Why Mystery Shopping Is So Vital For the Retail Industry

In the retail industry, your employees are the face of your business, so it is important they present the best possible version of your brand. The service people receive from your employees influences how much they are willing to spend or if they are willing to buy anything at all from you.

An employee’s help, advice and service are the best way to engage customers and leave a lasting impression, encouraging them to return time after time. If a customer experiences a bad shopping experience, they are likely to be wary about returning as well as sharing their poor experience with friends and family and discouraging them to visit your shop as well.

However, it is not always possible to be aware of your employee’s behaviour and customer interaction when you are not on the premises or there to oversee how they handle sales and enquiries.

One way to overcome this is to commission the services of a mystery shopping company and arrange for a mystery shopper to come to your store and assess the customer service of your employees. Appearing to be like any other customer, they will look for pointers which can be determined by you – for example if a customer offers a certain service or answers questions in the right way. They may also note how long it takes to be greeted or served at the till.

With access to reports from the mind of the customer, retail industries are able to understand the experience from the customer’s point of view and understand how customer service needs to be tailored to offer the very best to the customer.

There are various ways to monitor the service of employees, as well as reports filed by the mystery shoppers, they can also complete video reports or assess telephone service, social media and internet. Ensuring that it is possible to be confident that all aspects of your business are offering the very best.

The results of a mystery shopping report allow you to tackle any problems that there may be and if necessary provide more training for your staff or highlight the importance of treating customers in the very best way. A good mystery shopping result also allows you to praise the work of employees meeting the required standards and reassure them that they are doing a good job and to keep it up.

Mystery shopping has been part of the retail industry since the 1940s and is essential for monitoring employee integrity and that they’re giving the best enthusiasm for their job. Retail thrives off its employees and customers and it is essential that an experience in your store or business is the best it can be – allowing it to grow and grow.

Secret shoppers are an increasingly important tool for retail industries and form an essential part of providing better service than the competition and maintain a happier customer base who will return time and time again – building a relationship with your company.