Advantages of long-term mystery shopping

Do you know that you lose more than 70% of your customers!

This is the latest research data from MSPA – the international Mystery Shopping Providers Association.

According to the study results, in 15% of cases, retailers lose their clients just because of the low quality of products or high prices.  The rest of the customers leave because of poor service.

In order to stop losing consumers and evaluate customer service, it is essential to use effective methods of quality service verification. The most common practice is the program “Mystery Shopping”. Mystery shoppers are skilled agents who act like your “typical” clients. Their main mission is to make your service better. They provide accurate and prompt information regarding the service and remain unrevealed.

Scheduling worldwide offers you a guideline on how to use this program – a mystery shopping program manual.

As researchers, we are confident that the program “Mystery Shopping” is most efficient if following three key rules:

1. Regularity of project (conducted monthly, without breaks);
2. Staff feedback (local director and employees establish each questionnaire);
3. Internal PR of the project (informing the employees about the start of the program in the chain, about conditions, questionnaire, etc.).

Today we would like to demonstrate statistically why it is so important to conduct the research on a regular basis and adhere to these rules.

Implementing a scheduled Mystery Shopping program helps to control service improvement or degradation over a long period of time. It also helps to keep employees tuned and process the results and development areas regularly. Every improvement you make in your business, based on Mystery Shopping audits, leads to better customer service, which in turn encourages your customers to come back to you again and again. This has been tested through practice by our client, who works with independent representatives in many countries. He has executed Mystery Shopping research to the best of his ability with each of the representatives.

This client, who has been running the program for two years in 27 countries, received the following results. 

The group of countries, that conducted the Mystery Shopping program on a regular basis, such as Greece, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, on average doubled its performance in many respects.

Those countries that used the program only once did not improve their performance.

According to the two years long Mystery Shopping program, the best result was shown by Greece, which has been implementing changes constantly over the course of 7 waves and welcoming the results of the program. This is also proved by the indicator of additional sales and sales of accessories (not the main product).

1. The standards of service of the company increased by 20 points, which indicates the improvement of the quality of service to a large extent, while other countries gained a maximum of 6-7 points with variable success.
2. As a result of Greece’s continued focus on lagging service performance, the priority is to raise this standard from 35 to 64 points, which is a unique indicator across the chain. This means that implementation and additional sales will double as a result of our close cooperation with the Greek market of this brand.
3. Also, the customer loyalty index has increased by 20 points, which indicates that customers will recommend this brand in the Greek market more often, which will lead to increase in revenue, as well as to the entry of new loyal customers.

If you still doubt whether it is worth or not to use the Mystery Shopping service, look at the number of benefits you get. Regular use of the Mystery Shopper service helps to improve your service in the following ways:

1. Improve the quality of service;
2. Reach the level of customer service standards in your company;
3. Monitor the performance of chain personnel even at the most distant sales and service points;
4. Receive regular feedback from customers about the level of sales service or service outlet;
5. Keep the personnel’s performance at a constantly high level;
6. Use the results of the research as a part of the staff motivation scheme.

Scheduling worldwide offers you different types of mystery shopping program that helps you to improve your service. As a result, the company gets feedback from its customers. In turn, this contributes to implementing new standards of work quickly. It has a positive impact on all business components: employees, customers, profit.

Get back the lost customers – increase your service quality with Mystery Shopping!