Retail Industry Mystery Shopping Programme

FRAMEWORK

Introduction

The Singapore Retailers Association (SRA), with the support of the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) has introduced the Retail Industry Mystery Shopping Programme to set 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 any one retailer will only be benchmarking himself against others of the same category.

The categories are:

· Department Stores (*)
· Fashion & Accessories (High Fashion)
· Fashion & Accessories
· Furniture & Furnishings/ Electricals & Electronics
· Luxury Watches & Jewellery/ Premium Gifts
· Watches and Jewellery (Mass / Costume)
· Cosmetics and Pharmaceuticals
· Supermarkets / Hypermarkets (*)
· Convenience Stores
· Sports and Health Equipment
· Music and Books

(*) 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

· Identify and measure the critical factors that impact the customer experience.
· Develop a systematic approach of conducting mystery-shopping exercises.
· Provide participating retailers with a report that facilitates analysis, benchmarking, and leads to actionable steps that will continuously raise the bar.
· 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 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
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

Overall : Whether or not the customer will return to the store / recommend the store to others

Results

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, and any changes should be notified 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 returned to you.

Next Assessment Periods

1 November 2007 - 31 January 2008
1 May 2008 - 31 July 2008
1 November 2008 - 31 January 2009

Participation Fees

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):  

(*) Each outlet will be visited twice within the Assessment Period
(**) Each department will be visited twice within the Assessment Period

 

Survey Findings

All participating companies will receive a compilation of the mystery shopping results, particularly that indicating the respective sectorial benchmarks and how the respective participating retailer measures 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.
Recognition Scheme

As an effort 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 65% 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 the Service GEM logo for use in their advertisements, etc

A publicity / recognition programme will be established to recognize top performers of the mystery shopping programme.

Enquiries

For more information about the Progamme, please contact Mrs Jacqueline Rozario at telephone no. 6223 6221 or email: jacqueline@sra.org.sg

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