Advice for New Mystery Shoppers

The Brandt Group welcomes you to the exciting and rewarding world of mystery shopping! Your participation will help improve the customer service, products, and services offered by businesses in your community. Take satisfaction in knowing that your opinions really do matter. Client businesses don’t contract with mystery shopping companies to…
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Why Comments Matter in Mystery Shopping

The bulk of mystery-shop surveys are Yes/No questions, sometimes sprinkled with a couple opinion scales (rate the customer service 1 to 5, for example). These allow you to capture the raw data, to quantify an experience so you can score it. You can ask whether an employee introduced him or…
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The Thermal Comfort Zone

In our third and final blogpost covering ambiance, let’s discuss how customers feel when they enter a business—specifically, what the temperature is like. How does a chilly room versus a warm room impact a customer’s experience? When it comes to the thermostat, can we really set-it-and-forget-it? Heating and cooling can…
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How to Manage Your Leads

In a perfect world, customers would come into your business fully educated in your offerings and know exactly what they want to purchase. But seeing as how that’s rarely the case, you employ salespeople to not only educate those customers and help them select their purchases, but also suggest add-ons…
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Where Quantity and Quality Meet

Common questions we’re asked by our new clients is, “How often should I mystery shop?” and “How many feedback surveys do I need?” To gain an understanding of our philosophy, let’s take a dive into the notions of quantity versus quality. Both Are Valuable You’ve undoubtedly heard adages about them,…
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What Makes The Brandt Group Different

Just as your customers have choices on where to buy, so too do our mystery-shopping clients. Here’s why our clients choose us: Real Shoppers The Brandt Group recruits shoppers local to your market to ensure you receive the most relevant and genuine feedback. Using your prescribed demographics and mystery-shopping frequency,…
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Commandment No. 3 – Thou Shalt Greet, Speak and Be Real

With this week’s look at Shep Hyken’s Forbes article, The Ten Commandments of Superior Customer Service, we arrive at the third commandment, “Thou Shalt Greet, Speak and Be Real”. As Shep explains, you shouldn’t “miss an opportunity to interact with your customers.” He goes on to promote how important simple…
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Tips for Avoiding Scams

Lauren Pack of Journal-News has an important article describing the experiences of a 28-year-old woman from Hamilton, OH, who fell for a secret shopping scam. Schemes like the one described in the article are an unfortunate reality in our industry, and one you should be always on the lookout for. Here are…
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The Importance of “Framing” the Customer Experience

“Yes we can”—not just the slogan of a former U.S. President—should be the positive mindset of every sales and customer service associate you employ. How important is this notion? U.S. News and World Report once found that nearly 70% of all customers who cancelled their relationship with a business did…
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