Ten per cent plus within a year

Mystery Shopping is the most effective method of surveying customer satisfaction. The practice of test shopping has been in use for a long time in Western Europe, but it is quite new to Hungary. We went test shopping to two similar stores. In the first one, nobody took any notice of us and eventually we got served without a word being spoken. In the second one, we were greeted and asked what we were looking for. The store attendant also helped us to choose a product, recommended some accessories and thanked us for our purchase. The second one has been using Mystery Shopping for a year. Mystery Shopping focuses on the human and emotional aspects primarily, but also takes assortment and quality into consideration. The results help to predict whether customers will return or not. The majority of companies which survey customer satisfaction in Hungary use questionnaires or telephone surveys, but these methods are not nearly as reliable as test shopping. The fact that we were contacted by ten potential clients last year which had originally refused to use Mystery Shopping six years ago, is evidence of the growing popularity of our method. This method can help store managers in identifying the weak and strong points of their business, in increasing the number of regular customers and also employees in doing their jobs better and generating more sales. Our findings can also help to improve the placement of certain products in order to boost sales. As a result of our customer satisfaction surveys and the related training courses, turnover increases by 10-15 per cent within a year and the number of regular customer also grows. However, regular testing and training is needed to produce these results.