You name it, we can do it!

Family at the restaurant

By – Megan Clarke, Client Account Manager.

 

Mystery shopping can offer an endless range of unimaginable insights.  So, before you come to the conclusion that mystery shopping provides limited information, let’s take a look at some of the more unique projects we have carried out.

Aside from the more regular convenience store visits, hotel stays and finance calls, we have an array of past projects that we are sure will intrigue you.

We have sent the underaged demographic to shops to buy cigarettes to see if staff are checking for ID and we have sent people to funeral homes pretending they have had a bereavement to assess the empathy of staff.   Some have been sent to visit the cliffs, some have made video consultations with the doctor for the contraceptive pill, cold/flu and back pain.   We have assessed photo machines in shopping centres, assessed charity collectors on the street and even travelled on the ferry to price the products on the boat.   To make things even MORE exciting, we have challenged people to the adventure rooms and got them to break the rules, sent them on thrilling theme park rides and sightseeing adventures across land and sea.

Not only can the scenarios be wonderfully weird but the profile of the lucky individual undertaking the assessment can be requested and we will make it our mission to meet the specifics.  We have sent ladies with a bigger bust to lingerie stores to try on bras and to get seriously specific, we have used a shopper over 50 with a stigmatism in one eye, no history of heart disease and a prescription more than plus 5 on their lens to test an optician.

We are always willing to take on new challenges, things we have never done before in an aim to provide our clients with the essential information they need to grow and strive.

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Loving Your Customers on Valentine’s Day

Valentines Customers

What Your Customers Want on Valentine’s.

For the hospitality and retail industries, February 14th – Valentine’s Day – is one of the most important single days of the year. Your restaurant should be crowded, flowers and chocolates should be marching out of your shop. But how should you maximise the business potential of this day? How can you ensure that you get the most possible benefit for your business and give the most appropriate, sought-for product or service to your customers? As with so many aspects of business, here at Customer Perceptions, we can help. We conducted a survey to capture the attitude of the general public towards the most romantic day of the year, and their spending intentions for it! Here’s some of the results.

First of all, of our respondents, 73.12% were female, just under 28% were men. The largest single age group to respond to our survey was the 41- 50 band (constituting just over 28% of our respondents), with only just over 1% (1.07%) being under 18 and no responses at all from anyone over 70. It seems, according to our data, that Valentine’s Day tends to be most important for people between the ages of 26 -60, with that cohort constituting 82.88% of all our respondents. Of that group, the overwhelming majority were in a relationship (83.44%), with 50.98% being married and 66.46% being in a relationship for 5 years or longer. This is the shape of your Valentine’s market, and these are the respondents the remainder of our statistics are drawn from.

In terms of what this group of our respondents felt would be their ideal Valentine’s Day, overwhelmingly (49.35%) felt a romantic getaway would be their favourite option, with the next most popular option, a romantic meal, being chosen less than half that often (19.48%). In terms of actual expectations however, respondents seem to be slightly less ambitious. When asked what they’d like to receive for Valentines, almost two-thirds (60.78%) wanted a simple card, with 36.6% (the next most popular option) choosing dinner. The most obvious reason for the gap between the ideal Valentine’s Day and the practical reality was money – the most common budgeted spend for Valentine’s Day among our respondents was €20-€50 (28.57%), however the next most common budgeted spend was €50-€100 (22.08%), which is a reasonable amount of spending power into which your business can tap. Price wasn’t the only factor for most of our respondents, however. Given the age profile I’ve chosen to focus on it’s probably unsurprising that for several of the couples children was an issue – limiting the amount of social flexibility they have on the night, but for more still work played a role – several couples had at least one partner working on the night. It seems clear that for the people for whom Valentine’s Day is most important flexibility is a key issue – the actual night of the 14th of February may not be most convenient time for them to avail of particular Valentine’s services.

In terms of a gender divide, there were some interesting results. For women in our chosen field, 26.09% were planning a romantic night in, while 29.41% of men were. In terms of an ideal, a romantic getaway topped the poll for both men and women (48.7% of women and 51.28% of men). This was fairly consistent across both genders, but while 4.35% of women were actually planning a romantic getaway, 8.82% of men were. While this might immediately beg the question “who, exactly, are all these men going away with if not the women?” it might also suggest that getaways were being purchased by men without the knowledge of their partners. Indeed, the gender breakdown of budgeted spend seems to suggest a pattern – take a look at some of a breakdown of some of the budgeted spend statistics we collected:

Women Men
€10-€20 12.28% 2.5%
€20-€50 22.81% 45%
€50-€100 21.05% 25%

 

So, on Valentine’s day, and perhaps contrary to what the expected result might be, men are the big spenders. Whoever is driving the choice of purchase, it is the men who will actually spend more money on this holiday.

So, the key things to take away from the survey – Valentine’s Day is most important for couples in longer term relationships, aged broadly from 26 and up (with a severe drop off once they leave their 60s) but despite that broad age range, there’s real consistency in what these couples are looking for. They’re all effected by the same things – work and children mean they require flexibility and convenience, they’re predominantly very settled, so mortgages and (again) children mean they require real value for money, and the price point is important. And finally, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, for your big sales you’ll be closing the deal with the men, ideally – they’re willing to spend more and to be somewhat more extravagant for the holiday.

Your Customers’ Moments of Truth- Guiding Them Through

Customer business

A customer’s “Moment of Truth” is the crucial moment at each step of their dealings with your organisation, so a customer might have several Moments of Truth before they enter your premises, make a purchase or decide to return again!

Have some of your managers, staff or even a few friends complete a quick Moments of Truth audit when they have a moment. You’ll need to adjust the specifics to your own business, but it should look something like this: 

Pre-Engagement                                                                                     Score 1 (low) – 10 (high)

 

  • Website/Brochure/Advertising/ Prospective Customer Communication
  
  • Telephone/ Email Enquiry Communication
  
  • Convenience of Location and Access (Parking, etc.)
  
  • Experience/ Perception/ Reputation/ Word of Mouth
  

 

Engagement                                                                                          Score 1 (low) – 10 (high)

  • Ambience & Atmosphere, Lighting, Colour, Décor, Music, Hygiene, etc.
  
  • Store Layout, Store Flow, Signage, Ease of Navigation
  
  • Staff Appearance, Uniforms, Personal Presentation, Name Badges, etc.
  
  • Staff Pleasantness, General Customer Service Disposition, Attitude
  
  • Customer Needs Investigation Skills, Product and Technical Knowledge
  
  • Selling Skills, Closing the Sale Skills
  
  • Ease of Payment and Exit
  

 

Post-Sale Engagement                                                                       Score 1 (low) – 10 (high)

  • “Purchases to Destination”, Delivery, Installation
  
  • Product and Process Instruction/ Ease of Use
  
  • Supports/ Help & Assistance
  
  • Warranty/ Guarantee
  

 

                There’s a long list of potential moments where your customers could be swayed one way or the other by a whole host of possible factors. The idea here is to get people – your managers, your staff – to think about when and where those moments may occur, and how best to address them – to make sure that the customer is swayed one way rather than the other.

Once your staff are in the habit of thinking in these terms then new Moments of Truth applicable to your own business will suggest themselves, and with proper engagement by your managers and staff (and a little bit of imagination), you’ll find concrete improvements in your business performance in every category!

Goals and Achieving Them! 4 Simple Steps to Improve Your Business Performance

Achieving Goals

What goals have you put in place for your business to achieve this year? In these competitive times, the everyday activity of your business can become all-consuming. As you know, simply supplying your product or service to your customers requires a huge effort of planning and activity. With that in mind, it’s easy to put certain things on the long finger, to focus your attention on what needs to be done today, and simply never to get around to a proper analysis of your strengths and weaknesses. At Customer Perceptions, we’ve work with thousands of clients, and we know that putting in place a proper analysis of your business performance and staff behaviours, arriving at an achievable but ambitious set of goals is an exercise that often never moves off the to-do list. In this article, we have some simple tips to help you implement a proper set of business goals and targets, and to achieve them!

Try this simple and effective performance enhancing exercise:

1)      Monitor the number of visitors you have engaging with you, visiting your business. Set a goal for an achievable improvement in this number within a fixed period, eg: increase new visitor numbers by A% in B months.

2)      How many of your current visitors purchase/buy from your business? Again, set a goal to improve this ratio by C% in B months.

3)      What is the average value of a sale? Again! Set a goal to improve this ratio by D% in B months.

4)      How many customers return to your business? One last time, set a goal to improve this ratio by E% in B months.

These are four very simple-to-do techniques, they cost nothing to implement and they could end up making your business money, right? Well, yes and no. Each step on the chain requires certain specific things:

1)      Increasing new visitor numbers requires examining and improving your marketing communications and social media activities.

2)      Increasing your customer purchase ratio requires improving your customer engagement and identifying more specifically customer needs.

3)      Increasing the average value of a sale requires improving your staff selling skills and a commitment from them always to “sell up”.

4)      Increasing the number of customers returning to your business requires improving customer service skills, staff attitudes and behaviour and driving relationship-building with your customers!

The point, ultimately, is that goals and a plan won’t on their own help your business – it requires a serious commitment on behalf of your managers to implement the processes necessary to achieve them. It requires a sincere attempt at understanding what your customers really think about doing business with you, and how your staff feel about working for you. Finally, it also requires excellent communication, training and involvement at every level of your business.

And here’s the thing: all of the above, when you’ve planned it out, done it, achieved every goal – all of it’s nothing more than a good start. This process is ongoing forever, it doesn’t end ‘till your business ends and amounts to nothing more than a relentless drive to achieve a never-achievable state – Perfection.

Making Your Customers Comeback Kings!

boomerang customers comeback kings

Most businesses spend a lot of time trying to attract new customers. Advertising, promotions, social media – you’re probably doing it all. It’s necessary, of course, and no organisation should neglect trying to attract new customers who might be interested in doing business with them. Here’s what they might be missing, though, in the headlong rush to attract new customers.

Try this exercise:

  1. Calculate ALL the costs associated with attracting new customers every year (advertising, online, etc.)
  2. Divide that number by the number of new customers who engaged with you this year.
  3. This is your new customer acquisition cost.

 

Depending on how much (or little!) a new customer spends in doing business with you, you may actually LOSE money on doing business with some of your new customers!

There is a type of customer, however, that doesn’t incur these costs: a returning customer. Every returning customer starts as a first-time customer, obviously, but an exercise like this one helps to focus the mind on exactly why it’s so important to build a relationship with each and every one, and keep them coming back!

Consider this: we here at Customer Perceptions have reported on over 350,000 “consumer engagements” over the past 19 years of our existence: again and again, year after year, we are amazed at the vast investments made by the retail and service sector in premises, facilities, fitouts and furnishings, technology, stock and wages – all while ignoring the key factors that annoy customers and have them spend their money elsewhere, and that should be the key consideration. Remember, a returning customer isn’t arriving into your business with a negative euro amount hanging like a cloud over their heads!

The great Sam Walton probably said it best:

“There is only one boss and that is the customer… he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

A new customer is a great thing, folks, but a returning customer is better. Find out what they like. Find out what they don’t like. Find out what they want more of, and give it to ‘em!