As we’ve talked about before, the best users of mystery shopping programs offer additional methods to capture data that can be used to make necessary improvements. The reason why these different strategies work together to create such a comprehensive program is because they offer a variety of perspectives that, when combined, give great insight into the total customer experience. For the most part, mystery shopping programs look at the customer experience from the viewpoint of the customer and that of the store staff.

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Once upon a time, you could enter a store and expect to be met by a friendly, helpful sales associate. Today, in many cases, you’re lucky if you can even find a sales associate to ask a simple question.
In a study conducted by STORES/BIGResearch, 19% of shoppers believe rude employees are at the core of poor customer service. With the next overly-indulged generation of sales associates about to come of age, today’s customer service is not likely to improve.

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Have you ever had the experience of going online to order something, only to discover the web site wants to play Twenty Questions before you can complete your transaction? Frustrating, isn’t it?

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Financial institutions wishing to ensure compliance with new industry regulations are partly responsible for the growth of the mystery shopping industry. As more regulations are implemented, evaluating employee performance is quickly taking a back seat to regulatory compliance as the most important reason for implementing mystery shopping programs. In fact, three new trends seem to be emerging.

1) Online mystery shopping will continue to grow as more customers access financial products and services via the Internet. A secure and easily navigatable web site is crucial. Comprehensive product and service descriptions, and ease of interacting with bank representatives is also vital to ensure the optimum online customer experience.

2) As use of mystery shopping programs grows, there may be some unexpected benefits. For example, professional mystery shoppers sent to evaluate a company’s regulatory compliance may uncover problems in employee behavior or store operations. This allows others departments, such as sales and marketing, to benefit from the mystery shopping program, even though that wasn’t the plan.

3) Expect the number and variety of organizations using mystery shopping programs to increase, as mystery shopping moves from the expected retail sector to financial institutions, health care, and other less traditional organizations.

Today’s savvy financial organizations use mystery shopping to gather competitive intelligence. Federal regulators, third-party suppliers and watchdogs use mystery shopping to verify bank branches are selling their financial products properly. As the pressure of competition increases globally for all kinds of companies, mystery shopping will continue to be the best way to find out what you really need to know to continue to compete.

Companies who use mystery shopping programs to boost productivity and revenue often incentivize employees who attain good results. After all, mystery shopping goals are met by people, and people enjoy being rewarded for a job well done. There’s nothing inherently wrong with rewarding top performers, and it can certainly go a long way towards motivating other employees as well. To be effective, however, incentives must be awarded correctly, and that begins with analyzing the data.

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In good times and bad, retailers’ sales are related to several basic conditions:
• Store locations
• Merchandise offered
• Inventory
• Proximity to competition
• Staffing

Beyond these basics are three additional, service-oriented ways to improve sales:

1. Increasing Conversions
Typically, 82 out of 100 people who walk into a store leave without making a single purchase. That’s a retail conversion rate of only 18%. While this is a statistic begging for understanding, in harder economic times it makes even more sense to know why shoppers leave your stores without making a purchase.

ICC Decision Services offers a sales calculator that easily helps you determine the lift in sales you would receive from an incremental improvement in your conversion rate. As an example, increasing conversion from the benchmark 18% to 25% results in a yearly additional $115K in sales per store! Contact ICC Decision Services to obtain this valuable calculator.

2. Understanding Why Shoppers Leave Without Purchasing
Now we know 82 out of 100 people leave your store without purchasing. But do we know why? Consider conducting customer exit interviews in select locations to uncover the reasons. Exit interviews are conducted on premise, just as customers leave your stores. Trained interviewers intercept these customers, asking them a series of questions that explore exactly why they did not make a purchase. Exit interviews often dispel intuitive explanations. For example, one, big-box retailer discovered they were losing sales not because of inventory outages, but because shoppers could not find the merchandise they wanted.

3. Improve Suggestive Selling To Increase Sales
Our studies show that improving suggestive selling can increase the bottom-line by millions. To effectively increase suggestive selling, provide sales staff with real reasons customers should buy your merchandise, helping staff to reinforce the customer’s decision process.

Of course, you need assurance that sales associates are following through with each and every customer. You can further expand your suggestive sales programs by increasing sales through accessories and related products. Obviously, the more merchandise the customer is exposed to, the greater the likelihood that they will buy something. This means active selling, not passive assistance. Sales associates need to be reminded to actively sell and need motivation follow through.

Many times, market research departments are put in charge of finding a mystery shopping vendor. Marketing often requires extensive reporting, because they look at things from their viewpoint. However, in the end, it is the stores and the store management team
(the District & Regional Managers) who have to use the information. Report overkill can actually hinder their effectiveness.

Having 100 reports to choose from, and access to a big bank of data you can slice and dice a million ways, might seem like it would be helpful. But at the end of the day, is that really going to change staff behaviors and drive results at the store level?

My suggestion is to keep things simple. A few targeted reports with meaningful, useable data (like basic trending and top opportunities) is enough for most management levels. If market research needs multiple reports, it can certainly be accomplished. But be careful not to get so bogged down in gathering data that the rest of the organization is hindered.

“Less is More’ is the buzzword when it comes to reporting. Gathering lots of different data might seem useful, but in the end, things can get messy and the ability to use data to effect any real frontline staff change is minimized. If marketing wants reports, they can have them. Help managers do their very best on the floor by providing the targeted data they really need.

At the end of the day, mystery shopping reports may not be worth more than the paper they are printed on to the district and regional managers. The data should have the greatest impact on the front lines.

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The strongest brands are those that are instantly recognizable by customers. Kleenex, Band Aids, Coke, Tide, Victoria’s Secret, McDonalds, FedEx, Nike…. all are brands that need no further introduction. Conversely, a brand image that changes too often can lead to oblivion when customers do not recognize who or what the brand is. Brand consistency leads to customer loyalty and referrals. Brand inconsistency leads to confusion and an inability to judge one brand above another.

Amazingly, brand confusion is more common than you might think. The companies who have managed to achieve instant recognition are few and far between. So how can a company develop a lasting brand? And how can mystery shopping play a part in the process?

The most important step in the process is to decide on a brand strategy and follow it without fail. If you have chosen the correct strategy and make use of marketing research for accurate results, you’re on the right track.

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We’ve often talked before about the components that make for a stellar mystery shopping program. In my May 31, 2007 blog, Five Mistakes Companies Make When Choosing a Mystery Shopping Provider, I talked about the importance of choosing a provider who offers quality, trained shoppers:

” Your mystery shopping provider should be able to cover all primary, secondary and tertiary areas with qualified shoppers. Additionally, they should have a process in place for tracking shopper performance, and should be able to tell you about each shopper’s talent for adhering to stated guidelines.”

Can you imagine what it would be like if your mystery shopping company sent the same person to your store every month? It wouldn’t be long before your frontline staff would catch on, and the effectiveness of your program would be lost.

That’s exactly what happened to a bank in Vermont. Everyone in the bank knew who the mystery shopper was, because the same person came in month after month. Not only did this completely defeat the program, but it turned the concept of mystery shopping into something of a joke among employees.

So the bank decided to change providers, with these two goals in mind:

• Find a mystery shopping provider who could provide shoppers who seemed like regular customers.

• Gather reliable and accurate data on employees’ abilities to provide high level service.

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