Tag: confero

Elaine Buxton, president, participated as a speaker at the Independent Mystery Shoppers’ Conference (IMSC), held at the Melia Hotel in Atlanta, GA on May 30th – June 1st, 2013.  The IMSC is a mystery shopper support organization working to improve the industry by providing educational information. The conference focused on ways to complete mystery shopping […]

CARY, N.C. – Confero, Inc. (https://www.conferoinc.com), a national customer experience measurement firm, has announced that president and CEO Elaine Buxton has been elected to serve as vice chairman of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) global board of directors. In her position, Buxton will be responsible for working to update and refine the group’s strategic plan. Prior to being elected vice chairman, Buxton served as immediate past president of the MSPA-North America in 2011.

The mission of the MSPA is to improve and stimulate the acceptance, performance, reputation and use of mystery shopping services. For more information about the MSPA, visit http://www.mysteryshop.org

“As a dedicated member of the mystery shopping industry, I am committed to providing a high level of service to the MSPA and all its members,” said Buxton. “Being elected again to the global board of directors is quite an honor, and I look forward to working with other board members to promote mystery shopping around the world.”

CARY, N.C. – Confero, Inc. (https://www.conferoinc.com), a national customer experience measurement firm, has announced that president and CEO Elaine Buxton was a preliminary judge for the 2012 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Buxton was one of 93 business professionals worldwide selected as a judge for the world's premier customer service awards, contact center awards and sales awards. The 2012 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service were presented on Monday, Feb. 27 in a ceremony at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

“Our entire team was so proud to receive the Stevie Award for Customer Service Consulting Practice of the Year last year,” said Buxton. “This year, I thoroughly enjoyed serving as a judge. There are so many firms executing on well-planned customer service strategies. The nominees were indeed

Steady customer traffic is what every retail company wants in its stores, but do companies perform as well during the unexpected busy times as they do for the expected high-volume periods?

Companies benefit from an increased number of customer visits only if associates meet customer demands during the rush.  To do this, companies need to prepare an approach and strategy to adapt for larger crowds.  Companies anticipate busy times, such as the holidays, by stocking up with the right items, carrying items within the appropriate price ranges and learning from past holiday trends about which items to carry and how many.   As Inc.com points out, some companies prepare well for the fast-paced holiday selling time by instructing employees to be honest about possible wait times.

Companies can realize unanticipated rewards when they change their approach to how shoppers gather the information or add mystery shop sections. As the examples below illustrate, the rewards may include improved safety measures and even the discovery of website pitfalls, to name two.

For an automotive client, adding non customer service questions to the mystery shopper survey resulted in valuable data and potential savings in safety-related areas for the company.  The company consulted with other departments to gain ideas on areas that mystery shoppers should assess at their locations. In response, Confero added several safety-related questions to the survey.  Following the visits with the added survey questions, management was able to quickly view mystery shop results through a secure web-based reporting system, including the information about safety procedures. The results: fast data on safety deficiencies at certain locations as well as decreased number of accidents, due to the increased accountability that the mystery shop program created. You can view other stories on our Automotive Mystery Shopping and Customer Experience Research Case Studies page.