In many Retail Action Articles, I speak relentlessly about
the critical importance of Customer Service. Exemplary
Customer service can overcome shortcomings in merchandise
selection, store size, location and other factors.
There's no doubt that when the store manager is around or
visitors from the support office appear, customer service is
great. Staff maybe even deliver stellar service in short bursts
as they put on what I call "the dog and pony show".
What's customer service like when no one of authority is in the
store? I know of one retailer with a chain of small gift shops who
experienced a substantial drop in sales whenever the manager
was off for the evening. He went to great expense to install a hidden
camera to study the situation via a computer and dial up modem
in real time. Much to his amazement, when the sole part time
employee was in the little shop, she invited her boyfriend for fun
times and a little socializing. In fact even through traffic in the
evenings in the store was brisk, this salesperson rarely left the
comfort of the cash desk to help a customer. The store had become
a somewhat messy self serve outlet when this employee was
entrusted with running the store. Not surprisingly this employee was
dismissed and replaced with someone more enthusiastic and responsible.
The clandestine installation cost about $2,000 to install in this story.
There are better ways to determine if customer service meets your
requirements without blowing $2,000 per store. You can get very
good information by hiring a third party Mystery Shopping Service.
At less than $100 a visit, these organizations will go in and "shop" your
store or stores and deliver the results of the visit to you so that you can
take action and make improvements to thge customer experience.
Here are some tips that I have found very beneficial when using a Mystery
Shopping Service:
Develop the structure of a visit through a custom checklist with your
selected shopping service.
Start with a selective list of stores if you are a large chain. Focus on
suspected problem stores that have a history of poor sales.
Tell stores that you are commencing a Mystery Shopping Program.
Make it clear that the program is not designed to punish or center
out poor performers. It is an training and evaluation tool designed
to continually improve customer service.
Ask the Mystery Shopping Service if they can email or post their
reports on line so that you can review them the day they are compiled.
You can take action quickly and make corrections if you get the
reports in a timely manner.
Take Action Today
Research several Mystery Shopping Services in your area. Talk
collegues and peers to see which services they were pleased with.
There are good and bad companies in the Mystery Shopping Business.
If you are located across a region or country, you'll want a company that
can service you across the span of your stores over the long term.
Tell stores in advance that you are commencing the program with the
Mystery Shopping Program. Ideally get your Store Managers to help
devise the visit checklist that the company will be using.
Ask the company for some client references to assure that you are
getting quality service for what you pay. You can often negotiate
lower rates per visit if you commit to a long term program. Use them
on a trial basis and then commit to a long term program to reduce the
costs per visit.
Share reports quickly with store managers and make it a collaborative
effort. Make it a tool to help managers, not a tool of discipline and punishment.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")