Mystery Shopping
At Bond Security, our experienced mystery shoppers undergo periodic updating and refresher courses to stay in sync with new industry developments and procedures. They are chosen for the following attributes:
Honesty
Confidentiality
Proven Integrity
Quality Of character
Stamina
Mystery Shoppers Tools
- Digital Cameras
- Cellphones
- Notepads
- Body Cameras
Advantages Of Mystery Shopping
- Reduces your risk and liability
- Makes employees and managers more aware of the customer
- Helps you gauge your employees and their customer service skills
- Improves customer satisfaction
- Keeps your costs down with loss prevention
Benefits Of Bond Mystery Shopper?
Mystery shopping, using the loss prevention training and floor-walking experience, serves our clients in highly advantageous ways exceeding expectations far beyond anything a regular employee may be able to do when assigned to observe or watch for internal/external incidents of loss, theft, carelessness or other disruptions to your profit margins. Expecting your employees to take on these duties may place some of them in uncomfortable or even vulnerable positions when forced to report on colleagues or fellow employees with whom they may have external social interactions and established friendships.
Additional Benefits of Mystery Shopping
At Bond Security, we engage and offer experienced mystery shoppers that serve as independent auditors acting as customers in your retail setting. These “shoppers” gather information, assess your employee performance based on specific pre-defined data providing you with valuable information on your customer service and your product quality.
You may have heard of Bond Security’s next service as secret shopping. This is a research tool used to evaluate and monitor operational and behavioural performance of your business and staff. First used in the 1940s, it became an industry standard in the early 1990s.
The guidelines for their observations can include the minimum of observing customer service skills, selling skills, and how strictly employees are following your company’s chosen branding statements.
You may also want to know how an outsider sees the operational components of your retail setting such as merchandising, lighting, cleanliness, and maintenance. If you have minimum age products such as alcohol and tobacco, you may also learn if your staff are following legal requirements.
If retailers use their own employees, they will likely miss out on the objectivity our staff supply in the form of written reports empowering you to increase customer satisfaction and the quality of their shopping experience.
Our mystery shoppers’ reports can also include complete objective evaluations of your competitors and heir service delivery and selection of products for your use. At set intervals, senior officials at Bond Security compile their observations and produce an in-depth analysis for you, our client.
No longer just to assess customer viewpoint, mystery shopping offers you a consistent, observant, and trustworthy customer opinion giving you the finger on the pulse of customer satisfaction and attitudes and how your day-to-day operational approaches impact your target markets.
F.A.Q.
Mystery Shopping In Security Industry
A mystery shopper is a person who poses as a real customer whilst assessing customer service levels provided by a company or organization. A mystery shopping assignment can be a telephone call, email, letter, website survey, a face-to-face visit, a home visit – the list goes on!
Mystery Shopping Limitations
- Low Data Volume: Whilst surveys and polls have a sample size that is meaningful, mystery shopping is a one-man job, the smallest of the small samples
- Data Validity
- Singular experience
- Segmentation/ Demographics
You need the right people shopping in your stores.
- In-Store Cleanliness & Appearance Questions
- Was the parking lot generally clean?
- When you walked up to and through the store entrance, was it clean and well-maintained?
- Did you notice any worn or damaged signs in the store?
- Did you notice any areas that needed attention?
Mystery shopping has been used to objectively measure whether employees follow the visions of a company’s quality service standards. It then creates a feedback loop that allows companies to train their employees to consistently deliver quality services.
Mystery shoppers are responsible for determining the quality of products, customer service, and store environments while posing as ordinary customers. You will also be required to submit reports on your findings in a timely manner.
Not only do they help retailers assess their current situation and make positive steps to improve customer experiences, but they also motivate staff to better their performance, whilst assisting with strategic planning in the future.
The mystery shopper can analyze the process and highlight relevant changes to help improve the functionality of the experience in terms of good outcomes. Understanding structural deficiencies are another area of mystery shopping can help organizations re-design the retail or sales process.
Mystery shoppers can extract the most accurate and objective information and provide you with the experience of a real customer. With this knowledge, you can quickly identify the problem and find an appropriate solution to improve customer service.
No specific education or training is typically needed to enter this occupation. But mystery shoppers usually need good communication skills for writing evaluations and interacting with store employees.