In-store marketing: High street puts faith in mystery shopping

retailers and brands need to take advantage of this trend and grasp the
internet with both hands, they must also work towards keeping shoppers
on the high street.

One of the most powerful ways to do this is customer service. Department
store John Lewis has invested substantially in its online offer, yet it
says its customers keep coming back to the stores because of top-notch
customer service. Jeremy Collins, development director at John Lewis,
says online shoppers spend more in its stores than non-online shoppers
and that three out of four customers will research items online before
buying them in store.

Active service

Retailers can ensure customer service is up to scratch via staff
training and the use of mystery shoppers. New Look recruited agency
Grass Roots before Christmas to carry out a wide-ranging mystery
shopping report. The fashion brand's trading director Will Kernan
believes customer service is essential. "Even in a business like ours
where there is a quick turnaround, customer service should be paramount.
That way we can deliver growth both in the high street and online," he
says.

Grass Roots director of measurement services Nigel Cover sees mystery
shopping as taking a journey in the customer's shoes. "Retailers need to
look at the store environment, merchandise and staff with fresh eyes and
brands need to assess how they should fit in with that retailer," he
says.

Retailers and brands can't be complacent. Grass Roots' Are You Being
Served report, found that more than a quarter of mystery shoppers have
such a bad experience that they would not recommend the store to family
or friends. It said knowledge levels have fallen dramatically since the
survey was carried out ten years earlier. "As soon as a customer finds a
member of staff that has less knowledge than they do, they don't trust
them," says Cover.

Knowledge is essential for brands as well as retailers. Retail Eyes
account director Jeremy Michael says brands often employ mystery
shopping research to find out how products are positioned, sold and
promoted in stores. "We've worked for brands such as Cadbury and Nestle
when they wanted to find out how their Easter Eggs were positioned in
relation to the competition in Woolworths," he says. "A mystery shopper
is sent in to several stores and then the next day the data can be live
online for the brand and retailer to check."

Mike Dalloz, managing director of Performance in People, which
specialises in mystery shopping, says the sector is growing about 20 per
cent a year and brands have a lot to do with this. "The immediacy with
which a mystery shopper report can be fed back means brands can get
involved more easily," he says. "Previously, data used to be supplied in
written reports that took as long as six weeks. That isn't any use to a
brand that has, for example, a six-week promotion running in
stores."

With immediate effect

Nowadays, most mystery shoppers report back within eight hours of a
visit and the data is then live online the next day. In the case of
video mystery shopping, this can be placed on to a DVD for the client.
The data can be broken down to individual stores so targeted action can
be taken immediately. If the situation is more critical, retailers can
ask for store managers to be emailed or sent text triggers for action to
be taken.

Gap Buster market development manager Steve Raher says immediate access
to data means brands are now as aware as retailers of the value of
mystery shopping. "Brands can spend millions of pounds on advertising,
marketing and promotions, but if the product is not positioned and sold
correctly in stores, then all of this money is wasted," he says. "It's
literally the last five feet of the campaign that matter the most, the
bit where customers part with their cash."

Brands can use mystery shopping to investigate all parts of a promotion.
Researchers can find out if a brand's POS material is correctly
presented, if the product has the right amount of visibility, and if
sales staff are offering the product to customers who have come to the
shop to buy something else.

"All channels are expected to work together for a promotion and often
brands will have contracts with the retailers about how any promotion
they run will be presented in store," says Raher.

Retail Eyes' Michael says brands can also offer retail staff incentives
to push their products during promotional periods. He points to clothing
brand West Beach, which last year launched a range in several outdoor
clothing retailers. "The brand obviously wanted staff to recommend its
clothing so gave them all the chance to be entered into a prize draw to
win a holiday if they achieved enough sales and we ran a mystery shopper
campaign to find out how it was working," says Michael.

Mix and match

Agencies and retailers insist that any mystery shopping campaign should
fit in with the retailer's staff training programme. Performance in
People's Dalloz says mystery shopping research should be seen as an
opportunity to create change but should be aligned with the retailer or
brand standard. "Many retailers will have different standards. New Look
and H&M, for example, have a self-select approach and let customers come
to them whereas rivals Gap and French Connection have an assisted sales
technique," he says.

Electricals retailer Comet used market research to find out how its
customers wanted its staff to behave and developed a code of behaviour.
This was followed up with mystery shopping in stores at least twice a
month. Comet Group managing director Simon Fox says: "By understanding
customers' emotions and expectations at each moment, we came up with a
set of actions for each point."

Retail Eyes' Michael believes pulling mystery shopping into a staff
training programme can be done by way of incentives and rewards. "Nobody
likes to be told they are doing something wrong but if they are shown
that a certain type of behaviour will be rewarded then they are likely
to react better to it," he says. "And programmes shouldn't be called
mystery shoppers as it puts staff on edge. It's much better if they are
part of a large programme." Sandwich chain Subway ran a Champions of
Freshness campaign that included mystery shopping with marketing
material used in each store. Rewards can also be offered such as
vouchers, team nights out, or weekend breaks.

Customers are now much more savvy, so companies must be the same. And
with mystery shopping combined with effective staff training, brands and
retailers can better serve their customers. That way, everyone wins.

ON CAMERA: VIDEO MYSTERY SHOPPING

Video mystery shopping is the latest way to show clients exactly how
staff behave in their stores. By using a camera, which is strapped to
the chest of the mystery shopper, a structured review process allows
customer-facing staff to review their own performance and that of their
colleagues.

Each experience is fed back to clients on DVD, together with an
evaluated report of each visit. The recording includes the appearance of
each outlet, the facial expressions, gestures, speech and body language
of staff as well as their conduct, attitude and behaviour.

"Video mystery shopping provides much more accurate information because
clients and the staff themselves can actually see their conduct," says
Mike Dalloz, managing director of Performance in People.

And Dalloz insists that the retailers and brands that commission the
studies have to ensure a coaching environment is created for the staff.
"You have to make sure that video mystery shopping is part of the
training regime as often staff can't remember exactly how they performed
on a certain day," he says. "The video should be used in a positive way,
rather than as an example of how not to behave," he explains. "But if
used properly, video mystery shopping is accurate and can be very
powerful."