FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Marketing agency, customer experience agency:
what we are asked
Do you work only with hotels and restaurants?
No. Hotels and restaurants are where we started and our declared speciality. Our clients also come from e-commerce, wine estates, local services and B2B. The methods do not change, only the moments of truth change.
How much do your services cost?
Our rates start at €120 excl. VAT per hour, depending on the service. Detailed price lists are published on the relevant offer pages, and those for hotels and restaurants on the hotel and restaurant marketing agency prices page. We work on one-off assignments, recurring services or outsourced marketing direction on a fixed monthly fee. The first thirty-minute meeting is free and without obligation.
Where do you work?
We work throughout the Basque Country, Béarn and Bigorre, elsewhere in France and abroad. On-site presence is part of customer experience assignments and is planned from scoping.
Where do we start?
With thirty free minutes by video call. We assess your case and tell you what seems a priority and in what order. If the subject is not for us, we say so as well.
What is a marketing agency?
A marketing agency designs and delivers what brings in customers: positioning, brand platform, action plan, visibility in search engines and in AI, content, campaigns, and measurement of what all this earns. It works on one-off assignments on a specific topic, as a recurring service, or as ongoing management. Its end point is not the message, it is demand and the revenue that follows.
What is a customer experience agency?
A customer experience agency works on what happens after the click: your customer's real journey, from the first search to the feedback after the experience. In practice, it maps the moments of truth, writes customer commitments, sets up measurement tools such as NPS, CSAT and CES, organises mystery visits and trains teams. Our customer experience consulting offer maps the journey, sets commitments and measures them. At ARETA, the diagnosis is based on KPMG's six pillars of customer experience, a framework designed for large brands, which we translate to the scale of an SME or an independent business.
What is the difference between a marketing agency and a communications agency?
A communications agency produces messages and materials: identity, campaign, film, social media. A marketing agency starts from the market and the numbers: who are we selling to, at what price, through which channel, with what return rate. Communication is one of the means of marketing, not the other way round. A company that communicates without having settled its positioning spends without knowing on what.
What does a customer experience assignment include?
Three building blocks, which can be used separately. A diagnosis through the six pillars, which gives the current state and the gaps. Written and measured customer commitments, which turn an intention into an enforceable standard. A recurring programme, where measurement and corrective actions are reviewed on a fixed date. The deliverable is never a report alone: it is a written standard and an indicator tracked over time.
Do you need a marketing agency or a marketing director?
It depends on the workload and the duration. An employed marketing director is justified when the volume takes up a full-time role and the subject is permanent. An agency is justified when you need expertise that the position would not fund, or a variable pace. Outsourced marketing direction is the third way: two to three days a month in the company, on a fixed fee, with the same steering function and without recruitment.
