Introduction
An undercover customer experience campaign was conducted on 14 businesses in a local shopping centre. Three varying sectors were evaluated. – retail, food, and service.
Challenge
The client of the centre needed to identify if there were problems that could be affecting sales of these businesses. They felt that gaining insight on the kind of experiences received by customers visiting those specific businesses in the centre would help them identify if there were any issues
Solution
The businesses in each sector, were assessed for:
1) site presentation,
2) team performance,
3) selling skills and product knowledge
4) closing skills
5) good farewell approach
Benefit
1) Site presentation –
All businesses excelled well over 80% in this category
2) Greeting –
12 businesses in this centre excelled over 60% with the remaining two businesses achieving 51% and 40% in this category
3) Team performance –
8 businesses scored over 60% with 3 falling in the 90% bracket. 6 of the businesses achieved under 60% with two reaching 15% and 10% in team performance
4) Farewell –
6 businesses achieved over 60% with 8 scoring 50% and under. Out of the 8, 2 achieved a scoring of 50%, 4 in the 30% and 2 achieved a 0% scoring
5) Overall service performance
9 businesses achieved over 60% in overall service performance with one reaching 89%. The rest were in the 50% bracket with two scoring 30%
Result
Identified that 12 of the businesses evaluated scored from 60% onwards in their overall performance in all categories, with 2 falling below 50%.
Issues identified was that the booking process had to improved and if it was a cash only businesses, customers had to know prior to taking on the service. The factors in the Greeting category, for some, was an issue. Team members were not determining what their customer wanted, therefore were not able to show them the correct products. Not one team member in all the businesses assessed “asked” their customers for the business. Some farewelled their customers poorly or not at all Potential effect of issues identified Possible loss of business, missed sales, customers not returning all leading to a decline in sales
Recommendations were given for these businesses to undertake training in targeted areas to improve this situation.