Retail Excellence Ireland’s SIRA Launch

Lynn and nikki

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 Effects An In-Store Audit Has On Staff

Retail Audits

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.

The Top 3 Benefits of Using a Market Research Company

The top 3 benefits of using a market research company

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.

How To Tell Your Staff About Mystery Shopping

How to tell your staff about mystery shopping

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.

Tips for Creating a Successful Customer Experience Strategy

Easy Tips for Creating a Customer Experience Strategy

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: 

  1. 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.
  2. 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’.
  3. 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.

The Different Types of Internal Audits Explained

The Different Types of Internal Audits Explained

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: 

  1. Providing objective, unbiased insight into your company. This objectivity ensures that nothing is being sugar-coated or ignored due to personal or professional biases. 
  2. Improving the efficiency of your business operations by identifying control recommendations aimed at improving these processes. 
  3. Evaluating potential internal risks and protecting your assets through systematic risks assessments, saving your company time and money.
  4. 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.

Why an In-Store Audit is Exactly What Your Business Needs

Better Product Placement

What is an In-Store Audit?

An in-store audit, sometimes referred to as a retail audit, store walk, or store inspection, is basically an assessment of your brand’s position and reputation in the marketplace. Whether you have a single store or multiple locations, in-store audits provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your displays, inventory, product placement, promotions, regulatory compliance, pricing, and more. 

In addition, these audits use a collection of accurate data to create checklists that retailers can use to identify problem areas in their store’s performance and implement corrective actions. The experience is also a learning opportunity for the head office representatives who gain insight into daily store operations. Keeping track of these insights allows managers to compare data over time and identify ways to reduce inefficiencies in their stores and improve their operations. 

Why Store Audits Are Important

As the retail market changes, so too should your business processes. However, you cannot grow and adapt without knowing exactly what is going on in your store. You need to stay on top of every aspect of your business operations as your sales channels grow and become more complex. 

The Benefits of an In-Store Audit

By performing and implementing a successful retail audit, you can maximise sales, increase market share, ensure stores managers follow your merchandising requirements, and optimise your customer experience in-store. A successful instore audit can also bring about the following benefits: 

  • Course-correcting – You can take into account a wider range of factors with an in-store audit than you could with just a financial audit. Instead of looking at only where money is lost, you can see why it is being lost. By highlighting these problem areas, you have the opportunity to implement new corrective strategies before they impact your bottom line even more. 
  • Improved Customer Attraction – You can use an in-store audit to ensure that your store is upholding certain operational standards and values. By having a comprehensive view of the operations of your store and employees, you will know where you have capacity to play around a bit with strategies, what is working and needs to stay the same, as well as what is not working and needs to be changed. This means you will have more freedom to experiment with marketing strategies that can help you attract new customers. 
  • Improved Customer Experience – A retail audit will allow you to analyse the customer journey and experience so you can make changes from there if need be. You can look at points like how long it takes for a customer to find what they need, the helpfulness of your staff, the cleanliness of your store, the effectiveness of your layout, and more. When you have insights into these factors and why they are or aren’t working, you can make corrections aimed at improving customer experience. 
  • Better Product Placement – Retailers cannot assume that they know and follow the best planograms. If your inventory sits in the storeroom or on a forgotten shelf, you have no chance of meeting your profit targets. Performing regular in-store audits ensures the best placement and display of your products.

A retail audit can have a number of benefits for your business. At Customer Perceptions, we have worked tirelessly to develop our strong track record that has spanned decades. Our cost effective auditing software and services can help you gain insight into your standards, policies, procedures, training, management and regulatory compliance (among others). Contact us today, or visit our website to learn more about our in-store audit solutions.

3 Reasons Why Customer Experience Increases Sales

3 Reasons Why Customer Experience Increases Sales

Do you remember a time when, from the second you walked into a store, you were greeted by friendly staff, a welcoming atmosphere, and the entire experience left you feeling great? You likely left the store with a huge smile on your face, itching to tell your friends and family about the amazing experience you had and thinking that you need to go back to that store. 

Now think back to when you had a terrible experience trying to buy something or order a service. The anger and frustration made your blood boil, and you swore to yourself that you would never use that business again. 

These two feelings show the importance of Customer Experience (CX). CX is the result of every interaction a customer has had with your business and the impression your brand leaves in their mind. The entire customer journey determines whether they will return to your business or not, which is why a customer-centric CX strategy is vital to the success of your business. 

This blog will discuss three reasons why customer experience is essential to your business success and how a positive CX will drive sales and increase your revenue. 

Customer Retention is More Profitable Than Generating New Customers

The business world has a lot of controversy regarding which is better, customer retention or acquisition. However, the fact of the matter is that customer acquisition, while rewarding, can be highly time-consuming and expensive. 

As a business, building loyalty and a positive association with a new customer takes time and money. In contrast, the costs associated with repeat business are considerably lower, from both a sales and a marketing standpoint. With repeat business, your ad spend is lower because you have already built a connection with these customers, so you have a better chance of making a sale. The book Marketing Metrics explains that the sales conversion rate for an existing customer sits at around 60 – 70%, whereas an entirely new prospect has a conversion rate of only 5-20%.

It is vital to build a CX strategy that is centred around long-term customer loyalty. Repeat customers are statistically far more likely to make a purchase when they visit your business. They are also generally willing to spend much more because they are satisfied with their customer experiences and know the level of quality and service they will receive. 

Customer Experience is Free Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The impression that your customers have of your business is now far more likely to be shared thanks to the help of social media platforms and the internet. If your customer experience is positive, loyal customers will become advocates for your business and share their experiences with others, helping attract new customers at no extra cost to you. When your customers share their positive experiences, it piques the curiosity of others, so people are encouraged to interact with your brand to see the top-notch service for themselves. 

While a negative online review can deter prospective customers, positive online reviews strengthen the online presence of your business, increasing the visibility of your brand and attracting new clientele.

A Better Customer Experience Sets Your Brand Apart from Your Competitors

When your business provides a customer experience that exceeds expectations, you take your customers on a journey that breeds an emotional connection and loyalty. You won’t need to ‘remind’ customers why they should use your services or buy your products because they will already know. 

A review conducted by SuperOffice determined that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for better customer service. So even if your competitors may have lower prices, if your customer experience surpasses theirs, customers will be more likely to use your business. When developing your CX strategy, consider rewards programs like coupons, free shipping offers, and lower prices for repeat customers, especially if your company operates in the e-commerce sector. It will set your brand apart and increase the positive perception of your business even more. 
Customer Experience is a foundational element of the success of your business. If you need assistance improving your strategy or are curious about how you can improve your customer experience, contact Customer Perceptions today or visit our website to view our list of expert services.

The Different Types of Mystery Shopping Explained

mysteryshopping

The use of a mystery shopping program in your business is a fantastic way to evaluate how your company operates, from customer service to employee performance. Also known as secret shopping, mystery shopping is a market research tool used to identify problem areas in your business and improve customer loyalty. 

A professional shopper (usually an independent contractor from a mystery shopping agency) will pretend to be an average customer and evaluate the quality of service they receive. The entire process is done anonymously by trained professionals, so no one will know who the mystery shopper is. Therefore, businesses will be provided with professional, unbiased feedback on whether their strategies are working and any problem areas so they can be rectified. 

In-Person Mystery Shops

In-person mystery shopping is the most common type of mystery shopping service used by businesses. As a part of this service, a mystery shopper will anonymously visit a business pretending to be a regular customer and evaluate the business performance and customer journey following a predetermined set of guidelines. 

With in-person mystery shopping, the goal is to conduct the evaluation without raising suspicion from the staff in order to obtain the most accurate information possible. If the staff aren’t aware that someone is evaluating them, they are more likely to act how they would on a daily basis. The secret shopper will have an all-around experience of the customer journey in your store. The visit can vary in length depending on the type of indicators, mystery shopping purpose, or the type of evaluated sphere. 

In-person mystery shopping is most commonly used by retail stores, the hospitality industry, restaurants, and financial institutions. 

Phone Call Mystery Shops

Next on the list is Phone Call Mystery Shopping. Just as audits of performance and customer experience should be conducted in-store, monitoring the telephonic performance of your employees is just as important. Phone Call Mystery Shopping is especially useful for companies that utilise call centres or where customers can receive service telephonically. 

The mystery shopper will call your company to assess the level of service they receive. During the call, the secret shopper will determine the following points (among others) to determine the performance of your business telephonically: 

  • Is it easy or difficult to contact your business?
  • How long did it take for the phone to be answered?
  • The employee’s greeting.
  • The employee’s competence and product knowledge.
  • The employee’s telephone manner and professionalism.
  • The employee’s willingness to help.
  • Whether the customer’s problem was solved on the call or not. 

Typical telephone mystery shops include everything from completing remote transactions to simply asking for additional information. Phone-based mystery shopping is most commonly used by businesses in the following industries: Hospitality, travel, call centres, communication, consulting, insurance, sales, financial services, communication, and healthcare. 

Website Mystery Shops

A strong online presence is crucial to the success of your business in the digital age. Most people carry their phones everywhere, search for businesses nearby, and look at online reviews that can either make or break your business image. In addition, the evolution of e-commerce and e-business has made mystery shopping just as important for online retailers as it is for on-site establishments. 

Website Mystery Shops, also known as virtual mystery shops or internet mystery shopping, see the secret shopper engage with your business online. The secret shopper will assess how responsive your business is online, whether your website is easy to navigate, your employee’s competencies and product knowledge, and how your employees interact with customers on social media and through the website. 

This type of mystery shopping is most commonly used by businesses in the following sectors: e-commerce, travel, insurance, automotive, real estate, and telecommunications. 

Hybrid Mystery Shops

Also referred to as multiple touchpoints or mixed-type mystery shopping, the hybrid service is typically used by larger businesses that need several mystery shopping evaluations. Using in-person, telephonic, and online mystery shoppers ensures you have accurate information and actionable insights into all aspects of your business. 

Hybrid mystery shopping is a fantastic way to assess the entire customer journey across all spheres of your business to better understand the customer’s overall experience from start to finish. 

The type of mystery shopping that best suits your business is dependent on your industry and business model, but if you need help choosing a mystery shopping service that offers the most benefit for your specific needs, contact Customer Perceptions today.

How Mystery Shopping Can Benefit Your Business

How mystery shopping can benefit your business

From the outside looking in, one may think that the more customers a company has, the higher its profits. However, this is not necessarily the case. Anyone with retail experience will tell you that building a network of loyal, repeat customers is the cornerstone to the success of your business. 

Suppose your customer service, staff performance, or customer experience is not up to par. In that case, customers won’t return to your business, word of mouth will spread, and you will eventually lose income. As a business owner or executive, rectifying any problem areas in how your business is run can only be done after the problems have been identified. This is where mystery shopping programs come in. 

Many businesses, especially in the retail and hospitality industries, aim to identify problem areas in their business performance by using mystery shopping agencies. Mystery shopping is a process whereby an independent person is hired, through an agency, to masquerade as a customer and perform an evaluation of your business to determine customer satisfaction and service quality. The hired mystery shopper will be an anonymous consumer and have no connection to you or any of your staff. This is to ensure that all reports remain unbiased. 

The mystery shoppers will visit your business and rate their experience in an unbiased, professional, and thorough manner. They will complete a detailed report of the entire customer journey to their superiors, who will share the information with you so you will be aware of how customers perceive your company’s service and their experience as a whole. 

Here are some of the benefits of hiring a mystery shopper to evaluate your business: 

Get Valuable Feedback from a Customer’s Perspective

Mystery shoppers are trained professionals, so when they visit your business as a customer, they will take note of every aspect of the customer journey from start to finish. No matter how big or small an issue may be, it will be noted. This is a lot more effective than waiting for reports from your management or waiting until an actual customer brings forward a complaint. 

This attention to detail and knowledge of the retail sector will help your business pinpoint specific areas for improvement that may have been flying under the radar. When you know how your customer experience, satisfaction, and brand perception are seen from a customer’s point of view, you can make the necessary changes to improve customer retention. Not only can this improve your customer loyalty, but the improvement in your business image can attract new customers.  

Gives You Insight Into Staff Performance and Internal Procedures

Even if your employees are fully proficient in the business’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), sometimes the top-down approach to company standards and procedures still doesn’t have the desired effect at a store level. Even if your management department provides reports on business operations and staff behaviour, personal biases may hinder their ability to see problem areas (whether intentional or not).

The unbiased perspective of a professional shopper can provide you with actionable insights into your employee integrity and whether your operational procedures are working. Not only will this show you areas where further training or action may be needed, but the mystery shopper can also give you the following valuable insights: 

  • Are your current operational procedures working at a store level?
  • How do your employees handle customer complaints?
  • Are your sales representatives selling actively or passively?
  • Does your staff have relevant product knowledge?
  • Did your team acknowledge the customer when they walked in? (Smiling, greeting, or offering help; Or was the customer ignored?) 
  • Are employees presentable and abiding by the company dress code, if there is one?
  • How do employees act when there isn’t a manager around? 
  • Are legal requirements and professional standards being met?
  • Are your staff members on their cellphones in front of customers? 
  • Suggestions and recommendations for improvement. 

Valuable Research into Your Competitors 

Competitiveness is rife in the retail industry. If you know how your competition performs, what they’re doing, their business values, how they treat their customers, or how their layout works, you can see where you rank in comparison and how to improve. This will provide you with the competitive advantage your store may need to provide better customer service and put your store steps above your competitors. 

Mystery shopping combines qualitative and quantitative market research, using professionals trained to evaluate an experience in a storefront environment. This doesn’t just help businesses like retail stores, but any company that offers some level of customer service. Contact Customer Perceptions today if you are located in Ireland or the UK and want to know more about mystery shopping or other ways you can improve your business performance.