For every retail business, staff is the front face for the customer. In this blog post, we will talk about the importance of maintaining high standards of grooming and hygiene in retail.

The purpose of conducting an audit is to capture on ground realities and if the processes being followed in the outlet conform to the guidelines laid out by the company, therefore auditors are expected to report every observation as it happened. In case of retail audits where the audit is declared and often the store staff accompanies the auditor who fills a report as per his findings, differences of opinion may occur in what the shopper writes in the report and how the staff interprets a particular situation.    

Once you have been awarded a mystery shopping assignment it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with its requirements, however doing that alone isn’t enough. Paying attention to what you wear to an assignment can have significant impact your shopping experience.

A certification is simply a questionnaire containing questions related to the mystery shop which you want to perform. However, certifications can also be designed to assess general aptitude and language proficiency among other things.

Through mystery shopping the client wants to know what is actually going on in a store and whether various store parameters are being maintained as they should be. Often findings of mystery shopping can force the organization to revisit its processes and introduce sweeping changes to attain the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction through standardization.