6 Critical Components to a Successful Retail Mystery Shopping Program

8/10/2019 6 Critical Components to a Successful Retail Mystery Shopping Program

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6 Critical Components to a SuccessfulRetail Mystery Shopping Program

Retail Mystery Shopping

A Thoughtful Guide to Retail Mystery Shopping Program Design



4. Customer advocacy is critical:

A well designed and executed mystery shopping program

will draw upon mystery shoppers that are current/potential

customers well before they complete a single mystery shop

for your brand. However, mystery shoppers are distinct from

your customers in a very important way: they are intentionally

trained to make objective observations through your brand/

organizational lens. Measuring customer advocacy within the

context of mystery shopping provides an important dependen

variable for analytical and statistical modeling purposes, and is

essential for transforming data into insights.

5. Recognize frequently, Reward consistency:

Most organizations excel at Rewarding consistency, often

through a host of incentive-based compensation strategies

and plans. However, many overlook the importance of Recog-

nizing the positive day-to-day customer experience achieve-

ments in more systematic ways. The reality is that Recognition

is much more effective for driving sustainable customer experi-

ence improvements than are Rewards. Why? Because Recog-

nition programs provide more frequent positive reinforcement

and can be easily seeded within organization at the front lines

of service delivery.

3. Rotate scenarios on a regular basis:

Scenarios, or the more scripted elements of a mystery shop,

are one of the most important aspects of program design.

However, when the same scenario is used time and again,

it provides clear cues to your associates as to the identity of

the mystery shopper, which significantly diminishes program

integrity. For mystery shopping to be optimally effective at

driving behavioral change, the identity of the mystery shopper

must remain a mystery. Thoughtful scenario design can

achieve this goal.

6. Model results to business outcomes:

Few things are more important than to demonstrate the Return

on Investment of your mystery shopping program. If your mys-

tery shopping program cannot speak to the ultimate drivers of

business performance, it will be doomed for failure. Imperative

then is to routinely model and quantify the underlying relation-

ships that the key operational and behavioral standards from

your mystery shopping program have on unit-level financial per-

formance. Actionable customer experience drivers of business

performance will galvanize the focus of your entire organization

in a way that few other initiatives can.

Whether you’re a mystery shopping novice, expert, or anywhere in between, thefollowing suggestions will ensure you’re getting more powerful insights and greatervalue out your mystery shopping program:

Why matters How matters Whom matters

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2. Interactional touchpoints are of primary importance

Your associates, and their actions/behaviors in service to your

customers, are the most important and actionable drivers of

customer advocacy. Resist the common temptation to measure

minimum customer experience expectations. Minimum

expectations demonstrate very little variability and are rarelykey drivers of customer advocacy. In addition, shortcomings

in delivering minimum expectations will be identifiable well in

advance of a mystery shop by business performance patterns

and/or field management representatives.

1. Measure what you train to:

Your customer service/experience training programs and

materials are one of the best indicators of your Brand’s Promise.

By focusing on operational and behavioral standards that are

clearly communicated in training, the operational feedback

provided through mystery shopping can be directly tied back toexisting standards, increasing the actionability of the resulting

data. There are fewer ways to lose credibility more quickly with

the field than to hold them accountable to operational and

behavioral expectations that they were never trained to.




Integrated Program Design:

We design and customize every aspect of your Mystery

Shopping program around your organizational lens (how you

view and interact with your customers) to ensure

the resulting business intelligence is both relevant and

actionable to your stakeholders in the field, while being

mindful of drawing the direct linkages back to how your

customers experience your brand.

Extensive Shopper Network:

With a network of over 350,000 mystery shoppers throughout

the United States and Canada, we can confidently guarantee

that we have shoppers wherever and whenever you

may need them. Second To None is also a founding member of

the International Mystery Shopping Alliance (IMSA), enabling

us to offer worldwide Mystery Shopping solutions in every

major global market.

Modular Questionnaires:

We engineer customization and flexibility into your

Mystery Shopping program using modular questionnaire

applications that offer 1) a ‘core’ module dedicated to

uncovering and tracking the most important behavioral

and operational drivers of the customer experience, and 2)

‘dynamic’ questionnaire modules through which emerging

initiatives can be quickly assessed and acted upon.

Refined Shopper Selection and Training:

We customize the selection of shoppers for your program

based on specific customer demographics and lifestyle

characteristics of primary interest. Eligible shoppers then

complete a training and certification module designed around

the specific objectives and requirements of your program.

Uncover and act on the behavioral drivers of the customer experience.

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Mystery Shopping is integral to the heart and soul of Second To None, and represents the roots of our firm

dating back to 1989. Over the past 20+ years, our holistic, customized and practical multi-channel Mystery

Shopping solutions (e.g., In-Store, Telephone, Online/E-Commerce, Call Center, Social) have become respected

in the retail industry for uncovering the underlying behavioral and operational drivers of the customer

experience that are ultimately responsible for driving customer satisfaction, loyalty, advocacy and revenue.

We truly pride ourselves on taking a practical approach to Mystery Shopping andaccomplish this through our:

Comprehensive Shopper Management:

Our shoppers are managed on a day-to-day basis by our team

of internal field operations associates and are continually rated

and ranked on several quality metrics. Shoppers’ performance

on these quality metrics has a direct influence on their eligibility

for future assignments. Our systems also monitor shopper

scoring bias (both positive and negative) and we regularly

inactivate shoppers who display a tendency to consistently

award high or low overall scores.

Obsessive Focus on Data Integrity:

We employ a multi-phase quality assurance process that in-

volves the extensive use of statistical process controls, as well as

editing, clarifying and proofing by at least two different interna

quality assurance associates that have been trained on your

program’s specific quality criteria. The end result is that each

Mystery Shopping report meets your exacting standards prior

to it being released to you and your stakeholders in the field.





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CONTINUED

Real-Time Reporting:

Our CATAPULT reporting console provides you access to your

Mystery Shopping results in real- time, and offers a wealth

of customizable and user-friendly reporting features that

empower you and your field management team to take

action quickly.

Robust Analytics:

We use a variety of transparent and best-in-class quantitative

and qualitative analytical tools that your team can understand

and that quickly transform Mystery Shopping data into cus-

tomer experience insights, and always present analytic insights

to you in the simplest manner possible.

Your customers expect great service across all channels of interaction with your brand.

Thanks to our multi-channel solutions, we’ll be there too.



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6 Critical Components to a Successful Retail Mystery Shopping Program