Mystery Shopping is an Investment, not an Expense

The year 2020 has been a whirlwind for the economy and many businesses have been impacted on a global scale.  No one is unaffected by these changes.  Many businesses have had to review their budgets and scale down or eliminate spending in certain categories, particularly expenses. Customer Experience should not be a place where you eliminate your budget as it is an investment, not an expense. Of course that sounds easy, but as we have noted in other blog posts there are many budget or cost-conscious methods you can use to continue your customer experience metrics programs to suit your current needs, particularly Mystery Shopping. Here are a few key reasons why implementing or keeping your mystery shop program, even at a scaled down level, is an essential investment for your business:

• Measuring your upsells and cross-sells:

As Sumo.com states: “Upselling increases revenue by 10-30% on average.  70-95% of revenue comes from upsells and renewals.  Upsells are 68% more affordable than acquiring a new customer.”

• • CASE STUDY:  A mystery shopper enters a fast-casual restaurant and has a reimbursement limit of $10 for their shop.  They can get a regular meal and a drink for the $10. When they place their order, the cashier asks if they would like to add cheese, the customer agrees.  The cashier asks if they would like a regular size or to up-size for $2 more, the customer agrees.  They ask if they would like the special of adding a side salad to make it a ‘meal deal’, the customer agrees.  Now the mystery shopper can report that they did upsell (regular to up-size) and cross-sell (adding a salad and extra cheese) and has added an additional $5 (50% increase) to their bill total by allowing the cashier to upsell.  On the flip side, say the cashier did not attempt any upselling or cross selling, for a whole shift, 5 days a week, all year.  If no one knew or if this KPI was not monitored and measured, how could this employee be trained