Mystery Shopping

Mystery Shopping
Mystery Shopping
Mystery Shopping
Mystery Shopping
Mystery Shopping

Can You Mystery Shop Your Way to Overnight Success?

In the perfect world, we could snap our fingers and get whatever we want when we want it. But here in reality, we have to work and wait for those things we want to happen.  It is a philosophy to live by in life and in business — it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to obtain and maintain success. Unfortunately, some businesses seem to think that  a mystery shopping company has the ability to bypass the hard work and launch a company in jeopardy to success overnight.

A mystery shopping service can help a company turn itself around, but the process takes time. The assessments completed can help identify procedures that could be improved to deliver a better customer experience. A program like this looks at the big picture as well as all of the minor details that they encounter along the way. When the mystery shopping service has worked their magic,* the store, the staff, the management and the atmosphere all have a positive impact upon every customer that walks through the doors.

Of course, this takes time so the mystery shopping service can gather all of the required data, advise the business on the changes they could make, and then complete additional review. Those that expect that hiring a mystery shopping service to dig them out of a hole fast, are never going to get what they expect.

All good things are worth waiting for, and the mystery shopping route is a journey, so this applies.

*When we say magic, we really mean a time-tested formula based on objective data and experience.

Obtaining Measurable Data With Your Mystery Shopping Survey

Mystery shopping surveys help your mystery shopping service identify the specific data that you would like to obtain. In order to accomplish this, you’ve got to put pen to paper and draft out some questions. Asking the right questions can make all the difference — no matter what you will get answers — but with the right questions, you will get the answers you need.

To help you accomplish this, here are some tips on developing your mystery shopping survey questions:

• Avoid questions that could be subjective. You don’t want your mystery shopper to make assumptions; because that does not give you reliable data to improve your business. For example, asking if the staff seemed to be enjoying their job leaves too much room for interpretation. Instead, use your question to obtain more information about the level of customer service provided.
• Be specific with your questions. The example used above already has one flaw (as outlined), but its second flaw is that it’s far too vague. What are you really asking with that question? Get specific and instead ask things like: were you greeted upon entering? What did the staff seem to be doing (helping customers? Stocking shelves? Making personal calls on the phone?) ?
• Focus on things a customer would know. Your mystery shopping service may be familiar with some of your specific policies and procedures, but an average customer entering the business environment may not be. As a result, it is more prudent to ask only about those things a mystery shopper would judge based on observation alone.

Even if you have questions about the things happening at your business when you’re not there, your mystery shopping service should only focus on objective data that allows you to make improvements. After all, if you want measurable results. You can’t gather data that is intangible.

Local Response Aggregates Social Media Posts to Find Your Customers

Local Response is a new tool that promises to aggregate social media posts to find your customers based on the things they are posting online. It is based on the premise that as a business owner, you just don’t have the time to weed through everything yourself to find the right people to reach out to. It compiles all of the necessary data and then identifies the first people you should try and connect with.

It doesn’t simply identify those that are mentioning your business by name. It finds people in your local area and looks at interests and routines to determine who might be a captive audience. It takes this data from more than a dozen different social media sites. Once it has identified the individuals your business should be reaching out to, it helps you put together a special offer to hook them. Mystery Shopping.

While so far their offerings seem enticing, it’s the offer part that enters into a grey area – it could be beneficial, or it may not be at all, depending on the intent of the prospective customers. The thing with many social media sites is that individuals don’t necessarily need to beat a specific location to post that they are. There is also no ingrained honesty detector to monitor the truth in their general statements. What this means is that people could theoretically catch on to what Local Response does and start making specific posts to appear as though they’re the most appealing customers to get a deal.

The strategy that should work with a tool like this is as follows:

1. Find the people that could become paying customers
2. Entice the people that could become paying customers
3. Keep them hooked as full price paying customers after that initial offer gets them through the door

What could very well end up happening instead is:

1. Find the people that could become paying customers
2. Entice the people that could become paying customers
3. Teach these people that COULD become full price paying customers that they NEVER have to pay full price again if they play their cards right online. These people may also tell their friends what they’ve learned

So the bottom line here is use the tool to identify your target market, but be careful to step away from Local Response to look at an individual’s social media stream. This way, you can ensure you are not looking at someone putting up a front for a bargain.

ICC/Decision Services

Can you handle the truth?

Mystery shopper programs deliver the frontline reality.

The brand strategy that you hammer out in the boardroom is sure to drive sales and profitability. But only if it’s executed properly at store level. A mystery shoppers program from ICC/Decision Services can take a snapshot of your brand in action – assessing your customers’ entire shopping experience through certified mystery guests. Our customized mystery shopper programs are fully integrated with other program components for a full 360° view of your brand.

Mystery shoppers reveal your customers’ true experiences.

• Our mystery shopper programs ensure brand consistency across stores, even at remote locations and during busy times of the year.
• Unlike other mystery shopping companies, our outcome-based mystery guest programs assess service and sales experiences and mine data for trends and improvements.
• The results can help improve training programs and reward staff through mystery guest evaluation of frontline performance.
• Ensure the successful launch of products and initiatives across all stores and regions.

Delivering insights to reward and improve.

ICC /Decision Services highly-trained mystery shoppers monitor key locations of your choice, gathering the kind of feedback that will help improve your customer shopping experiences. The results are analyzed using our proprietary software and are available for your review 24/7 through your own secure site. We provide the flexibility to review mystery shopper assessments by region, district and store level, to assess programs and challenges at the store or chain level, and even benchmark against the competition.

Let mystery shopping reveal the truth about your business.

Our mystery shopper programs have helped numerous clients in:

• Telecommunications
• Restaurants
• Banking & Finance
• Brand and Agency
• Compliance: Alcohol & Tobacco
• Drug Stores / Pharmacies
• Fitness
• Gasoline & Convenience Stores
• Government
• Healthcare
• Grocery
• Hospitality
• Retail
• Luxury Goods
• Professional Services
• Automotive