Mystery Shopping

Client Challenge:

The client's customer appeal is based on trust in the brand, conveniently located stores and broad customer choice. Excellent customer service and advice is one of the key Retail Levers the client uses to implement strategy. The challenge was to identify and understand those steps in the customer service process where brand promises can be delivered directly and where customer Value Equity can be enhanced.

Research Approach:

GfK Mystery Shopping analyzed how the client's various Retail Levers impact the shopping experiences of each of the target segments to explore how different service processes and service staff behaviors could contribute to building value equity.

A mystery shopping program was designed to deliver the following specific business benefits.

• Identification of staff training needs
• Tracking of specific in-store sales initiatives
• Identification of service process improvements
• Increases in service differential versus competitors
• Increase in staff motivation
• Increases in customer retention and advocacy

A mystery shopping research team created a range of scenarios that mystery shoppers could enact to assess service performance during physical store visits and at key trading periods. Assessor profiles were tailored to mirror both client and competitor customer profiles in terms of demographics, work/lifestyles and differentiating attributes.

Questionnaire design was based on customer research, which revealed a range of different "shopper journeys" that customers undertake according to needs and situational demands. Assessment scores were weighted based on the importance rankings given by customers to different aspects of the service process.

Because the findings of the mystery shopping program were used in management's balanced scorecard and in staff bonus calculations, the accuracy and reliability of findings were of paramount importance. GfK NOP's procedures for assessor training and its best in class fieldwork ensured that all of the client's KPI's were met.

Outcome:

Based on the service process knowledge available from its specialist staff, GfK Mystery Shopping was able to identify opportunities to improve both relative and absolute performance in the customer service process. Our flexible reporting systems enabled a suite of reports to be published, each targeted at the specific information needs of individual readers, thereby ensuring that information about required actions was cascaded throughout the organization. Of special importance was the finding that, although client staff were aware of customers around them, this awareness was not being translated into proactive sales-oriented behaviors. Further analysis revealed that staff were generally reluctant to engage with customers and that this impacted the take-up of opportunities to link-sell.