» Secret Shopping Sites

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

The sad truth is that at the root of a lot of anonymous shopping scams lies a shoddy secret shopping site . It is true that the internet has provided space for a number of hidden shopping companies to offer services online. But this also means that a lot of low-quality sites have emerged, as well. Thankfully, there are a few things that separate the bad shopping sites from the good ones. Knowing what they are can save you from a lot of problems.

Referrals And Recommendations

A truly good and effective business will gain much of their clients from word of mouth alone – the same applies to a good secret shopping site . This means that a good site should have a section dedicated to customer feedback and referrals. They should also be willing to give you information so you can follow up on these referrals. But of course it is not enough to simply take the company word for it – it is also important to research the company independently. There are a number of online forums and research sites where you can read a lot of feedback concerning different shopping sites and how effective they are.

Its also a good idea to have a look at the client list at a shopping site. Remember that shopping companies provide a service and their worth directly depends on how good their service is. If for example, you find that their client do not stay with them very long, it probably means their service is not that good. Long-standing clients are always a good sign - this means that the service is not only high quality but also dependable. The better the company is, the longer its clients will stick with them.

The Contacts

It is true that a shopping site makes the entire shopping experience a little easier when you are scouting out possible services. However, that does not mean that the entire process should operate on a virtual level. Like any service, it is essential for you to be in easy contact with your shopping service prior to and during your shopping assignment. You will need to sit with them and map out the kind of assignment you have in mind. If there are specifics you d like to explore, like feedback from particular customer profiles, you will need to discuss those, as well. It is best to do these discussions face to face or if necessary by telephone.

In other words, a good secret shopping site should be much more than just a website address and email ID. They should also have a physical address and phone number that are within the country. If possible, test the numbers out and see how long it takes for them to respond to your call – if they respond quickly, chances are they will be there when you need them during your shopping assignment.

Finally a good site should also be acutely aware of the implications of its findings. Negative feedback can result in employee reprimands and in some cases, dismissals. This is why it is important to work with experienced services who take their assignments seriously at all levels. Everyone, from the fact checkers to the evaluators should work in a thoroughly impartial and professional manner. When you come across an anonymous shopping service that you are happy with, try and use their services on a regular basis. By evaluating your business periodically, you will be able to ensure that your operations are working smoothly and effectively, just as they should.

Tweet This Post 

Hiring a sales savvy staff

By Tron Jordheim

Most of us would agree that it is better to have a sales savvy staff than not. Our business requires some intense customer interaction. The person at the front desk wearing your logo shirt is the reason people choose to store with you or with your competitor. When a tenant has a problem, it is your staff person’s ability to handle the problem that makes the difference.

So how do you attract sales savvy people? You have to build the culture first. A lot of lip service is paid to the whole idea of a company culture. The fact is though that every workplace has its own feel and its own unwritten rules. This is your culture. A culture revolves around language, shared stories and myths, legends of heroes, rituals and all those unwritten rules. When your culture encourages selling and the development of selling skills you have created a workplace where sales savvy people are comfortable and can excel.

Start talking the language of sales. Speak of qualifying questions, alternate choice closes, concerns and assurances, assumptive statements, closing percentages and missed opportunities. Learn the keywords and code words that help your staff keep “Sales” at the front of their minds.

Share stories and myths about selling. There is a great story about a young kid straight out of high school who went to work for a department store that sold everything you could imagine in one location. At the end of the day, the owner of the store went to check on the “new kid” and asked how many customers the new hire had helped in his first day. The owner was shocked and dismayed to hear that the kid had only helped one customer that day. The owner asked the kid to explain. He told how he had offered a man a fishing hook, only to find that the man had no rod, no reel and no tackle. After getting all the fishing gear picked out, the kid found that the man had no fishing boots or outdoor clothes. After helping the man find the right boots, pants, jacket and hat, the man realized he had no boat. So the kid took his customer to the boat department and helped him select a boat and an appropriate trailer. When the man mentioned he would have trouble hauling the boat with his Volkswagen, the young sales clerk took the customer to the truck department and helped him pick out a new pickup truck with not only a towing package , but also with a CD and DVD player. Finally at 4:45 in the afternoon, the customer who had been with the young salesman since 10:30 am had everything he could possibly need for a weekend of fishing. The owner of the store was amazed. He asked, “You sold all this merchandise to a man who came in to buy a fishing hook?” The kid replied, “Well actually I started the day in the pharmacy and the customer asked me where the tampons were. I took him to them and happened to say, ‘Looks like it a good weekend to go fishing’”

There are all kinds of fun stories about sales people. There are some great cartoons, too. Have you ever seen the Far Side cartoon featuring the King of Salesmen? He is waving good-bye from a boat as he pulls away from a shore-side Eskimo village. The Eskimos are standing proudly by their new refrigerators waving back. You can tell their fondness for the salesman in the sad expression on their faces.

There are sales stories like the Rule of Thirds that says one group of potential renters will rent from you anyway, as long as you don’t chase them off, because they already like your location or they know someone who has rented from you. Your job is to not talk yourself out of this sale. Another group isn’t going to rent no matter what because their needs will change or their needs are too far in the future. If you are nice to these folks, they will remember you when it is time to rent. Then there is a large group, the third group, which could go either way. These are the people you need to use your best sales and listening skills with.

Talk about the legends of great sales feats that have happened in your business. You can talk about the time one of your staff had a record rental day. Talk bout the funny and different ways your staff has asked for the rental and gotten it. At PhoneSmart, we still talk about the day that one of our reps, Dana, reserved 7 10x 20s for one caller. We still try to beat Paula’s eight hour record of 23 credit card reservations.

You can establish rituals, like the manner in which you make notes on your call logs, the way you stand up to greet a customer walking through your front door, the way you turn the lease toward new tenants, so they can see where to initial and sign. Look at the things you do in your selling routine and allow some of these to become your rituals.

Then there are the unwritten rules. The rule that you end no rental inquiry without asking which day the person would like to move in; the rule that says, no eating at the front counter; the rule that says look everyone in the eye when you greet them. You probably have many rules that work in selling your facility to new tenants and re-selling your facility to current tenants. Let everyone know what the rules are so they can use them.

Now that you have created a selling culture, go about attracting people who are sales savvy. Start with some qualifying hoops. We hire telesales reps at PhoneSmart. The first hoop a potential new hire jumps through is the recorded audition. When someone calls the “Employment hotline” they are invited to talk about themselves and their experience on a voicemail message. We listen to the messages and only call back the people who sound great on the phone, use visuals in their story and sell themselves well. You can do the same thing. Many people call your stores before they come to see it. Your telephone impression is essential to getting the rental. Why not hire only people who sound great on the phone?

How do you get people to inquire about your positions? What do you call your positions? Do you look for managers, sales assistants, marketing reps, retail sale people? Think this issue before advertising or promoting an opening. You will generally get what you ask for in an ad.

Why not secret shop any potential new hires? Do a telephone interview with them if they pass your recorded audition. If you like how the person deals with you on the phone and sells himself on the phone, find out where he is currently employed. Wait a day and call his place of work and secret shop the person. Pretend to be a prospective or current customer of that business and see how you are treated. This will tell you a lot. Did your potential hire ask for your business, try to fix your problem, attempt to cross-sell or up-sell?

When you call your potential hire in for a personal interview, create a test that will weed out the “wrong” people for the job. It can be frustrating when a person interviews very well and then turns out to be totally wrong for the position. I hired someone for a PhoneSmart position with a good resume and appropriate work history who interviewed very well. As soon as the other team members found out I hired this person, I had several of them ask me if I was nuts. Apparently this person had been rude and even somewhat hostile to three or four people while waiting in the break room for me to start the interview. So now we do “The break room test “. We intentionally leave a person waiting for the interview in the break room for five or ten minutes. We have a team member pass through and say “hello” on the way through to see the person’s reaction. Then another team member comes in and apologizes that the interviewer will be right there and says sorry about the wait. If the person does not have a natural, friendly reply for the person saying hello, and if the person is not cordial and patient when asked to wait a little longer, that is a short interview and a “No hire”. I honestly believe that this break room test has almost entirely eliminated unsuitable people and has cut our turnover in initial trainees dramatically. Create your own version of this “Break room test”. You will be very pleased with the result.

Another great t

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

Welcome to the secret shopping blog, our diary of the secret shopping and mystery shopping fields.

What do you do for specific problems? Make specific scripts and demand specific responses.

One problem that comes up often when secret shopping self storage facilities is that the person answering the phone can make an uninformed assumption and think that when the first question a caller asks is “Do you have a truck to rent?” , that the truck is all the caller needs.

Many times a self storage customer is lost, because the person answering the phone forgets to ask, “Will you need a storage unit, too?”

So write up a script on the specific issues:

For example…

Caller: “Do you have any trucks for rent?”
You: “Are you looking for storage too, or did you just need to rent the truck?”
Caller: “Both.”
You: “O.k. great, I can certainly help you… Let me ask you a couple of questions first… How soon do you need them?”

Then have your staff practice it verbatim until you can ask them “Do you have trucks for rent” in their sleep, and they answer “Are you looking for storage too, or did you just need to rent the truck?”

Then they can start to phrase the clarifying question in their own words and in their own voice.

The last step is to secret shop leading with the question to see if the training sticks. If so, give some recognition and come back and test on it again soon. If the training doesn’t stick, go back and train it again.

Bye for now, Tron

Tweet This Post 

Warning: gzinflate() [function.gzinflate]: data error in /home/secretsh/public_html/wp-includes/http.php on line 1787

Welcome to the secret shopping blog, where we keep a diary of our experience in the world of secret shopping and mystery shopping.

A few pink slips flew today. Luckily, I was not on the receiving end. Business as a whole has been steady, but mostly work has been down a little. It didn’t feel like we were working as a team. It seems to me that we are making an effort to consolidate our work force. Instead of many people having a little slice of pie (aka work), we will now try less people with bigger slices. In theory it should work out just fine.

We were faced with less people available to work a couple of months ago. At that time our Secret Shopping Department ran on about 1 to 1.5 people as compared to the 3 that we have now. (myself being one) It was tough, but the other departments were patient and very helpful during this time. I was relatively new and just plugged along with the work that I knew how to do. For the other things I didn’t know how to do, I picked up the phone and dialed a co-worker/new mom for help. She even cut her maternity leave way short to compensate for our other lost co-worker. It all worked out, the month came to an end and I was just about one week behind. But when the whole situation was finished, it let our director see that the department really ran pretty well on fewer people. Less people = less overhead.

Again we are down one body, but now it is a good thing. We are poised and ready for action. It was time for a change not only of personnel, but of day to day operations. Some things will be revamped, other things merged and even more things streamlined. Sort of like a spring cleaning but in the summer. And the thing about spring cleaning is that you hate to do it, but when it is done everything looks and smells so much nicer.

I’ll keep you updated on the results of our right-sizing, so stay tuned.

Thanks,

Natalie

“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
Paul Valery

Tweet This Post