MYSTERY SHOPPING | WATCH THE PENNIES TURN INTO DIMES!

The Recession Is Over!  I heard it on the news, and I’ve read it on the internet, so it must be true!

Besides, times are so good, everywhere I look businesses have stopped looking to make “side” sales.  Say it ain’t so?  It is!

In the past three days, I’ve been to 17 local stores, large and small, in the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California.  Not once did any sales associate:

1. Suggest that I consider an extended warranty
2. Offer complementary sales items that would go with my purchase
3. Use my name, and I purposely used a credit card (so they would practice the annoying actions of asking me for my driver’s license, in addition to my signed credit card, so they had my name in front of them not once but twice!)
4. Suggest a store gift certificate
5. Ask me if there was anything else they could offer me?

In four out of the five examples I noted, a simple action by the employee assisting me could have increased the sale by a minimum of 30%!  In come cases, such as the Caffino I went through twice, it would have more than doubled the sale!

I do plan on calling on these retailers today.  In my call, I may just congratulate them on their stellar business results.  I may even suggest that they write a book on how they came out of the recession faster than most! (Of course, my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek)

The fact is, I suspect that these businesses, and thousands more, have either cut back on their secret shopping programs or, in a disastrous move, cut them out for the holiday season all together!

You, as a manager, don’t stop looking at the numbers because it is a particular season, no more than I don’t look at my bank balance.  The most important thing you can insure for your company is a steady revenue stream!  These businesses lost several hundred dollars in sales — to me alone!  Multiply this times just 10% of the customers who have come through your business, and you have a very healthy holiday bonus!

Think I’m crazy?  Do the math: If a store makes 1,000 sales a week, and they are missing out on 10% of the additional possible sales because they are “waiting” for the customer to ask for what they need, they are loosing ,at the very least. $300 in revenue each week.  That’s over $15,000 in revenue each year!  If you don’t want this free money, send me a check care of ServiceQuality.US!  I can’t imagine why or how some of these folks will survive past the heavy discounts and crazy hours.

For more information, visit us at The Service Quality Department main web site.