As Christmas approaches, mystery shopping fever has taken hold of retailers up and down the country. Customer service advisors and managers alike have been swept up in the drama, as retailers race to ensure their shop is ready for auditors who could visit their premises at any time.
Mystery shopping is not a new concept, but it remains unknown to many outside of the industry. The process involves an unannounced visit to a public-facing business, to judge interactions between employees and consumers. This includes assessment of straightforward tasks such as serving consumers and dealing with enquiries. It also takes into account aesthetic concerns such as a shop floor’s layout and whether design features meet safety regulations, and also the availability of stock and staff on the premises.
As we’re sure you can imagine, mystery shopping drastically increases during the Christmas period, when retailers are already under a lot of stress to perform.
However, this is not a cruel trick – rather, a valuable service. Mystery shopping allows business owners to keep their employees in check, and survey the running of a shop floor on a ‘normal’ day without fear of compromise.
It’s a well valued assessment that can help to expose multiple issues within the work place.
How we can help with mystery shopping
Mystery shopping is just one of the many services we offer at Starlight Investigations, as part of our Other Services package. We will select and deploy a mystery shopping team to your premises, to judge the responsiveness of your staff. Our team will then create a comprehensive report, ready to produce within days of the audit being held.
To find out more about mystery shopping and our other services, visit this page.