How Secret Shopping Works

Many people wonder how secret shopping or mystery shopping actually works. Of course secret shopping could be different for every industry from self storage to baby sitting, but most times, the foundation is the same. The purpose of a secret shop is to ensure that what you are training your business or representatives to do is actually being followed. Here we will talk about what kind of things will be evaluated once a secret shopper walks into your establishment.

Typcially they will count the number of employees upon the store on entering. This will let the business know how many people were seen on the floor. The manager of the business should know how many people they had on the floor and how many people were able to assist that shopper. If the amount of associates counted are off then there has to be some investigation on why this is so.

How long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted. This is a good measure to know how long will it take one of your sales staff to greet your customers as they walk in. To ensure that business always got these points, they have hired greeters to say hello to them as soon as they walk into the store.

The shopper will write down the name of the employees of whom they bump into. So when the rep or worker talks to them about their business, the shopper will know who is talking. Then the business owner will know who to congratulate, train or let go depending on the interaction.

When you have a secret shopping company doing your shopping for you, it is a good idea to have some pre written questions down for them to ask your associates. A new process or training could have just come out and you will want to ensure that your associates know it. This is a good opportunity to find out how well they know their material by having a customer come in to test them.

The shopper will also note down the types of products shown, the sales arguments used by the employee, especially whether or how the employee attempted to close the sale and whether the employee suggested any add-on sales. These are important components of the sale. If you have a rep on your floor that is not trying to close the sale or show the customer the right type of product for their need, that could cost you a sale. Worse, it could cost you that customer to your competition.

Now there are other things when the sale is over and the shopper is ready to leave the store that they are checking as well. They are looking to see whether the employee invited the shopper to come back to the store. Every business wants return business. If they do not they do not expect to be open very long. Shoppers will also look at the cleanliness of store and store associates. You always want to have your best foot forward when it comes to customers. Of course, every company should have some type of standard when it comes to how their store and associates look. After all this is reported on and documented, they shopper will send their findings to the company for them to review.

There are many secret shopping companies out there as well as many business who need this service. Every business is unique and might need something different from the shopping company. There has to be a good relationship between the company being shopped and the company doing the shopping. If all looks and does well, the shopping company can do great things for the company who has requested their services.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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