchpoints:
This ensures that feedback reflects the full visitor journey, not just isolated moments.
2. Keeping it manageable
Short, focused surveys make it easier for visitors to respond. At the same time, the open question provides enough depth to understand what really matters.
The goal is not to collect as much data as possible, but to collect relevant input that can lead to concrete improvements.
Making it part of operations
Feedback is not treated as a separate research output, but as an integrated part of daily operations.
Insights are shared with the relevant teams and stakeholders, allowing them to respond and adjust where needed.
It stopped being a research deliverable and became a working tool for the organisation.
3. Business outcomes
The main impact for Visit Bruges is not a single score or metric, but a consistent ability to identify and address improvement opportunities.
For events such as Winter Glow, feedback helps to:
By looking at feedback across all touchpoints, the organization can better understand how different elements of the experience relate to each other.
This broader perspective makes it possible to move beyond isolated insights and work towards structural improvements in the visitor experience.
A practical approach to feedback
For Visit Bruges, the key lesson is to keep feedback simple and actionable.
The advice we would give other organisations is to keep it simple. If you can understand what people are saying quickly, you can start improving right away.
This broader perspective makes it possible to move beyond isolated insights and work towards structural improvements in the visitor experience.
As a public organization, Visit Bruges takes a careful and contextual approach to interpreting feedback and scores, ensuring that insights are always considered within the broader visitor and city context.
Book a 30-minute walkthrough with Hello Customer. We’ll show you how Visit Bruges, Liantis, Securitas and others read feedback across every channel, in one place, weekly.
Reach out today and discover how we can help you achieve your business goals.
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