Business people always look for ways to gain an advantage for their company. It’s often the small (and sometime not so obvious) edge that makes all the difference in results. In the current economy, the typical apparel retail store has a conversion rate of 18%. That means 100 people walk through the doors and 82 walk out without having made a purchase. Just a small uptick in percentage can have a huge financial impact. An increase of just 5% – from 18% to 23% could result in $8,176,000 in sales per 100 stores. 5% = over $8 million dollars.

Could the Customers Who DON’T Buy Be the Key to Success?

We’re used to asking for feedback from shoppers. Most retailers focus their data gathering on customers who’ve made a purchase. Surveys on the sales receipt, in the shopping bag or on your website and email follow up are commonly recognized and effective tools. It’s important to know what your customers think and get a critical understanding of their observations and experience of your stores, your merchandise and employees. What if you could find out why the ones who didn’t buy left your store empty-handed? Asking the right questions of those shoppers provides insight you can’t get any other way. Understanding their perceptions of your stores and learning what they see, think and feel gives you the edge you can use to improve your stores, your customer satisfaction and your bottom line by turning shoppers into buyers.

Improvement Can be Quick

Sales increase in direct proportion to customer satisfaction. Much of the measure of customer satisfaction is wrapped up in customer perception. How shoppers feel in your stores. How they feel about your sales associates, about your stores cleanliness and your displays. Knowing what people experience, think and perceive – particularly those who don’t buy gives you a fresh perspective on the key drivers of an improved experience. Often the answers are simple and the improvements quick and easy. But if you’re not asking the right questions of the right shoppers, you’ll never gather the information that will give you the edge.

How Customer Intercepts Work Best

Start by asking carefully designed questions of the shoppers who leave your stores without buying. What if you learned for example, that a large percentage of your customers in a certain region just weren’t finding what they were looking for? Perhaps you’re an apparel retailer and you overlooked the fact that your customers wanted a greater selection of seasonal sweaters in the Northeast and brighter colors in the Southwest? Maybe you’re an electronics retailer who learns that your employees don’t have enough knowledge in various departments and without answers your customers lose confidence and don’t buy. Suppose you were to learn that customers’ ‘feelings’ caused them to leave you stores? They might tell you the displays are too crowded or the stores weren’t clean enough. Maybe you’ll learn that customers couldn’t find a salesperson to answer their questions and they didn’t feel properly cared for. Maybe they just couldn’t find what they wanted.

Asking The Right Questions Translates to Critical Improvement

When a national pharmacy chain needed to understand what was happening in the aisles of their stores they relied on shopper intercepts to find a solution. Specifically, their Market Research Manager wanted to know why so many shoppers came to the pain aisle, but didn’t make a purchase there. Intercepting customers in the aisles and asking the right questions resulted in the manager getting the data needed to improve that aisle; increase sales and to improve other aisles so their customers could more easily find and purchase exactly what they were looking for. The right answers from the right shoppers increased their bottom line. They just had to ask the questions.

Using the Data to Make Actionable Changes

It’s not an uncommon for retailers to gather data but be at a loss to understand and implement actions from it. An experienced provider makes all the difference. They’ll work with you to create the questions, determine what you need to get a workable, statistically valid sample. They’ll show you how to interpret the data gathered and translate it into the actions and improvements that convert more shoppers into buyers. It can be a big ‘aha moment’ when you realize that the best information can come from the people who aren’t buying. You’ve done the work to get them into your store. Finding out why they’re not buying by running a strong Shopper Intercept program can turn things around quickly and profitably.

When done right, Mystery Shopping is a tremendous asset for retailers. Results can be used right away to improve the customer experience and to motivate employees, optimize resources and improve operations in every way. Sound big? It is. Mystery shopping is observational research at the business level and like any research, you have to know what data needs to be gathered and how to best interpret and use it. Without these metrics in place and properly carried out, the value is questionable. And like most things, something done poorly is usually worse than not doing it at all.

Mystery Shopping Gets Answers to the Questions You Need to be Asking

How do you measure what happens in your stores? How do you know which factors influence your customer’s experiences and perceptions and affect your sales? It’s impossible to know without objective ‘feet on the ground’. Experienced providers employ mystery shoppers who are carefully trained and who make observations that when analyzed will give you a view of your stores you just can’t get in any other way.

Can Mystery Shopping Really Improve Your Business?

When you work with a seasoned provider, here’s what it looks like start to finish: Together you pinpoint exactly what you need to learn from your program. Define your goals in measurable terms and know what determines a valid statistical sample – how many stores, how many employees, what metrics you need to put in place for your situation. Create the questions, get them asked and answered. Interpret the data and translate it into the actionable steps that lead to improvement. It’s important that the provider understand the needs of the company across departments so you can work together to create a plan that provides a useful company-wide perspective, minimizing redundancy and eliminating the waste that comes from repeated effort.

Mystery Shopping Works Nationally

When a national cinema wanted to measure the effectiveness of their training and improve customer satisfaction, they needed to know how employees were performing at locations around the country. They required accurate data and they wanted it quickly. They were looking for a provider who could partner with them to assist with every part of the process. They had failed before and they knew they needed someone to help them establish goals, create a program and help them analyze the mystery shop and put the data to use. Choosing the right provider resulted in a mystery shopping program that improved customer experience.

Mystery Shopping Works Regionally

A regional chocolate retailer was experiencing rapid growth. They had a mystery shopping program in place, but they were so busy managing growth that they had no time to analyze data or make use of it. Their solution was finding a provider that worked with them throughout the entire process. They had help not just establishing and implementing the program, but assistance where they needed it most: analyzing data and determining what actions to take. The process worked smoothly and they were able to make improvements that kept customer satisfaction high, keep pace with their growth and improve their business (instead of imploding it).

Don’t Suffer from Being Information Rich and Execution Poor

Experienced providers work with you to understand your needs and customize a mystery shop that addresses the issues and concerns you have right in that moment. You get information that is real and relevant. Your business is a dynamic entity and what was critical to your company yesterday may not be what needs to be measured tomorrow. A good mystery shop will naturally suggest new issues to audit and improve.

Asking the Right Questions is Critical

Interpreting and using the information generated by the mystery shop is where the rubber meets the road. Too often, even when great data is mined from a mystery shopping program, the retailer is left with information they don’t take action on. That’s why experienced providers keep working after the shops are completed. They show you how to interpret the data and they deliver reports you can understand. They work with you to determine exactly what actions you need to take to make the improvements suggested by the mystery shopping program.

Learn to Love it

Understand the true value of the most objective retail tool available, work with a quality provider to get it right and you’ll learn to love and benefit from the tool that everyone else loves to hate. You’ll have more satisfied customers and a stronger bottom line as a result.

Forbes Insights published a study that surveyed leading U.S. retailers’ use of mobile applications in enhancing consumer’s shopping experiences. Researchers discovered many retailers–almost fifty percent–are hoping to capture first-mover advantage as their customers go mobile. The levels of sophistication in mobile design and application vary depending on the retailer and its goals. For many, the mobile features are a scaled-back version of their website. Others have ventured into offering transaction-based and customer-oriented applications that use powerful GPS technology to pinpoint an individual customer’s needs.

Whether you want to try to increase e-commerce sales, give out coupons or suggest products to your customer, mobile applications must be molded to fit your store’s demographic and mission in order to be effective. American Eagle Outfitters, a specialty retailer that caters to 15-25 year olds, was one of the earliest adopters of mobile technology when they launched their mobile website in August 2008. They recognized their customer base was highly engaged in mobile technology and made sure to capitalize on that activity by going to where there customers spent their time: on their mobile phones. Since the experiment began, the store has seen several hundred thousand customers opt in and contribute to sales through the mobile site. Vice President Michael Dupuis cites their success to consistency across all channels. Customers can access all the same information on their mobile phone that is on American Eagle’s website. Similarly, The North Face built applications that use GPS technology to determine the location of skiers, bikers, rock climbers, runners, and more. The mobile phone users can then access information about terrain they soon will face and read suggestions for how to tackle the trails. The possibilities for what kind of mobile application a retailer develops are endless, and it’s important to figure out what your customers want in their hands.

Retailers should know that mobile technology is not a passing fad. Soon, customers will expect stores to have mobile applications. Like a website, mobile technology will be just another part of the shopping experience.

That doesn’t mean retailers shouldn’t welcome changes to their stores. Around the same time of the release of that report came another study that revealed people are happier if they spend their money on experiences and not material goods. So what’s a store that makes and sells material goods to do? Create an experience around shopping, like B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore suggested in their 1999 book The Experience Economy. In short, Pine and Gilmore state companies must create memorable events for their customers so the memory becomes the product instead of the tangible good they purchase. It’s why you see more roller coasters springing up in shopping malls and more cafés attached to bookstores and even home goods stores.

Online shopping contributes to retail sales, but offline shopping offers an opportunity to create a lasting memory that turns a consumer into a loyal customer for your brand. How do you transform your store into an experience? PSFK, a trends research and innovation company, proposes that successful stores are the ones that leverage technology and push the boundaries of storytelling, product testing and education, two ideas that will be explored in upcoming posts.

ICC/Decison Services’ latest in iPhone applications shows retailers the dollar value resulting from increasing their conversion rates. ConversionCalc™ is the second of its iPhone applications available for free download on iTunes. ICC’s existing application, the UpSellCall™, was the first of its kind in the industry when it was launched this past summer. ICC/Decison Services is an international customer experience management company based in New York City.

Field management loves our calculators because they are portable and easily show store management the power of associate behavior. “We received great feedback on the UpSell Calc, our first application,” says David Rich, President/CEO of ICC/Decision Services. “Field management loves our calculators because they are portable and easily show store management the power of associate behavior. Corporate loves them because they point to increased revenue. It takes so much to get customers in the door in today’s marketplace,” continues Rich, “but many retailers don’t realize that increasing your conversion rates by only 2% can increase revenue by 10%. The ConversionCalc™ will quantify that lost opportunity for retailers and can produce calculations for a single store, district or the entire retail chain.”

Other features of the ConversionCalc™ include: easy one-screen operation; allows calculations over multiple time periods (days, months, quarters, etc); reveals the true dollar amount for increased associate performance.

Click here for more “ConversionCalc” conversion rates information, iPhone applications and download links.

It has been widely reported that retailers and manufacturers have been effectively using sweet deals to attract consumers to follow their company presence on various social media outlets. The hope is that shoppers will continue to follow and build brand loyalty. Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, presents itself as a great jumping off point to disseminate information and gain followers. Hundreds of special offers are being leaked to vigilant consumers.

Brand marketers get additional penetration from special deal sites such as dealnews.com who also track and list Black Friday offers. Many e-commerce deals extend to the Monday after Thanksgiving, now known as Cyber Monday, because of consumers’ propensity to shop from their computers that day.

Some experts disagree with the strategy saying the smaller selection will chase the customer away. One statistic in the story says that 40 percent of chief financial officers at leading retailers say insufficient inventory is the biggest risk to holiday sales.

Retailers are turning to their websites to soften the blow to consumers. They are not carrying any more inventory, but they are hoping that their websites will allow them to better manage and distribute inventory.

This strategy is risky for the retailers. The consumer, not being able to find what he or she is looking for, is almost always turned off and won’t reward the retailer by following up on the web. Those that do follow up on the web may prefer on-line shopping and stop visiting the store altogether.

Those who are going to attempt to manage a tighter inventory should consider the cost of brand loyalty and proactively take steps to be ready for the customer service challenge. Making it harder to find an item is almost never a good tactic to attract and retain good customers.

Retailers, restaurants, financial institutions and brands deal too often in numbers and percentages when dollars are what really matter. In just a few simple steps, the “UpSellCalc™ takes current suggestive selling numbers for a corporation and calculates the dollar value of the upsell on the sales floor, in the fitting rooms and at the register. Taking it one step further, UpSellCalc™ will also calculate the dollar value should the frequency of suggestive selling increase by 5, 10 or even 20 percent. Other features of the UpSellCalc™ include: easy one-screen operation, ability to calculate ROI for a specific store, district, region or across an entire retail chain, and key indicators of the true dollar amount for increased associate performance.

“Mobile technology is playing an increasing role in the retail and brand experience every day,” says David Rich, President/CEO of ICC/Decision Services. “At ICC, we believe first and foremost in showing our customers a return on investment, and with the UpSellCalc™ we have developed yet another tool for delivering this information to them–in this case right into the palm of their hands. We look forward to introducing several other new tools in the mobile technology and social media arenas in the coming months.”

Click here for more “UpSellCalc” information and download links.

Customers both young (18-30yr old) and mature (30-50yr old) are looking for something different than the enormous malls today. Each age groups are looking for something different and refreshing. The repost states younger crowd wants the environment tailored more to their needs and shopping habits. Mature shoppers are turned off by the cafeteria style food courts, which harvest a hang out for teenagers.

More and more malls are separating from the traditional beige building with inside halls. Even in the coldest of climates, outside malls built like a tiny village with specialty stores are thriving over the traditional venues.

Retailers inside and outside the mall want their consumers to linger and enjoy their experience. Malls may be the biggest turn off environment today. What do you think? Are malls dead? Will retailers located on shopping avenues thrive better?

Researchers identify the “recession-proof shopper” as a woman who is at the median age of 29 with a median household income of $62,000.

Click here for more information.