Shiftsmart’s Modern Mystery Shopping Program

Businesses and their customers have witnessed together how retail and dining experiences have been redefined in the last year because of the pandemic. And thanks to technology, it’s a buyer’s market and consumers can make purchases and get instant gratification whether it’s from home, on the phone, online or in-person. Each of these touch points make up an omnichannel customer experience that can make or break a business. 

The retail and restaurant industries have been hit the hardest the past year and as consumers return with dollars in hand, brands need to deliver a high quality, consistent, and complete experience to their customers. No matter where customers interact, businesses should be prepared to deliver an omnichannel experience that is seamless for its current and future customers.
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Game Changer for Retail & Restaurant Industries

Shiftsmart’s partner network of over 400,000+ people in 50 countries can be trained and deployed as auditors and mystery shoppers across any channel, in-person, on the phone or over the web. With our help, you can ensure your restaurant and retail businesses receive the research and data to maintain your standards and maximize your customer experience across all channels. From running compliance audits on branded locations to gaining visibility into third-party sales tactics, assessing a digital buying experience to calculate order accuracy at a restaurant, Shiftsmart gives you the information and visibility you need to make informed, data-driven decisions.

Modern Mystery Shopping

Shiftsmart worked with a century-old Fortune 500 Apparel & Retail Company to help the brand assess the efficacy of an innovative new approach to their store front. This new "Next Generation" concept was designed to have seamless technology integration and helpful expert stylists on-site to support customers through their process. The brand aimed to transform their customer journey into a one-of-a-kind experience.

Shiftsmart worked closely with the client to understand the training that had been previously provided to stylists. Based on the feedback, Shiftsmart then created a Modern Mystery Shopping Study that established a questionnaire and shopper interaction that would help the retail company meet its goal to understand the overall store environment and customer experience.

Get Immediate Results with Mystery Shoppers 

Shiftsmart selected mystery shoppers from our network of over 400,000+ workers to represent a diverse group of auditors. To better understand the customer experience and assess the efficacy of the training stylists received, Shiftsmart recruited a diverse group of auditors based on a range of ages, styles, and clothing sizes to ensure the data captured a representative sample of the in-store experience.

The pool of mystery shoppers were trained across five highly custom scenarios to go into the retail store to perform audits to determine if management and staff were following directives in relation to customer service protocols. The scenarios spanned across multiple different stages of the customer journey, including the in-store interaction, try-on experience, use of the mobile app and purchasing process.

After going through each of the specific scenarios, the mystery shopper submitted information using the Shiftsmart app, which included high resolution photographs of the experience. With the client's permission, shoppers recorded associate conversations to help identify specific opportunities for training and better qualitative benefits to the overall results.

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Results 

With Shiftsmart mystery shopping, you get unparalleled visibility into the customer experience at the individual and aggregate levels so you can continuously optimize your operations. The Modern Mystery Shopping data offered four key takeaways for the retail company to improve their sales, customer experiences and sales associates training. 

• We learned that there was an opportunity to deploy training around the qualifying questions asked by stylists - which drive better customer outcomes but were being missed in 1 in 3 visits
• Customers who find their fit are more likely to make a purchase - but four out of ten stylists did not ask customers about their product fit preference during the try on process
• The brand unlocks significant long term customer value by enrolling customers into their advocacy program - however, in-store sign-up rates lagged due to the fact that stylists asked customers if they were part of the member program in less than 30% of the shops

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‍Mystery Shopping Results Drive Operational Improvements and Top Line Performance

In 2020, this Fortune 500 Apparel & Retail Company built a foundation that focused on customer experience and stylist training efficacy with mystery shoppers. Since then, Shiftsmart has built a roadmap for 2021 to expand the brand’s PoV from in-store experience to the broader customer journey so that every customer has high quality and consistent service.  

In 2021, Shiftsmart will continue to measure the efficacy of newly introduced training and will better understand the customer experience and the impact of the training that stylists received at other stores. Shiftsmart will also be able to expand customer insights with a study on specific store products to identify their omnichannel preferences when shopping.

Give every customer the same level of quality, service and maintain the brand standards they expect with Shiftsmart Mystery Shopping Programs. Shiftsmart mystery shoppers can deliver fast  insights  with the power of the modern workforce. Visit www.shiftsmart.com or email info@shiftsmart.com to learn more about our mystery shopping programs.