Performance in People Report Surge in Demand for Mystery Shopping in Retail Sector

Performance in People, www.performanceinpeople.co.uk, is one of the UK’s leading specialists at measuring and improving customer service that drive increased sales and performance within the retail sector. Performance in People specialise in video mystery shopping, where an assessor (posing as a prospective customer) enters a shop wearing a hidden video camera and captures the complete customer journey on DVD (with accompanying report). The entire interaction is then used to identify opportunities to improve the customer experience and maximise sales techniques. Performance in People are reporting an extraordinary increase in demand for this kind of mystery shopping service.

Performance in People’s Video Mystery Shopping service has highlighted that in Retail staff, performance increases by up to 23% on higher footfall days such as Saturdays and Sundays. Assumptions have always been that performance should be lower when staff are very busy. In fact evidence proves that staff are more productive and more effective at delivering better customer service and a more structured sales process. Statistics gained from Video Mystery Shopping have also shown that an individual is far more likely to get a better customer service experience from a female sales assistant as opposed to a male sales assistant. This is particularly true if the female sales assistant is aged between 30 and 40. Recent statistics have shown that within the Retail sector this profile of sales assistance consistently delivers up to 17% better performance than that of other staff profiles.

Mike Dalloz, Managing Director, Performance in People:

“Statistics show that it costs ten times more money to gain a new customer compared to the cost of retaining an old one. This cost is compounded by the fact that one unhappy customer will tell five others about their bad service. Retailers lose 69% of their customers due to poor customer service. The Mystery Shopping Service that we provide has proved so effective that in some cases it has led to an increase of 5.3% in sales”.

Worldwide, mystery shopping is an industry worth over $1.5 billion *. This is not surprising considering that the customer experience is linked to direct sales. With just 7% of human communication conveyed by the words used, 38% by how those words are said and 55% by body language, video mystery shopping is the core element in monitoring, measuring and evaluating these experiences against prescribed standards or promises. By using the video mystery shopping material it allows staff to review their own performance and that of their colleagues, therefore allowing stores to create a much deeper recognition and understanding of customer service performance and create sustainable changes in staff behavior.

Mike Dalloz, Managing Director, Performance in People:

“Competition on the high street is more intense than ever. The customer’s shopping experience is crucial, from the moment they walk over the premise threshold. Mystery shopping will record how shoppers interact with the environment, displays, goods, staff, payment processes, every single detail. We do urge retailers to place primary focus on the experience of their customers. This is what will result in sales, repeat purchases and profit”.

The retail sector today consists of higher consumer expectations, greater regulatory requirements and increased competition between retailers. Performance in People understand that having the opportunity to see and hear the experiences of customers is a powerful way to recognise areas for improving sales and customer service delivery.

Performance in People work in partnership with a number of high profile clients across the retail sector, including Carphone Warehouse, French Connection, Bang & Olufsen, Adidas and Sunglasses Hut.

As well as the mystery shopping service, Performance in People provides a complete solutions package including needs analyses, in-house training and development, business coaching, consultancy services, customer research, audit, assessments and certification review and corporate video production.

Notes to Editor:

* Statistics gained from Mystery Shopping Providers Association


** Case Study for B&Q:

When B&Q wanted to test the product knowledge of their in-store staff they turned to Performance in People. The project soon expanded to embrace customer service issues and an innovative approach to staff training.

Nick Taylor from B&Q had the following to say:

Q. “What did you want to achieve through mystery shopping?”

A. Nick Taylor – Initially we were looking to understand how effective one of our training programmes had been around product knowledge. Mystery Shopping affirmed that there was a need to do something about product knowledge within B&Q, but it was also very evident that there was something else that needed to be done - and that was related to basic customer service skills.

Q. “What barriers did you face introducing visual mystery shopping?”

A. Nick Taylor - The barriers we faced were on two levels: one of legality i.e. "Can we do this?" and the other barrier was around ethics. Within B&Q we have a set of values and one of those values is "respect for people". Some elements of the business were concerned about how it would affect the ethics.

Q. “What did you want to achieve from the training process?”

A. Nick Taylor - We wanted to make a discernible improvement in customer service; we wanted to improve confidence and knowledge and skill; and we wanted to have a hit on our key performance indicators - particularly sales. That was an important measure for us against a control group.

Q. “What barriers did you face in developing and delivering the training programme?”

A. Nick Taylor - The key barrier that we faced was that we have a population of 28,000 employees. Although a lot of this training was about knowledge, it was also about skill. It was about demonstrating the skills and getting the individual to practice it. The barrier, of course, was how do you do that across 28,000 people?

Q. “How did you overcome this barrier?”

A. Nick Taylor - Together with Performance in People we designed a training programme that was led by our own people. We selected a number of potential 'trainers' from our estate and we then put them through an intense 3 day train-the-trainer programme so that they were armed with the knowledge and the skills, not only in delivering the content of the training, but also becoming proficient trainers in doing that.

Q. “How did you use the visual mystery shopping to enhance the training?”

A. Nick Taylor - We used it on the training programme. The training programme was delivered across 3 modules. For each module we had a tape of excerpts from actual customer interactions that related to the content of that module.

Q. “What impact has the training had?”

A. Nick Taylor - We piloted the training across 2 areas and the results were startling. In terms of what difference it made with the customer - we saw this visually on the tape. We did an exercise of pre-training mystery shopping and we did mystery shopping post-training. There was a discernible difference. It felt different and it looked different. We also used our Customer Service Index measure, which is a Gallup exit poll, and there was a dramatic improvement in the Index. The Index rose 4.7 points against a control group that rose 2.0 points - so we had a 2.7 point differentiation.
In terms of our staff, we know there was a dramatic improvement in the level of their confidence. Having had the knowledge and the skills training, their confidence has increased significantly. We also had a significant increase in movement of sales in the trial stores against the control group. The movement was 5.3% of sales from the beginning of the trial to the end of the trial when measured against the control group.

Q. “What general comments do you have regarding Performance in People?”

A. Nick Taylor - We've had a great partnership with Performance in People, and hopefully a long-term partnership. Performance in People has a very professional approach that clearly fits in with B&Q values. We have engendered between us a partnership that is driven by a level of understanding of our need, the problems that we've had, and together we have found appropriate solutions.