Sourcing and Sorting Your Job Candidates

Last week, we took a look at developing a hiring scorecard, a way to analyze your different staffing positions so you can develop the right criteria for filling them. Because a strong team will differentiate your business from the rest of your competitors, let’s continue taking a look at Zach…
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The Hiring Scorecard

We’ve long maintained that your staff is one of the chief differentiators that separates your business from the rest in the competitive landscape. As we wrote back in 2017, “having a great staff will empower your business to offer great customer service, to offer a personal touch that seems so…
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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…
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Becoming a Great Mystery Shopper

As you gain experience as a mystery shopper, you’ll want to find other ways to improve your skills and develop into an even more valuable member of your mystery shopping network. After all, your work represents you on some level, so we understand why you want to take pride in…
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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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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…
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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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A Feast for the Eyes

In last week’s blog, we covered how background music influences the overall vibe of your business. As we said then, ambiance covers multiple sensory perceptions, including examples of how a restaurant’s freshly baked goods invite diners in, or even how merchandising can lure customers to visit. The concept of using…
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