Alright! Here’s a question for business owners: Why do you run a business? It could be a retail store or a grocery market. But why do you do it? You want to earn money, sure. But when you train the staff, you are not telling them to convince the customer to buy the product. You are training them to enhance the shopping experience of the customer. From quick billing to greeting the customer – many things count.
Let’s say you enter a store and don’t find any help. You feel clueless because all the staff are busy on their phones, and the billing takes forever. Nobody hands over a cart or basket to keep the objects you like. Customer experience goes bad when there is nobody to help.
So, as a business owner, you have failed to increase sales because shoppers are not happy with your services. How about you get feedback from customers?
Wait a minute! What’s that all about? We are talking about mystery shoppers. Mystery shoppers can help retain customers. The question is – Who are they? And why are they relevant? Let’s find out through this post.
What is a Mystery Shopper?
Mystery shoppers are people who visit the store anonymously to evaluate the whole customer experience. They are hired by a company to provide an unbiased opinion of the whole experience.
If you invite your wife or parents to evaluate the store, the staff will immediately treat them with respect. But as a mystery shopper steps in, they evaluate everything without any bias.
So, if you have a restaurant or a store that sells goodies like candies, shoes, bags, clothes, etc., you can hire a company to send a mystery shopper to the store.
The view will be objective, and you will get to know how a customer feels. These shoppers are given a list of all the tasks they have to complete. They will evaluate whether the products are available and if your employees are helpful. Once they are done with the mystery shopping, they evaluate your store and send a detailed report regarding the findings. A business owner or manager can use these insights to provide a better experience to customers.
The Innumerable Benefits of Mystery Shopping
Business owners don’t know where they are going wrong. Or maybe they do, but they need proper insights about things they need to change around the store.
Mystery shoppers are unknown and anonymous. They won’t even let you know that they are hired for the job.
So, their report can help businesses identify the loopholes in the customer experience. What if your staff treats customers poorly? What if they do not have the expertise to handle different aisles or have less knowledge about the ingredients used in the dishes? There is a problem there.
You will get to know whether your employees are providing helpful services to all the customers.
You have the chance of improving the overall customer service. It’s a feedback system which gives you an insight into the best staff members and the ones who did not behave well with the customers. As a business owner, you should care about your customers. If they stop visiting your store, your business will go down the drain. So, you should care.
Understanding your customer preferences is important. Mystery shoppers will get a full view of what you can improve in your store or restaurant. Could it be the food that is not as satisfactory? Is it a stewardess who can’t explain what the dish is about? Could it also be the front desk billing person who takes a lot of time to settle the dues? Even if you don’t fire the staff, you can train them to be better.
Once you start working on these loopholes, your customers also notice the change and trust you a lot more.
Summing Up
Investing in a mystery shopper is a great decision. It will help you make better business decisions. You can invest in it because the return on investment will be higher when you gain or earn loyalty from your customers.
The insights of a mystery shopper can be very helpful, so pay attention to it.
