How HappyorNot went from four buttons to over 2 billion customer feedback data points

I travel frequently through Berlin Airport and almost always endure a (thankfully clothed) pat-down at security — a process I find deeply annoying, not to mention embarrassing. While I fully understand the importance of airport security, I’m usually wearing the same travel clothes I do at other airports, where I never trigger any alarms. 

Fortunately, Berlin Airport provides a small but meaningful outlet for feedback through the push-button terminals from Finnish company HappyOrNot.

At its core, HappyOrNot is a customer feedback company. It enables people to share their experiences in a simple, frictionless way. The data it collects helps clients improve operations, boost customer satisfaction, increase revenue, and ultimately optimise profit. 

According to CEO Miika Mäkitalo, many companies still rely on gut feelings, which can lead to poor decisions without real data. 

“We help replace that guesswork with actionable insights.”

From four buttons to full-fledged feedback platforms

The HappyOrNot journey started in 2009 when its founder had a bad experience in a hardware store and realised there was no simple way to give feedback.

Paper forms and comment boxes weren’t cutting it. That’s when the idea of a simple, physical interface was born—initially with its well-known four-button system. 

Mäkitalo shared: 

“Even with just four buttons, we could identify patterns and trends, such as issues occurring on certain days or shifts. 

Over time, we've expanded to include digital touchpoints and tablets, which allow for more detailed feedback on specific themes like waiting times, product quality, or service.”

While the products are sector agnostic, they can be deployed to reveal specific insights. 

For retail, it's often about improving margins, optimising the product mix, and refining the service experience. 

HappyOrNot helps unlock the specific data points that matter to them — like visitor counts, satisfaction scores, and basket sizes. Companies with many locations can benchmark performance across sites and identify underperformers. 

Mäkitalo detailed:

“Maybe five stores struggle with long waits, and ten with inconsistent service. That allows leadership to intervene where it matters.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as realising that a new manager needs better onboarding or that a shift is consistently understaffed.

One of our retail clients recently told us they saw a 6 per cent revenue increase after implementing actions based on our data. That kind of return turns into seven-figure gains for a business."

In restaurants, the focus could vary depending on whether it’s a high-end experience or a fast-service canteen. 

Real-time feedback in critical settings

HappyOrNot has also gained traction in healthcare settings. 

According to Mäkitalo, healthcare is very different and highly contextual, especially between Europe and the US.

“In the US, where patient fees are high, the experience is a major part of the business proposition. Feedback helps identify friction points in the process—wait times, service clarity, and so on.

Larger organisations often combine our feedback data with other datasets like labour and revenue figures. That lets them correlate trends, for example, whether longer wait times coincide with a drop in satisfaction."

Knox Community Hospital in Ohio implemented HappyOrNot’s Smiley Touch terminals to capture real-time patient feedback across various departments. This initiative led to a 33 per cent reduction in patient dissatisfaction within six months and a 20 per cent increase in satisfaction survey scores in just four months. The immediate insights allowed healthcare providers to address concerns promptly, enhancing the overall patient experience and operational efficiency.

The changing customer experience (CX)

While CX roles gained prominence a few years ago, Mäkitalo contends they’ve seen a decline in their organisational influence — unless tied directly to operations and business strategy. 

“We tend to work most closely with operations teams, because they’re the ones who actually make the changes.

They need to know whether to increase staffing, change product mixes, or reallocate resources — and that’s where our data delivers value.”

 First, CX tools must demonstrate tangible value. Being “nice to have” isn’t enough. Integration is key — the data has to connect with revenue metrics, patient loads, staffing levels, etc.

Making sense of billions of data points

While HappyOrNot doesn’t track things like observation analytics like dwell time and queue abandonment, many customers integrate its data with other platforms as part of a bigger business intelligence (BI) and AI-powered ecosystem to get a more complete picture.

“The goal is always to turn feedback into actionable insights, not just reports.

We’ve evolved from simply collecting data to helping customers understand what’s really happening—and why. That requires dashboards, intelligent summaries, and recommendations, not just raw numbers.”

In the past, someone might sit with a spreadsheet to identify trends. But now, systems must do the heavy lifting — providing summaries, surfacing anomalies, and tailoring insights to specific users.

HappyOrNot serves customers with hundreds of locations and many internal stakeholders. Each one — from a store manager to a product lead—should see exactly what matters to them.

 That requires AI to deliver role-based, real-time insights without manual analysis.

Faster, smarter, customer insights

In March, HappyOrNot introduced AI-powered open feedback capabilities. Powered by proprietary AI models trained on over 2 billion real-world customer feedback data points, this streamline the analysis of unstructured feedback, providing clearer insights and facilitating quicker decision-making.

Feedback is organised into structured themes such as operational challenges and staff performance, and the platform filters out inappropriate content like spam and profanity.

The platform automatically summarises the most pertinent insights from customer comments, highlighting key strengths and areas for improvement. Further, the system supports multilingual feedback, allowing businesses to analyse comments in their preferred language.

Many public spaces can be frustrating, and ultimately HappyOrNot offers a straightforward way for people to give quick feedback, and for organisations to catch patterns they might otherwise miss. At the very least, after yet another pat-down at Berlin, airport I get to push a red button and feel mildly avenged.