Calvin FordHave you ever wondered what the experience is like for customers who are visiting your business? If you are the manager or the business owner, it’s hard to get an accurate idea of this because your staff will always be on their best behaviour when you are around. What is it really like for the average customer who enters your place of business? One of the only ways that you can find the answer to this question is by hiring a mystery shopper.
A mystery shopper is someone who acts like a normal customer and visits your business to use your services or purchase your product. They make observations about what the experience was like and they will create a report detailing how they were treated by staff, how clean the facilities were and how easy it was to have their request attended to. The mystery shopper can also be looking for specific aspects that you outline in advance for them. It is the best way to see your business through the eyes of your customers.
So what can a mystery shopping agency tell you about your business? These professionals can actually offer you a lot of valuable observations that can help you to improve your products and services. Here are some of the things that this strategy can help you discover:
How Are Your Employee’s Customer Service Skills?
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One of the main aspects that mystery shoppers will allow you to evaluate about your business is the customer service skills of your employees. They will note whether they were greeted promptly when they walked in the store and whether or not the staff were friendly and helpful. The customer service skills of your employees are important, because they are the face to face impression that your brand has with your customers.
Are Your Processes Efficient?
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Perhaps you have installed a new point of sale system that you believe is an excellent tool for the job. However, when your sales staff use it to ring up purchases for clients, it turns out to be clunky, time consuming or inaccurate. Your mystery shopper will be able to tell you what the real experience is like for the customer, so that you can determine whether or not you need to improve your systems.
The Things Customers Won’t Tell You
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One of the most important reasons to hire a mystery shopper is that they will tell you the things that your customers won’t tell you. In general, most customers won’t let you know if they are unhappy with your product or service. They will simply go somewhere else instead of making a complaint. However, even though they won’t tell you, they are very likely to tell other people or even leave a bad review. When you hire a mystery shopper they will tell you the honest truth about what is wrong with your business, giving you the opportunity to fix it.
What is the First Impression of Your Store Like?
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There are a couple reasons why it’s difficult to get an accurate picture of what first impression customers get when they enter your store. First of all, if you are the manager there is a good chance that your employees will make an extra effort when they know you will be there, so you will always be seeing the business at its best. Also when you spend a lot of time in an environment it becomes familiar to you and sometimes you become “blind” to small details. For example, if you look at the same display every day you might not pay that much attention to it or notice that it is lopsided or faded. It’s the same reason why you can read over an essay you have written several times and not spot an error, but when your friend looks at it with fresh eyes they will see a spelling or grammar mistake right away.
A mystery shopper will be able to walk into your store for the first time and give you an accurate description of their first impression and spot any flaws you are missing.
These are just a few of the things that mystery shoppers can teach you about your business. When it comes to getting accurate information about what the experience is like for your customers and what you can do to improve, mystery shoppers are one of the most effective ways of gathering information. So why not consider using mystery shoppers from a company such as tactical solutions to get an accurate look at how your company is performing?
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