Top 10 Benefits of a Mystery Shop Program 

1. Non-Biased Data

Mystery shoppers are a great way to gain unbiased data. You cannot supervise every aspect of the business 24/7. Sometimes you need an outside perspective to truly understand your internal operations. A shopper with no connection to the business will greatly reduce bias and prevent any unnatural reactions from the employees.

2. Evaluate Staff Performance

Chances are you have procedures staff members should follow when dealing with customers whether in-person or over the phone. A mystery shop program allows you to gain insight firsthand into what’s being relayed to clients.

3. Analyze the Competition

Using a mystery shopper to make a purchase from a direct competitor allows you to determine how you should play your cards. It is a great way to evaluate your competitors. This allows you to see what they’re doing daily, what they don’t deliver, or what their customers love. As a result, you now know their strengths and weaknesses and can use that information to improve your own customer experience.  

4. Get to Know How Customers Perceive Your Brand

Just like analyzing the competition, you can analyze your internal procedures. A mystery shopper provides an unbiased review of your operations. You can better understand how customers perceive your brand and whether good or bad it can help you improve sales. 

5. Improves Customer Retention

It can uncover issues that affect customer retention and sales, as well as prevent long-term or future problems. Using actionable insights gained through mystery shopping, you’ll be able to improve customer service, resulting in more customers choosing your company over your competitors.

6. Monitor & Compare Multi-Location Facility Conditions

If you run a multi-location/franchise business a mystery shopper can be a great way to determine which locations are performing better than others. You’re putting your stores against each other to better determine why some are doing better than others and hold them accountable. The result could be that you need to increase training, change store layout, increase cleanliness, etc. at certain store locations

7. Identifies Training Needs and Sales Opportunities

Tests of internal functions are one of the best benefits of mystery shopping programs. Your team went through various training exercises, but are they delivering? A shopper can help evaluate which employees are needing additional training and why opportunities are being missed because of this. You’ll be able to see how staff communicate with customers and gain insight into their behavior. Detecting issues or a lack of skills early can help improve customer service before issues occur. 

8. Supports Promotional Programs

By utilizing a mystery shop program, you get a clear view of the employees that are going above and beyond. The responses given help businesses gain valuable consumer insights into many vital aspects, including whether promotions need to be made. This can be utilized in yearly reviews to help determine which employees deserve a promotion based on hard data gathered on their performance. 

9. Enforces Employee Integrity and Knowledge

With a promotional program in place, employees will feel inclined to do a better job. Knowing that mystery shopping can occur at any given time or day ensures that they perform well. In addition, feedback on their customer interactions or phone call delivery data can help them gain knowledge of what they need to work on.

10. Gain an Extra Pair of Eyes 

Overall, the program lets you gain an extra pair of eyes that have your company’s best interests at heart. You may not like the data you receive, but it’s the data you need to help improve your internal operations.

Source: Top 10 Benefits of a Mystery Shop Program for Your Business | 360Connect

All content on these pages is proprietary and the intellectual property of Holmes & Watson, LLC and may not be reproduced in any way without written permission from Holmes & Watson, LLC