Mystery shopping? What exactly is that anyway? There are many people who haven’t heard of the term, and probably misinterpret it when they hear it for the first time. A mystery shopper is a paid consumer who is hired to shop in certain stores and collect data on businesses and their products. They are undercover customers who are sent to interact, observe and report on stores, other customers and store employees. So, what exactly do mystery shoppers do?
What Does a Mystery Shopper Do?
Mystery shopping providers select and hire specific consumers to make retail transactions at targeted stores and create a detailed record of the experience. They purchase items, they eat in restaurants, they may even return items simply to report back on the experience. They are not so much hired to provide opinions, but rather to generate detailed, objective reports on a business and its employees from the customer’s perspective. They are usually given a list of survey questions to help the market research company assess the performance of the targeted businesses. They may be asked to provide information on matters such as:
The number of employees that were on duty;
The greeting and service the mystery shopper received from the staff (Friendly? Helpful? How long did it take? etc.)
Name(s) of employee(s) with whom they interacted;
Type of products shown, and the sales pitch they were given, including whether there were any additional items suggested for you to purchase;
If they were invited to return to the store or offered sign-up for mailing lists, credit accounts, etc.
How quickly they received service and if the service was satisfactory.
The cleanliness and hygiene standards of the store itself, as well as the staff.
The personal grooming and appearance of the employees (were they appropriately dressed, were uniforms clean, etc.) and if employees adhered to any store dress codes.
Where Are Mystery Shoppers Sent?
Shoppers are sent to a wide variety of service-based businesses: stores, boutiques, restaurants, fast food outlets, banks, hotels, airports and even apartment complexes – any business whose interaction with its customers needs to be assessed. Generally speaking, the companies in question will contract a provider to conduct mystery shopping for them, so that they can gain some understanding of how well they are performing in terms of customer service and other criteria.
Customer Perceptions are leaders in market research solutions. With 27 years of experience, we have developed bespoke research solutions to help our clients to enhance their customer experience, gain insight into their competitors, increase customer retention, monitor standards and ultimately, increase sales and revenue. Mystery shopping is one of the services we offer to help businesses assess their performance as merchants or service providers. If you would like to learn more about what mystery shoppers do, and see how mystery shopping can help you assess and improve your business, contact us for more information.
Hiring an undercover shopper is a great way to assess whether your business meets or exceeds your expectations and provides the right quality of products and services for your target market. Mystery shopping companies can conduct secret shop audits on your behalf to help you understand how your employees work, and how your business is performing in relation to the goals and standards you have set for it. The question is, how do you go about choosing a mystery shopper that can conduct an incisive audit and provide you with the data you need to perfect your business? Here are three points you should consider as you look for a mystery shopping company.
Must Have The Experience and Knowledge
If your mystery shopping experience is going to be successful, it must be conducted by a provider with plenty of experience. They should be able to present you with successful case studies that demonstrate their experience. Ask as many questions as you need to about their previous jobs and satisfied clients. They should have plenty of customer testimonials to prove that they can do what they claim to be able to do. Take note of how they answer your questions and the kinds of recommendations and observations they make. These will quickly make it clear how well they understand your requirements and what needs to be done to meet them.
Should Have a Process For Choosing Mystery Shoppers
The company you end up hiring should have exceptionally high standards when it comes to selecting their mystery shoppers. Ask them how they go about picking their shoppers. They should have a systematic process, together with a set of rigorous criteria, which they use to select only the best and most appropriate shoppers for your business. For example, some companies run a certification system that involves asking their potential shoppers a set of questions. The shoppers need to be able to provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions in order to be recruited.
Should Have a Robust Feedback System
Mystery shopping providers must be able to provide quality data that you can use to action significant improvements in your business. They should present valuable and detailed reports that clearly explain their findings and make tangible recommendations. The best providers run a program with a dashboard that showcases the outcome, which helps you examine all data clearly and effectively, especially if you monitor multiple shopping locations. Their reporting and feedback system should allow you to review the report based on your KPIs, compare performances over time and across different locations, receive real-time data and set new goals.
Customer Perceptions are leaders in market research solutions. With 27 years of experience, we have developed bespoke research solutions to help our clients to enhance their customer experience, gain insight into their competitors, increase customer retention, monitor standards and ultimately, increase sales and revenue. Mystery shopping is one of the services we offer to help businesses assess their performance as merchants or service providers. If you are currently choosing a mystery shopping provider, contact us and ask us about our services.
Customer experience (CX) is the cornerstone of success in many industries. In ‘3 Reasons Why Customer Experience Increases Sales’ we argue that this is because it can put your brand above the rest. Retaining customers is also more cost-effective than attracting new ones — and what’s more, great CX usually brings with it free word-of-mouth marketing.
As businesses become more digital, QR codes are now emerging as one of the best ways to streamline and enhance CX. Though many think-pieces have been predicting its downfall for years, the QR code has only continued to grow in popularity and mainstream usage. Juniper Research predicts it will generate $3 trillion (2.95 million Euro) globally by 2025 — just for facilitating payments.
This only hints at the virtually limitless potential QR codes have to improve CX with your brand. Below are a few ways you can use them to streamline CX.
Woo new B2B clients
It’s crucial that your business actively reaches out to new clients, especially if it’s relatively new. QR codes embedded into digital business cards can make all the difference in networking. Doorway notes that these digital business cards can make connecting with clients more accessible and convenient, especially for them. They simply need to scan the code — and your details will instantly be saved on their device. This, along with the fact that you’re the one initiating contact, can give the impression that you’re an efficient and effective business to work with.
Enhance customer interactions
In attracting new clients and customers, QR codes can promote engagement with your marketing materials. This can result in increased traffic to your website. Digital Signage Today suggests that in brick-and-mortar stores, most consumers now want a DIY shopping experience — and QR codes can provide that by providing information on various products when scanned. We even mentioned above that QR codes can facilitate payment. By streamlining nearly every customer interaction your business is likely to make, QR codes thus enhance the convenience they now crave.
Ramp up personalisation
QR codes can even provide data insights into customer behaviour. For example, brick-and-mortar stores can check which product QR codes were frequently scanned so you can invest in promoting them more. If embedded into your marketing materials, you can check which strategies resonated the most and can be used again. Both B2B and customer-facing businesses can even include QR codes in their packaging. Inc. explains this can prompt customer feedback, testimonials, and points of improvement. These insights are what can help you further streamline the process of CX personalisation.
Cut on costs
QR codes help you save time and resources precisely because it streamlines multiple aspects of CX. With digital business cards, you no longer need to spend money on printing physical copies. You can improve engagement in both online and offline marketing without having to pay for premium advertising. You don’t need to spend time sending emails and messages to customers just to get feedback if you already have QR codes in your packaging materials. In short, QR codes can help you improve CX just as effectively without breaking the bank.
The versatility of the QR code is one surefire way for your business to get creative and curate an impressive CX. Looking for more customer insights? Check us out here at Customer Perceptions.
Emma Harte (CEO) and Susan Reilly (Head of Sales and Marketing) were both delighted to attend the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association (MSPA) annual conference in Varna Bulgaria earlier this month. This conference brought together almost 200 Mystery Shopping Companies to work together to share their experiences over the past number of years and also what the future holds for mystery shopping.
The theme of this conference was Assess|Adapt|Act and carried the theme of how we need to assess the current situation for both ourselves and our Clients, adapt to the changing environment and act on the learnings to ensure we are bringing our Clients the most insightful and up-to-date programmes we can.
The conference saw a number of experienced mystery shopping professionals present their stories on challenges they themselves had experienced over the past 2 years and how they adapted their processes in response.
Day 1
First off we had an introduction from the President of MSPA Europe/Africa Luis Duarte who opened up the 2-day conference. Luis spoke to us about the theme of the conference Assess|Adapt|Act and what this meant for Mystery Shopping Professionals. This set the context for the other Speakers that would deliver their findings over the coming 2 days.
First of the presentations was from Cyriel Kortleven, a Global Speaker. Cyriel talked to us about “The Change Mindset”. This was a really impactful presentation which told us the power of using phrasing such as “Yes, and…” instead of “Yes, but…”. Such a simple but strong way to allow us to see the potential in every challenge, and not the pitfalls. Through some group exercises, this message was really hammered home and we all left this session feeling so positive and upbeat. A fantastic opening session to have.
The rest of the morning immersed us in Case Studies delivered by other Mystery Shopping Professionals. One case study delivered by Juliana Goranova from Client X in Bulgaria (our Host country), showed us some unusual mystery shopping programmes such as sending mystery shoppers out to restaurant to take samples of the fin from a certain variety of fish. This was to ensure the restaurants were not serving a protected species of this fish. Juliana also spoke to us about the work they did with Charitable Organisations. This really was food for thought!
Another really interesting case study was presented by Jill Spencer from ReactCX – Money for Old Rope. This presentation was a powerful delivery how of we need to demonstrate to our Clients the return on investment of their programmes. Although this can sometimes be difficult to measure as some of the returns are intangible such as customer loyalty, staff satisfaction etc… Jill showed us some really useful ways of demonstrating ROI by working with our clients to gather the data we need to show this. This is something we have definitely taken on board and are working away on at the minute for our existing and potential clients.
The afternoon session on Day 1 saw us being divided into 3 different breakout sessions (depending on the colour of MSPA baseball cap we received). I attended the Proposition Zone and Emma attended the Global Zone. These breakout sessions were a good way to work with other Mystery Shopping Professionals to examine each of the themes and really discuss what the challenges/solutions were. One thing for certain in the Proposition Zone was that data is crucial to business and is becoming more and more the backbone of how businesses operate and grow. We chatted about exactly how we should be collecting data for our Clients, exactly what data we need to collect and what the future looks like here. The importance of Exploratory Workshops with our Clients pre-commencement of the programme is an important factor here.
Day 1 ended with some fantastic networking opportiunites for all Participants and a lovely dinner in the International Casino and Hotel restaurant, and lots of lovely Bulgarian wine.
Day 2
After having a lovely dinner and networking event the previous night, Participants were buzzing on day 2 for what the day ahead holds with their new found friends/partnerships. The day was opened again by Luis Duarte – President of MSPA who recapped on what we had learned the day before.
We then listened to Tony Allens presentation of some fantastic new intuitive hardware that can actually check the age of shoppers in a store. He had the machines with him and demonstrated exactly how this worked. This seems like a fantastic tool for companies to streamline their age verification checks in-store. This was really an eye-opener on how technology is evolving for all aspects of business. If anyone would like more information on this hardware, please contact me on susan.reilly@customerperceptions.ie and I can get you more information.
Another really interesting presentation came from Hannah Weekes of ProInsight. Hannah’s presentation was titled “The Modern Mystery Shopper – Creating Brand Loyalty/Obsession”. This insightful session showed us the power of not only connecting with our Mystery Shoppers but Engaging them to the point where you are creating an obsession with your brand. It is so beneficial for us as a Company, but also for our Mystery Shoppers to feel part of an engaging community. We took lots of learnings home from this session. Thank you Hannah!
Finally, to wrap up the session Andy Firth, from Ipsos UK spoke to the group about how the world is changing so rapidly and what can we expect next. Andy’s insights were a perfect opportunity to encompass all we had learned in the past 2 days and really summarise where we were now, and how we need to be prepared for what is to come next. The good news was that there is so much opportunity for mystery shopping, regardless of how the world changes and it is up to us as Mystery Shopping Professionals to anticipate these changes and adapt our businesses to continue delivering powerful and impactful programmes to our Clients.
After a hugely interesting 2 days, we wrapped up with an amazing traditional Bulgarian dinner on the Beach with some super entertainment. We heard stories of Bulgarian history, listened to some traditional music, watched some traditional dancing and even got to see two wonderful people demonstrate Bulgarians ritual of firewalking! As conferences go, we have to say that the Bulgarian hospitality for the duration of our trip was outstanding. Such a wonderful place to visit. Even with the extremely sore heads on Friday morning, we were sorry to be leaving such a beautiful city.
Well done to all at the MSPA for organising such a fantastic experience for its members!
Customer Perceptions & Optimum Results were delighted to attend the Retail Excellence Ireland’s SIRA Launch in Fallon & Byrne on the evening of Wednesday, 8th of June. SIRA (Sustainable Irish Retail Action) is an excellent initiative designed to create a practical sustainability guide for the retail community to help:
1. Raise standards around ‘Sustainability Understanding and Practice’ within the Irish retail industry.
2. Empower and enable SMEs to ‘build more sustainable solutions’ into their business models by providing them with access to education, tools and support.
3. Develop a community of retailers, whose ambition is to authentically support each other on this sustainability journey within the industry, through best practice sharing.
We were delighted to get a first preview at of the SIRA guide, which is bursting with invaluable information to implement positive sustainability changes in the workplace.
This informative and fun evening featured Mark Mellett, Vice Admiral (Rtd) Former Chief of Defense as a key note speaker, sharing his expertise in the area.. This was followed by an interesting and engaging panel discussion on sustainability in retail and finally, a SIRA presentation to launch the SIRA Guide. With beautiful food and wine provided by Fallon and Byrne throughout the course of the evening, it certainly was a wonderful event, and one of the first that we have had the pleasure of attending in over 2 years!
The point of an in-store audit is to identify those aspects of your business that need improvement, so that you can adjust your operations as necessary. Most importantly, your staff members need to be able to accept and implement the positive changes that arise from the results of the audit. The audit itself means little unless it does not result in progress and improvement in your business as a whole and particularly, among your staff. The effects of an in-store audit should ultimately speak for themselves, but there are a few intermediate steps before you will see those results.
The Benefits Of A Store Audit
Why do a store audit in the first place? A store audit gives you a balanced, objective, data-driven assessment of your retail business’s performance. You can then use the data to create meaningful changes in your organisation (where necessary) and bring it in line with your goals and standards. The main benefits of a store audit by Customer Perceptions include:
A partnership-driven approach: We work in partnership with our clients to design audits that are tailored to their specific business needs.
Cost-effective solutions: Our auditing software is extremely cost-effective and user-friendly.
Flexibility: Our solutions are designed to work with all kinds of retail businesses, towards all kinds of business goals.
Trained auditors: Our panel of field researchers are highly skilled and have plenty of experience in conducting both open and covert audits.
Data-driven results: The audit results are data-driven and objective, providing clear, accurate measurements that you can use to assess and improve your business operations.
Why Are Retail Audits Important?
Retail audits are vital for any retail business’s continued competitiveness and success in a rapidly-changing market. With an expertly conducted in-store audit, you can achieve the following:
Improved sales and market share: Using the feedback from your audits, which are provided to you in real time, you can make instant adjustments to your displays and operations, helping you increase your market appeal and sales without delay.
Better retail compliance: In-store audits examine retail compliance with placement, pricing and promotional agreements. If your business falls short of these in any way, you can very quickly adjust them to bring them in line.
Superior customer experience: Perhaps most crucially, in-store audits scrutinise the level of experience you are offering your customers. Consumers have a world of choices, and they will ultimately choose the one that offers them the most pleasant customer experience. The audit will examine every aspect of the experience you are offering to your customers, from the amount of time it takes to locate products to the courtesy and helpfulness of your staff.
The Effects Of An In-Store Audit On Staff
In-store audits are intended to provide an objective assessment of your store’s performance. It is not about pointing out faults – especially where your staff is concerned – but is instead concerned with hard data and tangible results, regardless of whether you would describe those results as good or bad. Both favourable and unfavourable results should be communicated to staff openly and fairly. Instead of pinpointing any areas that need improvement and calling them faults, the data should be used to inspire and motivate staff to adjust and improve, as well as provide a clear roadmap to enable them to do so. An audit is a tool for maximising and improving your business’s performance, and your staff are a vital part of that process.
Customer Perceptions are leaders in market research solutions. With 27 years of experience, we have developed bespoke research solutions to help our clients to enhance their customer experience, gain insight into their competitors, increase customer retention, monitor standards and ultimately, increase sales and revenue. We provide in-store audits to help businesses assess their performance as merchants or service providers. If you would like to learn more about our in-store audit services, and see how they can help you assess and improve your business, contact us for more information.
Do you really need to do market research? Not only do you need it – it is essential. No business should underestimate the value of market research. Neglecting to conduct research into your market will affect your bottom line. It may result in too much time, money and effort being spent on misdirected marketing strategies and tactics. There are many reasons why market research should be a regular part of your business operations. The following three outcomes are three of the most important benefits of using a market research company to help you conduct insightful and productive market research. Market research companies use a variety of effective methods to help you assess the needs and preferences of your customers, including market research, in-store audits, competitor analysis, public opinion polls, and customer satisfaction surveys.
Market Research Helps You Identify Opportunities In The Marketplace
You may have a certain product or service planned, but your market research reveals that there is not as much demand for it as you initially thought. Instead of wasting time and money putting this product onto the market, you can use your research to help you either modify it to suit your customer’s preferences, or change tack entirely and market a different product. Without market research, you would not have the insight you need to make this change, which means you could end up losing money by marketing a product your customers don’t want. Market research can also help you to spot opportunities you would otherwise not have been aware of at all.
Market Research Helps You Minimise Risks
Market research can help you decide whether or not a particular action you have been planning is actually viable. Perhaps you have been planning on launching a new product range or opening up a new store. Your market research can either confirm your belief that these would be good moves, or show you in no uncertain terms that they could be a complete waste. You may find that the new product is not likely to be popular among your customers, or that the area where you propose to open the new store already has too many similar businesses. You can thus avoid investing in unprofitable ventures, and direct your capital in other, more favourable directions.
Market Research Guides Your Communication With Current And Potential Customers.
When you receive the results of the research, you will have a far better understanding of your customers, and you can then formulate the best way to communicate with them. Knowing what they like and don’t like, you can then carefully design targeted communications to prompt them to take action.
Customer Perceptions are leaders in market research solutions. With 27 years of experience, we have developed bespoke research solutions to help our clients to enhance their customer experience, gain insight into their competitors, increase customer retention, monitor standards and ultimately, increase sales and revenue. If your business could benefit from using a market research company, contact us today and talk to us about our services.
One of the main objectives of hiring a mystery shopper company is to get honest, detailed feedback that can help you improve your service. In order to make meaningful changes in your services/shops, you need to discuss your mystery shopper’s findings with your staff and devise a strategy to point the way forward. This plan might involve all or some of the following: further training, instruction to encourage or enforce better compliance and performance, motivation, rewards, and brainstorming new processes or products. If you are wondering how you should go about telling your staff about a mystery shopper, here are some tips that will help.
In-person One to One
One of the best ways to tackle the issues raised by a mystery shopper’s report is to hold one-on-one discussions with your staff members. You may need to talk to your entire team one at a time, or just single out one or two individuals. If an employee hasn’t scored well, you need to explain to them why and coach them to help them improve their work. In the meeting, you can discuss ways to improve the customer experience and also allow the staff member to raise any questions or concerns they may have about the mystery shopper’s feedback.
Email
When you receive your mystery shopping reports, they will clearly show the shift times, staff members name (if they are wearing a name badge) dates and venues, as well as the positive and negative points of the experience. This enables you to know exactly which of your team members was responsible for the experience in question. You can then forward the mail to the relevant person and add your own recommendations and feedback. If necessary, this could also potentially open the way for follow-up, in-person discussions.
Staff Meeting
Your mystery shopping reports may indicate that the positive and/or negative points are not attributable to individual staff members. You may need to call several team members, or the entire team, into a discussion in which you explain the report and discuss what needs to be done as a collective to address the issues.
Mystery shopper reports reflect your business’s current standing in terms of its ability to meet your customers’ needs. When the results are unfavourable, it is important to use the report as a positive opportunity to gain clarity about your business and take definitive steps to improve it. Use your mystery shopper report as a starting point to improve your customer experience and refine your training practices.
Customer Perceptions are leaders in market research solutions. With 27 years of experience, we have developed bespoke research solutions to help our clients to enhance their customer experience, gain insight into their competitors, increase customer retention, monitor standards and ultimately, increase sales and revenue.
Mystery shopping is one of the services we offer to help businesses assess their performance as retailers or service providers. If you would like to learn more about what mystery shoppers do, and advice on telling your staff about a mystery shopper and how to use your report for positive change and growth, contact us for more information.
Business leaders in 2022 will need to be heavily focused on improving their customer experience (CX) strategies if they hope to succeed.
In order to thrive in a post-pandemic world and adapt to the changes the coronavirus has brought about, businesses will need to leverage the resources and solutions available to them. Only then can they overcome the challenges of building deeper connections and relationships with their customers.
In this blog, we will cover some of the fundamentals of customer experience and three useful tips for creating a successful CX strategy for your business.
What is a Customer Experience Strategy, and Why is it Important?
Customer experience (also referred to as CX) describes your customers’ interactions and experiences with your business from the first interaction to becoming a loyal and happy customer. Customer Experience and Customer Service are not the same thing. Customer service (the assistance offered to customers before and after they purchase a product) is only one part of the customer journey, whereas CX encompasses the entire customer journey.
In a nutshell, a customer experience strategy describes your company’s approach toward creating the best customer experience possible for your business’s current circumstances.
A positive customer experience is an integral part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) because it increases the chances of repeat and loyal customers. Businesses increasingly recognise that their customer experience can differentiate them from their competitors. Unlike price or product range, which only win over customers for as long as you can keep up with or beat your competition, customer experience helps you build strong, long-lasting relationships with customers.
According to research, customers not only make purchase decisions based on customer experience, but they are also willing to pay more for a good experience, and even forgive mistakes made by companies they are loyal to.
Three Tips for Creating a Good Customer Experience Strategy
Always be Prepared
Research and preparation should be the first step in most projects you undertake, and your customer experience strategy is no different. You will need to conduct thorough research into your target market to ensure that your strategy is targeted at the right audience.
Focus your research on three main areas:
Customer Personas – You are theoretically inventing someone who represents your ideal customer. The customer persona can represent customers you would like to acquire as well as customers you currently have. You need to understand your customers’ demographic profiles, behaviours, needs, wants, motivations, and pain points to ensure your strategy enables you to connect with them. To start creating personas, you should conduct customer interviews and analyse your data to derive meaningful insights relating to various customer types.
Empathy Mapping – Empathy maps help businesses better understand customer needs. With this approach, teams can build a complete picture of the customer and what actions they might take based on their beliefs, emotions, and behaviours. To make sense of the customer’s experience and preferences, empathy mapping uses the four quadrants of ‘think’, ‘feel’, ‘say’, and ‘do’.
Stakeholder Mapping and Management – A stakeholder management process entails understanding the attitudes of stakeholders before making changes to how you do things. The purpose of stakeholder planning is to know what stakeholders need and wish to see, how to influence them, what risks may occur, who is important to inform about changes, and who might have a negative impact on the change you are planning.
Create an Emotional Connection with Your Customers
A competitive market requires you to have strong relationships with your potential customers before they make a purchase decision. This isn’t easy. The process of building a relationship with clients and maintaining it naturally happens, but connecting with new clients requires more effort. It takes an emotional connection before a lead decides to make a purchase. Once they become a customer, that emotional connection only gets stronger. An emotional bond is the most valuable part of customer loyalty and will help improve your customer retention.
Regularly Optimise the customer journey
The entire customer journey must be considered when creating a great customer experience. Understanding the entire interaction with the customer and how it is received at every touchpoint is crucial. You need to monitor your current strategy and keep note of what is working and what isn’t. You can then adjust your strategy where necessary to ensure that your CX strategy is delivering the desired results.
Focusing on the customer’s journey, and identifying problems within it, can help create a better customer experience. Additionally, this allows your teams to brainstorm ideas to improve business relationships, reduce friction, and increase growth. At Customer Perceptions, we have over 25 years of experience in providing market research solutions to enhance our clients’ customer experience, gain insights into their competitors, increase their customer retention, monitor their standards, and increase their sales and revenue. Contact us today for a reliable solution to improving your business operations and customer experience strategies.
In the business world, the word ‘audit’ is often associated with nerves and frustration. However, audit functions are integral to a company’s survival and prosperity. There are two primary types of audits, internal and external. In this blog, we will be discussing why internal audits are important, what they are, and the types of internal audits.
What is Internal Audit?
Typically, an internal audit is a department or an organisation within a company that’s responsible for providing unbiased, independent reviews of the company’s systems, business organisation, and processes.
An internal audit serves as an objective source of information to senior leaders and governing bodies of an organisation about the organisation’s risk environment, control environment, operational effectiveness, and compliance with laws and regulations.
Among other things, internal audits help determine the reputation of an organisation, its efficiency, growth strategy, impact on the environment, and how it treats its employees.
Why Do Companies Have Internal Audit?
Having an internal auditing program in place is essential for monitoring and ensuring that all your business assets are properly safeguarded and protected against threats. Additionally, it is vital for verifying that your documented policies and procedures match your business processes.
Internal auditing holds several benefits, including:
Providing objective, unbiased insight into your company. This objectivity ensures that nothing is being sugar-coated or ignored due to personal or professional biases.
Improving the efficiency of your business operations by identifying control recommendations aimed at improving these processes.
Evaluating potential internal risks and protecting your assets through systematic risks assessments, saving your company time and money.
Helping to ensure legal compliance in your business processes which can help you avoid fines and gain a trustworthy reputation.
Types of internal audits
A significant portion of the internal audit procedure as a whole is based around financial reporting within a business, the generally accepted accounting procedures (GAAP), and financial statements. However, there is also a need for other types of internal assessments that internal auditors can evaluate. The types of internal audits that we at Customer Perceptions provide are:
Company awards: To audit your outlets across various metrics for your own internal rewards programme, so that businesses can reward the key players that keep your business running.
Retail Audits: This is used to audit the availability of products, stock levels, price changes, regulatory compliance and the quality of your date checks. These audits will help companies measure and monitor their retail success.
Merchandising audits: Takes a look at your presentation and merchandising standards to ensure that the product is positioned to be appealing to consumers.
Health and safety audits: aimed at assessing and optimising the health and safety standards of operations. Auditors look for hazards and workplace risks that can jeopardise the health and safety of individuals on the premises.
Pricing audits: Takes a look at a businesses’ planogram and point of sale to determine if the pricing is correct and consistent. This audit will help you avoid missteps within your pricing strategy as you can’t fix problems that you aren’t aware of.
Promotional compliance audits: It is important to know that products are being promoted adequate during promotional periods. That is precisely why this type of audit is crucial for any business.
Food and beverage standards audit: This audit will take a look at food and beverage compliance, quality, safety and hygiene, It is important to regularly audit these standards to avoid mishaps or quality failures.
If you are in the retail industry and are looking to audit your business, Customer Perceptions has a several decades-long track record of cost-effective, expert auditing services. At Customer Perceptions, we work with our clients to tailor and design the particular audit criteria appropriate to their business needs. Our dedicated, professional team (with the help of field researchers) can help you measure your customer experience, audit your business, and gather valuable consumer insights. Contact us today for assistance.
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Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_ga
2 years
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gid
1 day
This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Cookie
Duration
Description
_fbp
3 months
This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr
3 months
The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE
1 year 24 days
Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
test_cookie
15 minutes
This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
5 months 27 days
This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.
