If you own a large retail store that is getting a sizable amount of customer complaints, but you are having trouble pinpointing who the problems are stemming from as well as when and how they are occurring, utilizing a mystery shopper agency can help you to bring in a great equalizer so that you can figure out how to make changes. A mystery shopper agency will have a professional staff that will know just how to go undercover at your establishment so that they are able to test your employees and figure out once and for all how things are falling apart within your establishment. The insights that you can gain from a mystery shopper agency will prove to be invaluable and when you feel that your business is hurting, you should call them immediately.
The top mystery shopping companies can test your staff both in person as well as on the phone and they will be happy to do either or both at your request. The trick is to not tip off your staff after you hire the mystery shopper agency that they are coming so that their interaction with your staff will be completely organic. Once the mystery shopper agency has people present in your establishment or making phone calls, your employees will never even know that they were being tested.
Sometimes, mystery shoppers will simply come into your store and ask a simple question such as whether or not there is a particular size of an item in stock to see how your employees respond. In other cases, they will purposely create a minor conflict just to see how they handle it. In either case, their purpose is to pose some sort of task to your staff members to see if they respond appropriately.
The mystery shopping team will grade your employees based on the way that they handled the interaction. Once the results are in, you will know exactly how the incident went as well as whether or not there was anything that could have been done differently or better. With this information in hand, you should be able to easily figure out the issues going on in your store and rectify them.
Even after showing improvement, you should not stop using mystery shoppers. If they continue to assess your store, then you will never fall off the wagon again. Instead, you can keep adjusting as you go.