Mystery Shopping and Customer Experience Research Case Studies

Trend Spotting: Integrate District Manager Reports and Mystery Shop Data

A quick service restaurant chain needed to mystery shop to regularly assess customer service, cleanliness and food quality. In addition, the firm’s own district managers were auditing individual units during routine visits. Back at company headquarters, an administrative staff was responsible for compiling the information from the district manager’s reports. Then, with the data compiled, results from mystery shops were compared with results from district manager audits. Confero presented a solution in which the district manager reports were entered directly into Confero’s COMPASS system. This allowed quicker capture of the information and quicker distribution of it. In addition, it allowed for direct comparisons on the mystery shop results alongside the district and eliminated the need for administrative data entry. The quicker responses produced enhanced analysis and allowed the chain to see that district managers rarely reported visits to units at less than 80% for audit results. The reason? Audits scores of less than 80% required remediation visits within 3 business days. The chain was able to change its approach to audit requirements and information as a result of this program.

Revenue Generation via Upselling

A nationwide quick service restaurant chain, along with its beverage provider, partnered to conduct a drive thru promotional campaign. The beverage provider was interested in increasing fountain sales, but also in having the beverage fill evaluated by the mystery shoppers. The restaurant chain was interested in drive thru service times and key customer service behaviors. Confero worked with both companies to develop a nationwide on-the-spot rewards mystery shopping program. Employees were rewarded for meeting specific criteria at specific customer touch points, such as greeting and thanking customers. Following the shop visit, the beverage fill was measured and then reported along with the mystery shop results. As a result of this promotional mystery shopping partnership program, fountain sales volume increased, suggestive selling improved by 36% and both companies received the cup size and fill information needed to make sizing decisions for the future.

Menu Test Marketing

Confero was approached by a national advertising and promotion firm, which represented a foodservice chain. The chain was preparing to roll out new menu items and was conducting tests in two markets. The success of the test would determine a possible national roll out and senior management was concerned that employees did not understand the new items and would not mention them. Confero devised a mystery shopping contest to educate and encourage employees at the test units to suggestively sell the test items. Confero mystery shoppers tested for suggestive selling of the product, along with auditing the placement of the point of purchase materials featuring the new product. Sales of the test product improved which allowed the chain to achieve a sufficient sample size for the menu test. The product was successful and rolled out nationally, on time.

Cross Selling and Referrals: Bank Branches

A regional bank with 300+ branches was interested in ways to get their tellers to focus on referring customers to the platform for additional product opportunities. However, they were concerned about how to roll out the training. They were also concerned about introducing another criteria to their mystery shops and how that new criteria might impact the mystery shop scores going forward. Confero assisted the client with developing a training rollout schedule for training branch associates. Survey questions were designed to capture the information without having an impact on the branch mystery shop score during the training phase. In the first year alone, one district had over 30% of their tellers offering additional product suggestions to customers.

Head to Head Competitive Shop Analysis: Brokerage Services

A national online brokerage firm was interested in comparing their hold times, servicing and selling skills with a group of their competitors. The client had specific criteria to apply consistently to all firms in the study, so that appropriate comparisons could be made. The client also wanted the study to be strictly confidential so that no shoppers would even know which company had commissioned the study. Confero designed the study in such a way that shoppers did not know which firm was being shopped. In just the first phase of the program, Confero shopper reports indicated significant factors that inhibited the client’s target customers from locating the client’s website, brick and mortar locations and contact information.