Introduction
The Singapore Retailers Association (SRA) administers the Retail
Industry Mystery Shopping Programme or RIMS.
The RIMS programme sets benchmarks for service delivery, which will
allow each participating company to see how they compare against their
competitors, where their strengths are, and where they fall short, so that they
can address the shortfalls and constantly improve. This will ultimately improve the overall standard of service
delivery within the retail industry.
The SRA recognizes that the retail industry is not a homogenous entity,
but that segments within the industry are quite different from each other. Therefore, the programme will introduce
benchmarks for each industry segment, so that each retailer can also benchmark
itself against others of the same category.
The categories are:
·
Department Stores
(*)
·
Fashion &
Accessories (High Fashion)
·
Fashion &
Accessories
·
Mother and Infant
Care & Accessories
·
Furniture &
Furnishings/ Electricals & Electronics
·
Luxury Watches
& Jewellery/ Premium Gifts
·
Watches and
Jewellery (Mass / Costume)
·
Cosmetics
·
Supermarkets /
Hypermarkets (*)
·
Sports and Health
Equipment
·
Books &
Stationery
·
Optical
·
Computers &
Accessories
·
Health Food &
Supplements
·
Telecommunications
·
Retail D.I.Y.
·
Lifestyle – Audio
& Visual
(*) Each outlet of a department
store, supermarket or hypermarket will be considered as a separate store.
Any one of the categories will only be included if there are at least 5
retailers in that particular category.
This will ensure a balanced benchmark.
·
To identify and
measure the critical factors that impact the customer experience.
·
To develop a
systematic approach of conducting mystery-shopping exercises.
·
To provide
participating retailers with a report that facilitates analysis, benchmarking,
and leads to actionable steps that will continuously raise the bar.
·
To recognise
outstanding retailers for being quality service providers.
·
Each Assessment Period
will be for a duration of 3 months
·
2 Assessment
Periods in a year (May - July and November – January of the following year)
·
Assessment is
focused on the overall customer service standard of the establishment, not on
individuals who work within the organization
·
A team of trained
and experienced mystery shoppers will be employed and sent randomly to the
outlets of participating companies. The
number of visits to these companies will vary based on the size of the
organization:
Department Stores / Supermarkets /
Hypermarkets:
5 departments within the store will receive 2 visits each within each Assessment Period ie. 10 visits within the 3-month period.
Chain Stores:
|
No. of Outlets |
No. of Outlets Visited per Assessment Period (*) |
|
Less than 5 |
all outlets |
|
6 – 10 |
6 outlets |
|
11 – 20 |
11 outlets |
|
21 – 40 |
21 outlets |
|
41 – 60 |
31 outlets |
|
61 – 200 |
101 outlets |
|
>200 |
50% of the outlets |
(*) Each outlet will be visited twice within the Assessment Period
Assessment Criteria
Often, service is interpreted to mean only the person-to-person
interface. However, it is believed that
service extends beyond that, to include also, the store environment. For the Retail Industry Mystery Shopping
programme therefore, the checklist will include aspects of:
·
Staff’s Personal
Grooming
·
Store Environment
/ Merchandise Display
·
Staff’s Attitude
and Ability / Willingness to Assist
·
Staff’s Product
Knowledge
·
Point of Purchase
Service
These will be represented as eight separate attributes of service, which
include:
|
Attribute |
|
|
|
Approach |
: |
The reception the customer got when he walked into the store |
|
Appearance |
: |
Assesses the staff’s dressing and personal grooming |
|
Ambience |
: |
Store environment, including cleanliness, whether merchandise is displayed in a customer-friendly manner, etc |
|
Attitude |
: |
Warmth, enthusiasm, rapport and responsiveness of the service staff to the customer |
|
Acquisition |
: |
How the service staff handled the payment transaction, including how the staff returned change if any, whether or not the staff thanked the customer, etc |
|
Assistance |
: |
How well the staff understood the needs and preferences of the customer, and whether or not the staff was able to help |
|
After Sales |
: |
Whether or not the staff helped the customer end his shopping experience on a positive note |
|
|
|
|
|
Advocacy |
: |
Whether or not the customer will return to the store / recommend the store to others |
Once the mystery shop assessments have been completed, the data will be
analysed as follows:
·
Overall
performance by the retailer, as compared with the previous period (where
applicable)
·
Benchmark of the
segment within which the participating retailer belongs
·
Performance of
the retailer against this benchmark for the segment
·
All participating
companies are required to subscribe to at least 2 consecutive
Assessment Periods of the Retail Industry Mystery Shopping Programme. The
purpose of this is to maintain a certain degree of consistency of participating
companies for sector and industry benchmarking.
·
Participating companies
are required to submit a list of all their respective outlets, with
addresses and contact details. Any changes should be communicated to the SRA as
soon as possible. Should a Mystery
Shopping visit not be successful because of inaccurate information provided by
the participating company or the failure to update the SRA with any changes,
the outlet will receive a zero score for that particular visit.
·
Participating
companies are not allowed to determine which outlets they would prefer the
Mystery Shopper to visit.
·
SRA will send you
a confirmation once your cheque has been received and when your category is
confirmed. If you have sent the cheque
and there are insufficient participants to include your particular category, a
full refund of your cheque will be made to you.
1 November 2009 – 31 January 2010 (RIMS 8)
1 May 2010 – 31 July 2010 (RIMS 9)
The Retail Industry Mystery Shopping Programme’s participation fees per
assessment period are (please note that all participating companies
must subscribe to at least 2 consecutive Assessment Periods):
|
Number of Outlets |
Number of Outlets Visited per Assessment Period (*) |
Participation
Fee Per Assessment Period (S$) (all
fees are subject to the prevailing GST charges) |
|||
|
Enrolment and fees received by SRA more than 6 weeks before the
start of assessment |
Enrolment and fees received by SRA within 6 weeks of the start of assessment |
||||
|
SRA Member Rate |
Non-SRA Member Rate |
SRA Member Rate |
Non-SRA Member Rate |
||
|
1-2 |
All outlets |
1,600 |
2,000 |
1,800 |
2,250 |
|
3- 5 |
All outlets |
2,200 |
2,750 |
2,500 |
3,300 |
|
6 – 10 |
6 outlets |
2,500 |
3,150 |
2,700 |
3,400 |
|
11 – 20 |
11 outlets |
3,700 |
4,650 |
4,000 |
5,000 |
|
21 – 40 |
21 outlets |
5,500 |
6,800 |
6,000 |
7,500 |
|
41 – 60 |
31 outlets |
7,500 |
9,300 |
8,000 |
10,000 |
|
61 – 200 |
101 outlets |
22,000 |
27,000 |
22,800 |
28,500 |
|
>200 |
50% of the outlets |
28,000 |
35,000 |
30,000 |
37,500 |
|
Department Stores /
Supermarkets / Hypermarkets |
5 departments (**) |
3,000 |
3,800 |
3,500 |
4,400 |
(*) Each outlet will be
visited twice within the Assessment Period
(**) Each department will be
visited twice within the Assessment Period
All participating companies will receive a compilation of the mystery
shopping results, indicating the respective sectorial benchmarks and how the
respective participating retailers measure up against that benchmark.
The report will indicate the overall performance against the benchmark,
as well as the performance of each service criteria. This report will help the participating retailer identify the
areas of strengths and weaknesses so that specific issues can be addressed for
improvement.
The report for subsequent assessment periods will also track the trend
for each company, showing areas where improvements have been made, or where
performance has slipped.
To further recognize and publicize companies’
outstanding service achievements, SRA has introduced a recognition scheme. The
best performer of each category will be awarded PREMIUM Service Gem status,
whilst those who rate within 5 percentage points of the top performer will be
accorded Service Gem status. The Premium GEM company should have a
minimum performance score of 70% to qualify as a Premium GEM.
In the event where there are less than 3 participating companies for any
particular category, the PREMIUM Service GEM and Service GEM awards may not be
given due to lack of sufficient competition within the category.
The PREMIUM Service GEM and the Service GEMs will be provided with
decals for use in their store-fronts, as well as the Service GEM logo for use
in their advertisements, etc
For more information about the Progamme, please contact Mrs Jacqueline
Rozario at telephone no. 6295 2622 or email:
jacqueline@sra.org.sg