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Test Purchase and Mystery Shoppers
Test Purchase or Mystery Shopper activity can have a tremendous impact on both loss prevention and also the whole culture of service within a retail organisation.
A supermarket chain was very concerned about poor engagement with customers. Staff were not engaged, and their customer dealings were often seen as rudeness. The store chain dealt with this by setting a standard of 5 rules of customer engagement, which - if everyone followed them -would transform customer service. They then embarked on a mystery shopper program of 3 tests per month in every retail outlet. If all test 3 met the standard, every employee in the store received a £100 bonus, plus the store gained a place in the "Semi Final". If the Semi Finalists got 100% at the next test, all staff got £500, through to the final where all winning staff recieved £1000.
By this time, customer service behavior had become world class, and sales had risen very quickly by the same percentage that complaints had fallen.
Customer Service went from very poor to world class for a low reward investment and Test Purchase partnerships. The supermarket chain saw market value increase driven by their "Customer Satisfaction Audits".
A chain of builders merchants were concerned that there was a high level of collusion and sweethearting with tradesmen. Mystery Shoppers integrity tested staff by offering inducements to obtain free stock. Clearly no criminal prosecutions could take place, but high risk indivuals were identified and dealt with.
The strategy was combined with a relaunch of a whistleblowing policy, backed with rewards for reporting attempted bribes.
By month 5, nearly 100% of tests were reported to the hotline. More importantly, the LP department were made aware of numerous customers who regularly tried to "bung" staff in return for free stock.
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