Do you know that you can replicate a customer’s visit to your retail store and provide an extensive report on how a customer would feel after visiting your store? That’s why companies like Bare International, QDegrees, Business Evolution, and many others provide this service to businesses around the world.
It’s called mystery shopping or secret shopping, where trained mystery shoppers visit your store and observe everything about it.
Moreover, it’s only the first half of the service, and the second half includes assessing the details of the mystery shopper. This is done with the help of mystery audits. An audit has questions that assess the shopper’s experience in the secret visit to the store. Since these questions are very important in audits, we have stacked 30 questions to ask in retail Mystery shopping surveys.
Top Thirty Mystery Shopping Survey Questions
1. Store Appearance and Cleanliness
Customers visiting the store are highly likely to explore things other than the products. What are these things? To define them in a single word, they’re the representation of the store. But in a detailed picture, a customer may notice multiple things, like the cleanliness of the store and its appearance. The questions to ask here must assess all the parts of the store, such as the shelves, restroom, store layout, and overall store representation.
1. How would you rate the overall cleanliness of the store?
2. Were the aisles free from clutter and obstruction?
3. Did you notice any areas needing attention regarding cleanliness?
4. Were the shelves well-stocked and organized?
5. Did the store layout make it easy to find products?
6. Were the restrooms clean and well-maintained?
2. Product Availability and Display Standards
The next thing a customer may notice is the availability of the items in the store. However, sometimes, even when the product is available in the store, finding it for customers becomes a task or sometimes even impossible. So, the display of products in the store must be good to attract customers, and the stock must be easily accessible. To access this information about the store, here are the survey questions to ask from the mystery shopping experts.
1. Were the products you were looking for readily available?
2. List the unavailable items in the store.
3. Did the store have any out-of-stock items you were interested in?
4. Were the products displayed neatly and attractively?
5. Were the promotions or sales marked clearly?
6. Did you find it easy to locate specific products?
3. Customer Service and Staff Interaction
Human-staff interaction plays an important role in ten whole journeys of shopping in a retail store. Customers keep interacting with them from time to time for queries, help, and other purposes. However, if the behavior of the staff is wrong, it will lead to a negative impact on the customer’s experience. Hence, you must assess the details of the customer service of the mystery shopper as a customer. Based on their rating for customer service and staff interaction, spaces for improvements can be found, and solutions can be implemented.
1. How would you rate the friendliness of the staff?
2. Did the staff greet you when you entered the store?
3. Were the staff members knowledgeable about the products?
4. Did the staff assist you in finding the products?
5. Were you thanked for your purchase at the checkout?
6. Did the staff address any concerns or questions you had?
4. Checkout Process and Payment Experience
It’s not rare in retail shopping centers for people to leave their buckets loaded with all their goods just because the lines on the checkout counters look like the Great Wall of China. This is a real concern for store owners, and it’s quite common for a mystery shopper to find multiple problems with the checkout process, like slowness, technical errors, and even a lack of payment options. So, there are questions to ask about the checkout process in a retail store.
1. How would you rate the speed of the checkout process?
2. Were there enough checkout lanes open for customers?
3. Did the cashier scan items promptly?
4. Were there any issues with the scanning or pricing of items?
5. Did you receive a receipt for your purchase?
6. Were you satisfied with the payment options available?
5. Overall Customer Satisfaction, Experience and Feedback
Last but not least is customer satisfaction with the overall visit. Assessing this is important as it constitutes the customers’ decision-making to either visit or not visit the store again. Here, you can use the questions that assess the likelihood of recommending the store or giving a visit again. Moreover, a mystery shopping survey question should also be included to get additional feedback.
1. How satisfied were you with your overall shopping experience?
2. Would you recommend this store to a friend or family member?
3. How likely are you to return to this store in the future?
4. Did you feel that the prices were fair and reasonable?
5. Were you happy with the selection of products available?
6. Is there anything specific that could have been improved to enhance your shopping experience?
Conclusion
These are the 30 sample mystery shopping questions that you can use in a survey if you are running a business in the retail industry. With the help of these questions, you can get crucial feedback from the mystery shoppers whether you opt for a service provider or try to do it yourself. However, the increasing competition in the retail industry has made it mandatory to be over the edge. So, it’s great to infuse the experience of a professional secret shopping service like QDegrees- A CXM Company, as it leaves no room for trial and error.
