Category: Mystery Shopping

After visiting the store, many browsing customers go online to purchase the same item rather than making the purchase in the store. Even with efforts from trained associates, selling to these customers is difficult at best. Despite this phenomenon (called showrooming), the importance of human touch in retail environments lives on. In fact, 82% of retailers in a recent survey said that the role of employees in the workforce toward building better service has become even more important over the past three years.

When you think about trends that impact food service, it’s overwhelming: Older baby boomers dine out more often; social media restaurant conversations and feedback travel instantaneously; more customers choose smaller portions or snacks outside traditional meal times; and quick serve restaurants compete with fast casuals by adding trendy ingredients. Just as managers change menus and strategies as they adjust to these new trends, they should also fine tune restaurant mystery shopping goals to measure how well they meet demands produced by these trends. 

What kind of an impact will the new health care laws have on customer dining out experiences?

As restaurants adjust to new laws on healthcare for employees who work more than 30 hours per week, managers will juggle employee schedules and budgets even more so than in the past. The restaurant industry's reliance on part time workers ensures that the industry will feel a big impact when the new law comes into play in 2014. Some restaurants, such as Darden Restaurants, whose concepts includes Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse, will reassess the number of employees who will receive health benefits within the law and determine ways to manage the increased benefits costs . Other restaurants, such as Panera, say that for now, they have no plans to adjust employee hours because of the new law. Still others worry about the ability to afford good people in order to provide good service at their restaurants.

Several restaurants are preparing now. Darden Restaurants is currently testing the limiting of staff hours at some locations. No doubt, management will evaluate

We are constantly reminded of why our quality assurance process is so valuable to our clients. Despite ever-smarter technology, there is no replacement for an actual review of a report before it’s released to our client. Spell check can’t and won’t uncover all errors!

In 2011, we posted an article highlighting some mystery shopper funnies that Confero’s team had encountered over the years. We were surprised at all the positive feedback from those who enjoyed reading them. Given its popularity, we decided to post more humorous quotes this month.

• “There were no baggers helping the cashier so I bagged myself”.
• “I ordered tuna and the server went into a drawer for it.”

In the heart of budget season, many companies agonize over where they will focus limited dollars and also how to justify spends with ROI. For example, social media ROI questions are everywhere. Organizations from retail to food service to financial services invest in Facebook and other social media, and justifiably, they want to quantify what they receive from these efforts. While there is plenty of debate about the best way to measure social media ROI, calculations for mystery shopping ROI are clear. It’s no secret that mystery shops help build and maintain momentum for your sales efforts, however companies need to dig deeper to learn the specific value returned from mystery shopping. In response to this, Confero developed a calculator to help clients determine this.

Would you like to learn more about how to calculate ROI for your telephone mystery shopping or onsite mystery shopping program? Here’s information that you need: