Welcome Back.
We hope you are having a wonderful and busy summer! As with every topic, there are many different view points. Below we discuss our opinion in regards to mystery shoppers. We realize to many this will be considered a controversial and contrarian approach and that is OK. We have designed this newsletter to be a forum to get you thinking and reacting (and responding if you care to). We recognize that there other ways to look at the subject and you need to look at all the information and decide what works best for your store. So we have also included other information and links to read on the topic if you are interested.
As always, if there are topics you would like to hear about in future newsletters, feel free to send us an email.
Happy shopping!
IT'S NO MYSTERY
We hear a lot about and are frequently are asked about the merits of Mystery Shoppers.* To be blunt, we see no merit in this for small retail organizations. Mysteries are for books, movies and TV shows but not for your store.
In a well run store the staff is part of a team, a team that is well motivated, well compensated, well trained, fully informed and totally respected. When done properly this creates a three way mutual respect between management, employees and customers. Though the customer rules in this hierarchy, (not ownership or management) all are valued. A fully involved and inspirational leader in this atmosphere always knows what is going on in his/her store through frequent presence, the best possible information systems, and constant three way (employee-customers-management) communications.
This leader knows who is doing a good job and who is not. This leader has a handle on inventory, not only what is selling, but shrinkage and inventory and dollar losses. These issues are dealt with directly and openly and trust is clear to those who earn it. Those who are “not with the program” quickly find out this is a place they do not belong and are weeded out. Employees who love their work and respect and admire their employers also do a lot of self policing and in effect frequently will “take care of business” for management.
We feel that Mystery Shopping is out of step with the atmosphere that best works in a retail store. This positive, alive, knowledge-oriented atmosphere costs money to train, acquire and keep quality help. It not only makes the additional cost for Mystery Shoppers unnecessary and unaffordable, it makes it totally out of place. It gives your valued employees several wrong and negative messages:
1. We do not trust you.
2. We do not know what is going on in our
stores and we need to sneak around to find out.
3. We are reluctant to deal with our people directly.
Our views here hold true for all stores, large and small. A corrupted work environment (think K-Mart) is something that leads directly to decline and extinction. A lack of involved leadership can lead to corruption.
If you are a franchisee, often times the franchisor provides “mystery shops” and rates your performance in relation to other franchisees and also to franchisor standards. Sometimes this can provide useful information but if it is providing you anything you do not already know you should be asking why. Also weak ownership/management oftentimes misuses these mystery shopping reports and uses them as threats and reason to take punitive action with employees instead of managing on the basis of what they personally see and know.
In retail, we are always saying there is not just one way to do things. There are always many options that as part of a quality planning process and good management team can be made to work. Before you hire Mystery Shoppers for your store consider the other options. Consider operating your store as a “Reality Show” as opposed to a “Mystery Show”.
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mys·ter·y shop·per (n) - One whose identity is not known and visits stores in search of information to assist companies in their marketing efforts.
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Mystery Shopping Companies
Merchandise Concepts
Mystery Shoppers
Quality Assessment Mystery Shoppers
According to QAM, 68% of your customers who stop buying from you do so because of an attitude of indifference or rudeness by an employee or usability issues with your Web site or across channels.
Do you need a mystery shopper to tell you that your employees are rude?
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Want more Shop Talk?:
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