What We Do

Shadow Shopper can find out what it is really like to be your customer. Managers can't be everywhere and can't see everything, so it is important to have an independent assessment of your customer service to find out what customers really experience.

A certified Shadow Shopper visits your business, makes a purchase and accurately and objectively evaluates how customers are treated when no-one is watching - and then reports on their experience. We find out if your customer services standards are being met and if your company procedures are being followed. We find out how your customers feel about doing business with you, and if there is anything that would make them take their business elsewhere.

Shadow Shoppers

We firmly believe that the most valuable feedback comes from real customers, not from 'career shoppers'. We have thousands of accredited shoppers across Australia, and partnering arrangements oveseas. All Shadow Shoppers have passed an Accreditation Certificate and we have a preferred shopper program to ensure that our shoppers are of the highest quality. We keep full demographic profiles of our shoppers and can select people who match your target customer group.

Expert Design

We are experts in in creating programs, developing questionnaires and designing reports, and work with you to make sure that you get the information you want. There is a science to developing questionnaires and ensuring that the data collected is statistically valid.

We don't just cobble together a few questions, send someone in and get them to fill out a form. We have an extensive questionbank from which you can select, or we can develop questions specifically for your company. We design the visits for maximum information gathering and recall, differentiate between objective and subjective questions, and have delayed questions to test recall not just recognition. We know the importance of 'impression' and open-ended questions in identifying unforeseen problems, situations and customer attitudes.

Flexibility

Flexibility is crucial. At Shadow Shopper we know your business changes over time and that the program will have to adapt and change to your new circumstances. The questionnaires, questions, weightings and graphs can be changed at any time during the Shadow Shopper program. A Shadow Shopper program is completely flexible and adaptable; we make sure that your data never becomes redundant and is always available to you to review and analyse.

Individual Assignment Allocation

All assignments are allocated individually with shoppers matched to your customer demographics. We have a 24 hour turnaround between the shopper visit and the information being available. Shoppers enter reports online, and all reports pass through our quality assurance process before being released to our clients.

Techniques

We have a range of techniques that we use to measure customer service. We do store visits, pre-visit phone calls, and check for follow ups. We do unseen post visit reports and customer / industry surveys. We can check the effectiveness of your training and your advertising campaigns. We can shop your competitors, and do competitive price and merchandise checks. You have access to our thousands of shoppers for online surveys and market analysis.

Your own website

We don't just give you the results - we give you Internet access to all the information and the tools to graph and analyse them. We host your results at a world-class data centre (in Sydney) so that they are available to you any time, any place. We don't just set up a report about your results and display a few Excel graphs - we give you access to all the information and the tools to look at and analyse it any way you wish. Want to compare NSW with Victoria? Country with Metro? Stores with food courts? New franchisees with established? You can do it all with easy 'point & click' tools.

Access for Staff

We set up your own website, with your colors, logo and graphics; your staff and franchisees will see it as part of your own website. Your staff and franchisees can have password access to the site to check their results and access their action plans. You have a Customer Service Noticeboard to securely communicate with your franchisees and staff, where they can also communicate with each other and share knowledge, tips and solutions.

Each month you will get a management report highlighting issues and trends. This can be presented as a report, or we can provide a ready-to-go presentation for you to deliver.

Shadow QC

A Shadow Shopper program gives you real information about how your customers are treated. But there are many things that impact customers that customers can't see - that's why you have internal compliance audits. Shadow QC (Quality Compliance) is an extension of the Shadow Shopper analysis and graphing system that enables you to automate your internal audit program.

It's a way of automating your current checklists and audit documents so that you can manage compliance. Your staff enter their results online and your information is available on your website along with your Shadow Shopping results.

You can also upload other data - financial, sales, training, whatever you like - so that all your information is available in one place. Then you can really see the power of what you can do with the Shadow system.

Want to check the relationship between customer service and profitability? If there is an increase in sales after the training program? Easy! The information and tools are all there.

Remember - there's never a second chance to make a first impression!