Mystery shopping is a way to get your store audited from a customer's point of view, and it's been in practice for many decades. So, you can estimate that it is a beneficial practice. But today, it has evolved and become more powerful in giving insights not only about you but also about your competitors.
However, many businesses remain unaware of the benefits that Mystery shopping brings. Auditing the efficiency of the staff to find potential issues in the business can help retail businesses in many ways. But to ensure you understand the power of it for your business, here are the seven most important benefits.
Seven Benefits of Mystery Shopping for Retail Businesses
1. Enhances Your Staff’s Efficiency
The staff is an integral part of any store because they directly impact the customer experience through their behavior and store management abilities. That's why their efficiency in doing their work is important. Mystery shopping helps you understand your staff's efficiency from the customer's point of view.
It's essential to assess the staff's behavior and efficiency from the customer's point of view for two main reasons. Firstly, the store manager usually manages the staff and looks at the staff for their work ethics, efficiency, and productivity. However, the manager may not be able to point out certain issues as they need to be pointed out by the customers. Also, the staff remains familiar with the manager, which means they can find loopholes in hiding their inefficiency from the manager.
But both of these don't apply to mystery shoppers. Since they are not managers but auditors, they don't overlook a single thing, and the staff also doesn't use their loopholes in front of a common customer.
2. Assesses Procedure Efficiency
Checking the efficiency of procedures helps businesses in several ways. Firstly, it ensures that tasks are completed in the best way possible. For example, if there's a procedure for handling customer complaints, mystery shoppers can see if it's done promptly and effectively.
Secondly, it helps identify any bottlenecks or inefficiencies in the system. Mystery shopping can reveal these issues if there are long wait times at checkout or if staff members are unsure about certain procedures.
Addressing inefficiencies can improve businesses' operations. Ultimately, this leads to smoother operations and better customer service.
3. Lets You Compare Your Outlets
If you have more than one outlet as you have expanded your business, then a common problem with such an expansion is brand inconsistency. When brands try to open multiple outliers by themselves or by selling their franchise, there's a huge risk of brand inconsistency. It simply means that customers can have different experiences with your different outlets. For instance, one outlet may perform better than the other in terms of waiting time, customer service, etc. And it's a real thing as you can check it by yourself. Find a brand with multiple outlets, like McDonald's, for example. Search their outlets online, and you will notice that the ratings of one outlet differ from the other.
So why does this happen? Are they selling a different product? The problem is that the brand's image is inconsistent at multiple outlets, which you can fix with mystery. You can find stores that are not performing as they should be and make improvements to make your brand's image consistent at all the stores.
4. Uncovers Hidden Issues
In a retail business, issues keep arising, and you keep solving them as if it's a loop. But you must know that these problems take time in the making. Many of the issues take significant time to turn into an issue that really affects your business. It means if you detect them early you can deal with them without any harm to your business.
But even if your customers can identify these issues, they are not trained. That's why
mystery shoppers are best for the early detection of problems. They are trained to identify issues and loopholes that may take a disturbing picture of the business and carry a customer's POV, making it even more effective.
5. Helps To Assess Store’s Accessibility, Appearance, and Safety
A retail store always has two main things to make sure of. These two things are the appearance and the safety of the customers. Firstly, the store's appearance is directly proportional to the customer experience and satisfaction. If your store looks and feels excellent, it will positively impact the customer's experience. On the other hand, the safety features are essential for the safety of the customers and for building trust, as these features showcase your care for your prospects.
You may think that an audit works better for these assessments, but mystery shopping has its own benefits. It allows you to get a surprise audit done. So, the store will be assessed as it remains for other customers, which may not be the case with a planned audit.
6. Helps Understand Customer Sentiment
Customer sentiments are important in letting you know what your customers think about you as a brand. See, when you offer a product or service, it is not just your product or service that depends on the customer's experience. There are other things, too, like the store where you are selling the product, its appearance, the staff, and much more. All these things collectively create your customers' sentiments, which can be positive, negative, or neutral.
These sentiments are important for you because they help you understand how you stand as a brand among your audience. Mystery shopping gives you an overview of which sentiment most of your audience holds. If there are many flaws in your business, you are most likely to be standing on the negative side, while if there are very few flaws, then you can assume that you are on the positive side. Similarly, if there's a balance, such as your staff is good, the store appears to be good, but your checkout isn't as smooth as it should be, then you may find yourself in the middle of the sentiment scale.
According to the sentiments of the customer, you can gauge how satisfied and loyal your customers are. It also lets you understand what image yours is building among the audience, as we discussed above, and how aligned or misaligned it is with what you expect.
7. Lets You Analyze Competitor Strategies
To lead the market, you should keep your business ahead of the competition. But with internal changes, without knowing what's going on in your market or what your competitors are doing, you may not get ahead of your competitors. However, with a competitive analysis of your competition through mystery shopping, you can get insights into your competition. It includes the pros and cons of doing business so you can follow the pros and avoid the cons. Thus, you can lead the market in the right way.
Conclusion
To sum up, it is a great way to know about stores from the perspectives of those whom you are sitting to serve. Simply put, no one knows the pain points and issues your customers may be dealing with in your store Better than they do. And since mystery shopping gives you insights from their perspective, implementing it is a win-win situation. Mystery shopping enhances your customers' journey, overall experience, and loyalty towards your brand.
