Introduction
The Singapore Retailers Association (SRA) has been administering the Retail
Industry Mystery Shopping Programme or RIMS since inception in 2006. 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.
Objectives
of RIMS
·
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.
Methodology
·
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
Participation Criteria
·
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.
May - July
November - January
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
Enquiries
For more information about the Progamme, please contact Choy Sok Jee at
telephone no. 6295 2622 or email: sokjee@sra.org.sg