Mystery Shopping Companies

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Author: Self Storage

Article source: http://www.articledeshboard.com/. Used with author's permission.

Mystery shopping companies come in all shapes and sizes. Industries from the hotel and resort industry, the clothing retail industry, the electronics industry, the automotive industry, healthcare fields, government agencies, customer service and call center support markets, and the self storage industry all use mystery shopping in order to bridge the gap between customer service and actual customer experience.

Mystery shopping companies use various methods to carry out their secret shops. For example, some mystery shopping companies may conduct secret shops by sending a mystery shopper into a store with hidden cameras cleverly disguised as a button or pin. These undercover gadgets can be as simple or as fancy as the one could imagine. Other mystery shopping companies may use voice recording to record the interaction in the store between the associate and the mystery shopper.

Mystery shopping companies typically provide written results that indicate how well the store or employee performed in areas including:

Curb Appeal This may include questions about how clean the appearance of the store was from the street. For example, if mystery shopping companies were conducting a secret shop on a fast food chain, then discarded happy meal boxes in the grass would be a huge mark against the curb appeal and appearance. Other markers under this section may be outdoor signage. If the store sign is missing half the lighting or is damaged, this would be reflected on the score.

Facility Cleanliness A secret shopper may visit the restroom of a fancy restaurant to check that the facility is clean and well maintained. The store, restaurant, waiting room or public areas of the facility should all be clean and free from debris.

Customer Service This field is highly different and varied in mystery shopping companies depending on the industry and goal of the facility. In a retail or sales environment, this field may measure how long it took before the secret shopper was greeted by an associate, if the staff was friendly and ready to help the secret shopper. Some factors that a secret shopper might notate are how many customers were in the store at the time as well as how many associates were on the sales floor.

Sales Performance Grading the sales performance of an associate is also equally dependant on the industry and should be customized by mystery shopping companies to meet the goal of their client. A good example of how sales performance evaluations should be customized can be seen in the self storage secret shopping industry. As each self storage owner has different goals and styles, the requirements of their managers may be different. Even when the requirements are the same as another facility, the weight of importance for each field is usually different. For example, one self storage owner may consider asking how the customer heard about the property as the most important question, while another self storage operator may consider asking the customer for a phone number to be the most important question. The key to grading your sales performance is to set up a program so that mystery shopping companies understand the goal of your store.

Closing the Sale In a retail environment, this may mean that another associate rings out the sale at a register. In this case, a secret shopper would be able to evaluate the customer service and friendliness of that associate as well as how knowledgeable and efficient they were at the task. In other cases, the same associate who assisted the secret shopper may also be the one to close the sale. In this case, the secret shopper would be able to grade how well the associate transitioned into the close of the sale. In any case, the secret shopper can notate whether or not the associate attempted to add to the sale by offering ancillary products.

Mystery shopping companies are a great way for any business owner to improve customer service and increase sales.

The original article is located at Mystery Shopping Companies