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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How to Compartmentalize

Considering that most managers work in excess of forty hours each week, it’s no wonder that separating work life from your home life is such a challenge. How can anyone avoid mixing the stresses of one with the other? No one wants to take a tough day at work home…
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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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Good Habits Are the Fuel that Drives Your Success

As George Brontén states in his article, Why Your People Keep Missing Quota—And What to Do About It, “goals are more often missed than attained.” He explains, “Goals, without underpinning habits” are “bad for you.” Why are they bad? The Problem of Goals Without Habits To summarize, Brontén argues that…
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Why Shop with The Brandt Group?

You have a lot of choices as a mystery shopper, from the kinds of assignments you’ll want to accept, to when you’re available to complete them. Among those important choices is which mystery-shopping networks you’ll want to join; so why would you choose The Brandt Group as one of them?…
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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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