3 Tips To Ensure Your Success With Mystery Shopping Companies

| Wednesday, October 5, 2011
By Xavier Rault


Too often, businesses make the assumption that installing a mystery shopping program will guarantee increased customer satisfaction and sales growth. In reality, retailers play a large part in the process and bad choices may lead to ineffective results.

Pulling the plug on a mystery shopping program because scores plateau temporarily is one of the most common mistakes retailers make. Ensure you don't fall into this trap.

The guidelines below can help you understand what you, as a retailer, can do to ensure that your mystery shopping program is as effective as possible.

Choose the right stores for your program. You might not think using mystery shopping companies at your stores with the best sales volumes could help. Knowing what those stores are doing right can, however, help a great deal at your other stores. Or, you could shop your top-selling stores to discover what they could be doing even better. Make sure you don't leave out your top-performing stores, because stores that are already performing well can also benefit from mystery shopping.

Realize that improvement doesn't just mean improved sales. Even stores that don't experience a sharp rise in profits can be doing some things right. Look at your shopper reports and give kudos where they're deserved, including stores that are providing better customer service experience or are becoming more efficient.

Communicate during the entire process, because using mystery shopping companies doesn't eliminate the need for you to stay involved on a personal level. Stay engaged with customers, and meet regularly with store management. Make sure your customers always know about any contests and customer service experience programs you might be running.

In addition to these tips, it's important to realize that mystery shopping companies can be a big help, but it will only take you so far. You'll need to take some action to make the most of the tools it gives you.




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