The Unspoken Values of a Secret Shopper Program

There are many organizations that are employing people with the sole purpose of spying on their businesses. They are taught how to do so using specialized secret shopper programs . Nobody can guarantee that every person who works for an organization does so truly and effectively. There are some people who try to do their personal jobs in their working hours. This is not a problem if the person concerned is free at that time. If they are not attending to any clients and if there is no pending work, there is no harm if they jot down their grocery list or even write a personal letter. No organization should have any problems with this. However, if they are going about their personal job while ignoring work in hand, it is a big issue.

To tackle employees like these, business houses employ people to keep a watch out on them. Once these people are interviewed and are found to be suitable, they are made to undergo various secret shopper programs . These courses are held in different locations like restaurants, retail stores and banks. These courses are useful diagnostic instruments for manufacturers of retails products since it provides them an opportunity to evaluate their products.

Once a new product is launched the people employed by the manufacturers mingle with the crowd at shopping malls and see how the products are faring. They make a mental note of the comments of the consumers and pass on the same to their employees. These secret shopper programs allow the manufacturer to take evasive action and fix problems before it is too late.

Apart from this, the participants attending the secret shopper programs are taught many other things. They have to learn about value, service, cleanliness etc. The trainees are taught about the problems that might arise in malls, stores and other business utilities and how to detect them. Not all of these educational seminars are the same. Each business house has their own standards and it is these standards that set the tone of the training. A small shop might not require too much surveillance whereas a big mall may have several areas that need to be covered in the course of day. Apart for this there are the budgetary constraints of the organizations too, which determine the course they will go for.

A properly trained special agent has many tasks to undertake. They have to keep an eye on the employees of the store and see if they are following the norms of the same. Are they arriving and leaving the store punctually or are they taking permission from the manager of the store before going out? The participants trained by the secret shopper programs also keep an eye out on how the clients of the shops are treated by the salespersons. There are many such employees who are out rightly rude and just do not bother about the customer. If the shopper wants to see different brands of a product, these salespersons do not show much of an interest. In most cases the end result is that the particular shopper will never visit the store again. A proper training helps these observers not only to note down the flaws, but also to find out ways of resolving the same. Though the owner generally takes decisions pertaining to fixing these problems, at times they might even ask these spies about their opinion and a well versed surveyor should be ready with the answers.

Self Storage in Brooklyn

Tron Jordheim , director of operation at  PhoneSmart ( a subsidiary of StorageMart ) will be interviewed by Syndicated News on 7/23/2008 6:00 PM. The topics of discussion will include Self Storage , Secret Shopping , property management , Self Storage Advertising and Self Storage Marketing . 

Tweet This Post 

Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

View Staff's Profile      Subscribe via RSS