A Valentine for Your Customers

As a tool, mystery shopping helps target specific areas of concern, such as cleanliness, merchandising, and overall staff efficiency. These are some of the most important components of brand identity, after all, and are essential for helping a business stand out among its industry peers. Otherwise, your business is doomed…
VIEW FULL POST

The Mutual Benefit of Mystery Shopping

As you consider implementing mystery shopping to develop your business’s customer service and experience, you may wonder how your employees will feel about it. You may worry that some will feel like they’re being spied on, that you don’t trust them, that what they do is never good enough. Some…
VIEW FULL POST

The Value of Competitive Mystery Shopping

One of the services that The Brandt Group offers is something called competitive mystery shopping. Often when our prospective clients reach out to us for the first time, they’re delighted by this idea. To the business owners and managers who find themselves unaware of what this means, this blog is…
VIEW FULL POST

The Phone Is Still King

Nicola Brookes, writing for Vonage, included a series of fascinating infographics in her article, “The Multibillion Dollar Cost of Poor Customer Service”. Among these graphics, we can see that the company uncovered that businesses lose some $41 billion dollars each year due to poor customer service—in part due to the…
VIEW FULL POST

Opportunity in the Chaos of Christmastime

‘Tis the season for jingle bells, hot chocolate, and gift buying. Where in previous years sales promotions like Black Friday took place on one day, now they all seem to be extended from the day of Thanksgiving onwards. There are lightning deals to catch and doorbusters to grab. As you…
VIEW FULL POST

Why Should You Be a Mystery Shopper?

If you’ve ever thought about becoming a mystery shopper, but aren’t entirely sure whether it’s right for you, here are some reasons you might want to give it a go: Try New Things One of the most exciting benefits of mystery shopping is that it’ll often lead you to restaurants…
VIEW FULL POST

Three Simple Tweaks for Better Customer Service

Whatever your business’s wares, whether cuisine, cars, groceries, or something else, your first and most important product is your customer service. How your customers are treated and the impression they’re left with when they leave are the most important factors for both repeat patronage and evangelism. Your impressive selection of…
VIEW FULL POST

Surviving in the World of Big Chains and Online Warehouses

The Verge posted a fascinating article describing so-called Amazon Nomads, independent merchants who scour out-of-the-way stores (often failing chains in small towns) for products on clearance to snap up and sell using Amazon’s storefront. But with all of the prognostications about the death of brick-and-mortar, one can’t help but think…
VIEW FULL POST

The High Cost of Saving a Buck

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to save a buck. That’s why so many of us choose to shop at big-box stores that deal in such a high volume they can afford to sell their products closer to cost. Those narrower profit margins still translate to larger profits overall due to…
VIEW FULL POST