Retailers Look to Mystery Shopping to Sharpen Their Competitive Edge

Retailers are increasingly turning to mystery shopping to give them a commercial advantage over their competitors.

Tough market conditions world-wide mean retailers are having to fight for every pound – and the standard of customer service is a vital ingredient in winning and holding on to business.

Mystery shoppers give businesses essential feedback on the performance of their staff and collect other important market related information.

Julian Chamberlain, the managing director of the Britains’ leading Mystery Shopping company, Retail Active, says there has been a dramatic increase in approaches from national and international brands looking for help in improving their levels of customer service.

Julian Chamberlain said: “More and more companies are turning to Retail Active for advice on how to improve their customer advocacy. Clearly, the importance of customer service has an increased relevance in the current market and big household names are taking it very seriously indeed.

“Good customer service can hold the key to a company’s success or even survival in these trying times.

“Our experienced mystery shoppers give rapid and accurate assessments of customer service and produce reports which can be acted upon within 48 hours.

“Understanding customers and their needs has never been more important, in a market where they hold the upper hand.”

Retail Active has major clients in the automotive, retail, leisure, food and drink and public service sectors.

Mystery Shopping Training

"I work in retail and my company realised we needed to improve our customer service and the way we were treating our customers, we just didn’t know how to go about it. I did a search on the internet and found a mystery shopping company called Retail Active.

Retail Active specialise in using customer research as the basis of their mystery shopping training. They are based in Oxfordshire in the UK and knew exactly how we could improve the way we treated and looked after our customers. In this economic climate it is more important than ever to be fully aware of what our customers were thinking. Our customer’s satisfaction is very important to us, we wanted to act on their feedback straight away to avoid losing those precious pennies and customers.

Retail Active not only offered us a Mystery Shopping Training programme, they also offered us an award winning Customer Service Training programme, where they were able to help our staff improve on their customer service skills. Within this programme they identified some minor customer service issues we had and compiled us a plan of action on how we could improve. The changes that we have seen are amazing and we are already getting comments from our customers saying that they have noticed the difference in the way our customer service has changed.

Retail Active also supplied us with customer service training games which were available at gamethingy.com. These were innovative training games that all of our staff thoroughly enjoyed. No more falling asleep in meetings and training rooms for our staff. These games transformed the way we thought and felt. With Retail Active at the end of the phone to help with any queries, we could and still can guarantee to be the best and stand out from our competitors.

This is the best business decision we have ever made, so if you are thinking about customer service training or mystery shopping training within your business, I would definitely recommend Retail Active."

For more information on Retail Active Mystery Shopping services or Retail Active Customer Service training sessions or materials, then you can call them on 01235 438413 or visit their web site at www.retailactive.com.

Repeat Customers Spend 33% More Than New Customers

A customer research company has recently published findings that suggest repeat customers spend on average 33% more than new customers. Another key result from the survey is that referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than non-customers.

The two facts combined reaffirm the long held view that operating a strategic customer retention plan is essential for business success. Developing your customer loyalty is a key part of any sales growth plan, especially as it can cost as much to gain ONE new client as to keep FIVE existing ones.

Building your customers advocacy is crucial especially when you look at the way businesses can lose customers. Incredibly 68% of customers leave because of what they perceive as indifference from the service provider. This level of indifference makes them feel unappreciated and taken for granted.

14% leave because of dissatisfaction with the current service and/or product
9% leave because of a better product/service or price
5% follow a friend's advice, these customers are passive and have been persuaded by a detractor.
3% move away from the area
1% of customers die

Retail Active the agency who compiled the survey information specialise in Mystery Shopping and Compliance Auditing.

Julian Chamberlain, Managing Director of Retail Active commented, ‘Before any company considers spending valuable time and money attracting new customers, they should consider these statistics. It is striking that even in such a tough economic climate loyal customers are still prepared to spend much more than those new to your business proposition.’

Retail Active provides research focused on delivering genuine business advantage to clients. If you would like to know more about the Mystery Shopping services they offer visit www.retailactive.com or call 01235 438413.