Decoding
Service
Excellence
Decoding
Decoding Service Excellence
In a world where customer expectations evolve faster than most businesses can adapt, service excellence has become the ultimate competitive advantage. But delivering it consistently: across people, processes, and cultures remains one of the biggest challenges leaders face today.
Decoding Service Excellence reveals how feedback, when understood through the lens of trust and emotion, becomes one of the most powerful tools for transformation.
Drawing from over thirty years of global experience across hospitality, retail, and service industries, Kaiz Patel takes readers behind the scenes of real businesses that turned feedback into growth. He shares how frontline employees, managers, and CEOs alike can uncover the hidden patterns behind customer behavior and use those insights to build organizations people trust and love.
The book introduces satisFIND’s proven model that connects Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) in one ecosystem. Through case studies, stories, and actionable steps, Kaiz shows how brands can move beyond ratings and metrics to truly decode the human side of service what people feel, not just what they say.
At its heart, this book is about rethinking feedback.seeing it not as criticism or compliance, but as a continuous conversation that shapes better leaders, stronger teams, and more resilient brands.
Whether you are a business owner, hotelier, retail manager, consultant, or simply someone passionate about human connection in service, Decoding Service Excellence will help you bridge the gap between intention and impact.
It is not just about listening to your customers. It is about understanding them and acting on what truly matters.
Kaiz Patel is the Co-Founder and CEO of satisFIND, a global AI and Data platform transforming how businesses in hospitality, retail, and service industries manage and measure experience. With more than three decades of international experience across India, Switzerland, the UAE, and the Philippines, Kaiz brings a rare blend of hospitality expertise, service philosophy, and technology-driven insight to the evolving world of Customer and Employee Experience.
A graduate of Les Roches, Crans-Montana, Switzerland (Class of 1995), Kaiz began his career in luxury hospitality before pioneering the concept of mystery shopping in India. Under his leadership, satisFIND now operates in over 50 countries, equipping brands with real-time insights through its proprietary Trust Experience Framework, a model that connects customer emotion, frontline performance, and business growth.
At the heart of Kaiz’s work is a belief that trust is the true currency of experience. His approach integrates Mystery Shopping, Voice of Customer, and frontline training to help organizations turn feedback into transformation, building teams that deliver consistency, empathy, and excellence across every touchpoint.
Beyond his role at satisFIND, Kaiz is a recognized thought leader, advisor, and speaker on service innovation and technology in experience management.
His book, Decoding Service Excellence: Transforming Feedback into Business Success, brings together lessons from two decades of helping brands turn insights into trust, and trust into growth.
My story
My education in hospitality didn’t begin in a classroom. It began in the basement of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, where my mother worked as a proud housekeeping manager. I was 12 years old, watching the hum and rhythm of service backstage, sheets being folded, uniforms being pressed, staff moving quietly and efficiently. While my friends were outside playing cricket, I was in the housekeeping office, witnessing how service isn’t glamour, it’s precision, humility, and teamwork.
A Family Sacrifice That Changed My Life
When it was time to choose a career, I walked away from the conventional paths of engineering or business. I chose hospitality. I secured admission into a U.S. university and also to Les Roches in Switzerland, one of the world’s top hospitality schools. Switzerland felt right. What made it possible? A family sacrifice.
My parents waited for the sale of a family property to fund my education. That decision became my first real lesson in service:
Learning the Discipline of Swiss Hospitality
At Les Roches, I was among the first few Indian students. I trained across all areas of hotel operations, learned German in bustling kitchens, worked my way up from trainee to department supervisor, and later joined Savoy Baur en Ville (Now Mandarin Oriental Savoy) in Zurich a luxury property at Paradeplatz where I experienced European hospitality at its peak.
A Decade of Building – Kitchens, Concepts and Mixology.
The next decade took me across India, Switzerland and the Middle East.
I led consulting projects, working with architects and chefs to design restaurants, bars, resorts, and industrial kitchens. I was awarded Unilever’s CaterPlan 30 Under 30, and helped shape India’s emerging cocktail culture as a mixologist and trainer for a leading beverage brand (2006–2008). In the Philippines, I launched HappyHours, an experiential mixology brand creating signature cocktails for couples, themed events, and product launches. For me, a drink wasn’t just a drink. It was storytelling in a glass.
Hyderabad: A Voice in the Culinary World
From 2003 to 2008, I made Hyderabad home.
I became a regular contributor to The Times of India, reviewed restaurants, judged biryani and haleem competitions, authored the Times Food Guide, and built food costing models and service systems for dozens of new restaurants and bar concepts in the booming hospitality sector in Hyderabad. But then came an injury that changed everything.
From Knee Injury to New Vision
A knee injury forced me off the floor. But instead of stopping me, it gave me clarity. From my bed, I began offering clients a new service:
“What if we invited real customers to experience your business and report back with structured, unbiased feedback?”
This was 2001, long before mystery shopping was even known in India. Prior to this I have been doing mystery shopping for businesses of my friends since 1998 and I was the mystery shopper in these instances.
That idea became the foundation of my journey into the world of Customer Experience Management.
Meeting Michelle. Building satisFIND.
In 2005, I attended a global mystery shopping conference in Singapore.
That’s where I met Michelle, a young CX entrepreneur from the Philippines who had just launched satisFIND. We clicked instantly, same values, complementary skills.
I joined her as Co-Founder and helped build satisFIND into a platform trusted across 50+ countries.
Together, we turned feedback into growth, helping brands listen to their customers and employees with empathy and structure. We fell in love and got married along the way.
Consulting for Governments and Leading Wellness Operations
While in the Philippines, I also: Served as General Manager of a high-end wellness center in Metro Manila, turning around operations and service quality.
Worked with the Department of Tourism to shape national service standards and hotel accreditation frameworks.
At every step, the focus was the same:
“Frontline excellence, powered by trust.”
Giving Back to Les Roches
My relationship with Les Roches has come full circle.
I have proudly served in various roles from being an Alumni Ambassador (India) Committee Member of the global alumni committee and finally as Interim President of the Les Roches Alumni Association globally. Les Roches is an institution that shaped me, and I remain committed to giving back.
My Book Decoding Service Excellence
In 2025, I published Decoding Service Excellence, a book born from three decades of observation, action, and experimentation.
It’s a playbook for leaders, entrepreneurs, and trainers who want to transform feedback into business success, and see service not as soft skills, but as a structured, teachable system.
