"What's The Frequency"

One of the Most Frequently Asked Questions that I hear about setting up a mystery shopping program deals with, “What should the frequency be? Should we choose once a day, once a week, once a month, or once a quarter?” My answer is always the same: it depends on your program goals and your budget. Let’s face it- all retailers want to meet or even exceed their goals, but not all have the budget to support daily or even weekly programs. So while my standard answer to the Most Frequently Asked Question may sound overly broad, it’s actually based on what I like to call the principle of “Maximization vs. Optimization.”

Maximization vs. Optimization is based on a very sound mystery shopping formula:
When budgets are limited, it is generally better to shop fewer stores on a more frequent basis than all stores less frequently.

You may, for example, decide it is more important to shop your top 30 best-performing stores. Or you may want to establish different frequencies, or rotate your stores and districts. There are an infinite variety of ways to create the program that works best for you, but the bottom line is to remember that there are enough variations possible to allow you to get the most out of your program without sacrificing the crucial data you need to meet your program goals. When it comes down to whether you should conduct your program quarterly, monthly, weekly or daily, there are other factors to consider:

Quarterly
Great for compiling a "snapshot" of data but, with so much time elapsed in between shops, it is very difficult to use data to effectively make consistent changes or drive behaviors. Acceptable for monitoring and data collection.

Monthly
Monthly programs are the most popular and budget-friendly choice. A monthly program means a more consistent view of store/team performance, more dependable behavior reinforcement, and more effective identification of strengths and opportunities over the long term

Weekly or Biweekly
For those wishing to implement a variable program based upon stores types (i.e. such as with high and low volume stores, loss prevention, etc.), a weekly or biweekly program is very effective in driving behavioral changes through constant reinforcement.

Daily
Unless your main goal is loss prevention, a daily program is most likely overkill. In fact, if your main goal really is loss prevention, you are probably more in need of hidden cameras than mystery shopping. Daily programs produce a lot of data that will prove to be useless, since the Manager will not have the time or opportunity to understand and use the data that is produced on a daily basis.

The second most popular question I am asked (especially by naysayers of mystery shopping or those who get low scores) is something along the lines of, "Hey this is only one shop a month. How can this really demonstrate what is happening in my store?"

Sadly, statistically it can’t. And therein lies the mystery shopping conundrum. Stores with a smaller budget perform fewer shops. Fewer shops lead to less credible data. Less credible data leads to less opportunity to change behaviors and delayed gratification in meeting overall program goals. It also translates into fewer opportunites for training for the entire store. This is exactly why I advocate the Maximization vs. Optimization formula we talked about earlier. Simply put, you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck without compromising.

The truth is, anything can happen anytime. But if it happened once, it’s happened before and will happen again. When it does happen again, that’s when it is time to become concerned. Can you imagine a sports game being played where no one announces the score? Sounds ridiculous? Well just imagine for a moment, what that would be like......those basketball teams are running up and down the court, throwing baskets on both sides, but since no one is keeping score, no one is leading! Soon, the players begin tiring out. They start walking off the court and sitting down. After all, who cares about working hard if no one is winning? Then, one by one, the fans begin to get up and go home. If the team doesn’t care, why should they?

Do you see the point? Just like in basketball, where the players play harder when they know the score, your frontline staff and store managers will be far more effective when they can see the results of their hard work. Regular, consistent data delivered as expected, in an easily digested format that can be used to direct and change staff behavior, is what wins the retail race.

Comments

[Jason Levin]

Love the analogy on "keeping score." Whether it is mystery shopping or any other customer experience metric, keeping score on a CONSISTENT basis is so important. Too often consultants whip in, get paid big bucks for a quick study that really has no lasting power. Always keeping score and not subscribing to the "flavor of the month" mentality is what keep companies on top.

[James]

I have a lot of loss prevention programs in my grocery/department store including high tech equipment from brackley-industries. I never thought of using mystery shoppers though. I will take a second look to see if it fits in my plans.