Brand Auditors: The Role of Secret Shoppers Revealed? What is That About?
When you hear the term secret shopper it sounds so mysterious, right?
What do mystery shoppers really do?
How are mystery shoppers actually brand auditors?
Do they really help businesses improve?
Have You Ever Wondered How Mystery Shoppers Are the Solution for Businesses?
If you were a business owner, how do you know what is happening when your customers interact with your employees? How do you know that the new marketing sale signs have been hung and employees are knowledgeable about the special? How do you know that the store’s cleanliness and appearance meet your standards?
When your are running one store and you are the manager, the answers to these questions are simple. It matters whether or not you did all of these well.
When you have a few stores, regional chain or are a cross country chain of stores, that is a lot more difficult to track. That’s where mystery shoppers are vital tools for businesses.
Tracking Performance to Reward the Good and Improve the Pain Points
Companies come to mystery shopping services such as Confero to learn more about the day to day reality of how their stores are performing. Confero’s staff with over 100 years shared experience in the brand auditing industry, helps the business craft a mystery shopper questionnaire. Hence, this questionnaire will ask the mystery shoppers to focus on things that are important to the business’ success.
For the mystery shopper, they are there to evaluate the brand’s performance in through the eyes of a customer and to record their experience. So, mystery shoppers are brand auditors or evaluators. Truly, they are conducting customer research in a systematic and organized way through the phone app questionnaire that they each fill in to record their experience.
What are Customer Research Questionnaires Like?
Common questions for secret shoppers are:
Were you greeted as you entered the store?
When you asked where a certain item was, did the employee point? tell you the aisle number? walk you to the item?
Was the current sale poster in the window? Take a picture of the store front displaying the poster ad.
Was the bathroom clean? Take a picture of the sink and trashcan area.
Was the bakery display case fully stocked? Snap a photo discreetly.
Could the bank teller answer questions about starting a new account well?
How long was the curb side pick up wait?
Were many customers were in the store? How many people ahead of you in the checkout line? Did it take long for you to check out?
Ask about an item you saw on the website that isn’t carried in the store, how does the employee handle this situation.
There are thousands of questions that can be asked or situations for a typical customer to experience. The questionnaire is a way to gauge how the store staff handles these daily interactions. Certainly and importantly, are the customer service standards of your business values being upheld?
The Good & The Pain Points Are Revealed
Brand Auditors: The Role of Secret Shoppers Revealed
As questionnaires are collected over a scheduled period across a business chain, it reveals which stores in the chain are being managed well and which may need a bit more training. Clearly, it may also show where things aren’t working at all. For example – Perhaps a store is saving on cashier salary costs by reducing the number of cashiers; however, they are angering their customers with the amount of time it requires to check out. This isn’t something that appears on a report without a mystery shopper to reveal it.
How Mystery Shoppers Improve Businesses
Improving or increasing employee engagement is a main way that secret shoppers can assist businesses. The answers gathered in questionnaires help to show a pattern of how employees serve customers. Importantly, when brand audits are conducted and pain points are found, this is an opportunity for the business to improve. Perhaps some aspect of customer service was not covered adequately in their employee training. Or perhaps a new service has been added since Covid and it wasn’t covered at all in training. As a whole, the business can improve it’s training and improve their customer service.
Many of our experienced mystery shoppers truly appreciate being able to contribute to businesses in their areas improve. While secret shopping is a side hustle, they appreciate knowing that what they do matters. Even if their names aren’t known, their work is. Customer research is truly a mystery shopping solution for common pain points experienced to be fixed.
Are You Ready to “Go Undercover” with Confero?
If understanding how brand auditors & the role of secret shoppers revealed gets you interested in becoming a mystery shopper, please do! Confero offers mystery shop contracts for businesses of all types across the country. If you would like to become an Mindependent contractor who helps businesses, sign up today. When you are signing up, click “yes” to receive email notifications of mystery shops in your area. Also, once you have your log in information, you can check our dynamic job board for open contracts where you live or are traveling to.
Additionally, the Confero team works to update mystery shoppers to new mystery shop opportunities, informational tidbits, what’s happening in our industry and more through our social media channels. Follow us there.
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