3rd February 2021, San Jose: (wooqer.com/) The technology of online shopping has taken the world by a storm. Almost every retail business now has its digital counterpart. This allows the business to increase its reach and also diversify its operations. Although online shopping stories might seem attractive, they can never truly replace brick and mortar shops. There were brick and mortar shops even when the first civilizations were laid and even now in the 21st century we live in. They have their own importance, which can never be substituted by anything else in its entirety.

So if you own a retail business, it is highly likely that you have a brick and mortar shop as well. This shop is the place where your customers meet the employees face to face. Customer service is a crucial part of physical shopping stores. They can make or break a deal instantly. If the importance of physical shopping stores is so high, it should always be that there are certain tactics used to maintain the desired level of efficiency and quality standard in the retail business. This smart strategy is known as mystery audit.

What is mystery shopping?

To put it simple, mystery shopping is a method by which retail business winners get to know the real picture of their everyday business operations. By hiring professional individuals to go undercover and disguise as a regular customer, the mystery audit service is trying to gather information on the real scenario of the business. How the customers are treated, what is the current status of the inventory, what is the overall ambiance in the store, etc. are some basic questions that mystery audit would help you answer.

What are the benefits of a mystery shopping audit?

The best mystery shopper audit for retail business would help you get a number of benefits such as:

Improve customer service
Retail businesses are all about customer service. The product or service you are selling is being sold by a dozen other sellers as well in the same market. The customers have many options at hand and many other sellers eager to sell their products as well. This is the prime reason why you need to attract your customers. Customer service is the key to maintain that attraction. Although customer service in itself is a vast topic, the bottom line would always be to ensure your good experience for the customers. It can be answered by this question - "Do your customers want to come back to your store after a purchase?" Getting to know the status of customer service in a retail business can really help the business owner to make essential improvements.

Identify problematic behaviour
Retail businesses involve a lot of humans. From the gateman to the sales desk, every position has a human employee. The behaviour and attitude of all these human employees need to be checked as well. Yes, it is true that human behaviour is dynamic and needs to adapt quickly. But even a glimpse of the everyday behaviour of the employees at the store can give you an idea of what goes on. With the help of mystery shoppers, you can find out problematic behaviours and attitudes that need to be corrected. The customers should feel welcomed and well assisted at all times. If the employees are failing to do so and making the customers uncomfortable or dissatisfied, then there certainly needs to be some changes. Change is the only constant in such a dynamic environment. Your employees should be aware that customer satisfaction should take top priority in accordance with the company's policies.

Increase accountability
If you conduct a mystery shopping audit on a regular basis, then your employees would be well aware that they are accountable for all their interactions. Sometimes it is important to have some tension in the workplace. This positive stress would help them stay on track with their responsibilities and commitment to their duties. No customer should be mistreated. If it takes the fear of mystery shoppers to create some accountability, then be it. Discipline is very important in any organization. Every employee should be aware of the consequences they would face in case of misconduct or lapse of judgement.

Helps identify hard workers
As much as it is important to maintain discipline and accountability in the workplace, it is also important to identify the hard workers in your workforce. Appreciation should be made where it is due. Your employees should feel that they are rewarded for the efforts they are making. If an employee is giving their best despite challenging circumstances, then they should be appropriately rewarded as well. Mystery shopping audits would help you identify those hard workers. When these hard workers get rewarded for their efforts and contribution to the organization, they would feel more motivated to perform better. This creates a positive environment in the workplace and motivates others to work better as well.

In conclusion, mystery shopping audits have a lot of benefits to offer. If applied in the right way, it can help businesses identify the opportunities they can use to grow themselves rapidly. Identifying problems and issues lying within your business operations would help you minimize your losses and improve your reputation in the market. People want to work with a business that is ready to accept its mistakes and work in the direction of resolution of the same. Your commitment to progress would be a testament to success.

About the company: (wooqer.com/) Wooqer is a California-based technological solutions software company that aims to support all scales of businesses with reliable and dynamically customized applications and software. These apps are aimed at digitizing the specific procedures and operations of the organizations.