Objective:
The client wanted to critically evaluate its outlets, staff and processes in order to identify areas of improvement. Channelplay carried out mystery shopping and assessed all outlets on the prescribed parameters which included:
- Brand recommendation by salesperson
- Promotion of key product features
- Visual merchandising inside and outside the store
Approach:
The key activities in project execution involved:
- Questionnaire designing to evaluate all the desired parameters
- Mystery shopper profiling and sourcing as per defined criteria
- Mystery shopper training on approach scripts and flow of activities
- Visit planning as per the dates and time frames provided by the client
- Visit validation and report validation with appropriate photographic proofs
- Reporting – executive summary, shopper experience details, recommendation rate & trend analysis
Some of the challenges that we faced were:
- Conducting evaluations within the specific time frames and dates set by the client
- Finding the correct store locations as the store data was not comprehensive
Outcome:
- Two rounds of mystery audits were conducted across 400+ stores within a span of 25 days.
- Client’s brand was found to be the most recommended brand across target retailers but gaps were found in promotion of key product features.
- A comprehensive store wise report was shared with the client that covered details on brand recommendation, key product feature promotion and visual merchandising.
- To drive better product feature promotion it was suggested that the incentive of the sales force be linked with it.