Shop Talk
Mystery Shops are BS
If it's a busy day and you're the only one working, you do what you can to keep everyone happy without making people sit too long.
If it's a slow day, you get bored and have all the time in the world to preach everything about the phones and services.
To top that off, I've seen mystery shop reports and the shoppers are usually clueless. IE...they say the employee at my store had a name tag on when our store doesn't provide name tags. They have also written that they saw certain products demonstrated that we don't carry in our store. The fact is, the execs sitting in the big offices often forget what the real life job is like. They put too much their little tests.
The fact is, I'm busy because I've worked hard to know my prod...
(continues)
If it's a slow day, you get bored and have all the time in the world to preach everything about the phones and services.
To top that off, I've seen mystery shop reports and the shoppers are usually clueless. IE...they say the employee at my store had a name tag on when our store doesn't provide name tags. They have also written that they saw certain products demonstrated that we don't carry in our store. The fact is, the execs sitting in the big offices often forget what the real life job is like. They put too much their little tests.
The fact is, I'm busy because I've worked hard to know my prod...
(continues)
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You'd think so, wouldn't you? I too am against mystery shops, they don't prove squat.
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I'm so glad my current company doesn't do mystery shops.
When I used to work for a Cingular agent, I was in a stupidly slow store. Not to sound arrogant, but I was the best damn salesman in that company, and I knew more then anybody else in that damn company. I got shopped one day and received a 4. 4! A F'ING 4!!!
Basically, according to this shop, I didn't nothing more than shave and iron my clothes.
When you have between 2-4 customers a day. Everybody gets the full deal. So, there's no way I earned a 4.
When I used to work for a Cingular agent, I was in a stupidly slow store. Not to sound arrogant, but I was the best damn salesman in that company, and I knew more then anybody else in that damn company. I got shopped one day and received a 4. 4! A F'ING 4!!!
Basically, according to this shop, I didn't nothing more than shave and iron my clothes.
When you have between 2-4 customers a day. Everybody gets the full deal. So, there's no way I earned a 4.
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Similar to what happened to me. The shopper said I didn't describe any of our products or services. Bull crap. So what did I do? Did I just stand there and stare? I was so pissed.
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I worked for a RadioShack in Alasks, who for varying reasons, was restricted from selling most services for Cellular One or for that matter carrying RadioShack product.
I had a customer come in requesting information on both Cellular One services and RadioShack products. Our shelves were essentially bare so it made answering his questions quite easy however none of the answers I provided were to his satisfaction. After the customer became beligerant I asked him to leave the store. He refused to do so and when I asked again he broke out with "Have you ever heard of Secret Shopper?".
I paused for about 15 seconds and looked at this guy and then just smiled and replied "Yes I have, why do you ask?". His response was "Well I am one and...
(continues)
I had a customer come in requesting information on both Cellular One services and RadioShack products. Our shelves were essentially bare so it made answering his questions quite easy however none of the answers I provided were to his satisfaction. After the customer became beligerant I asked him to leave the store. He refused to do so and when I asked again he broke out with "Have you ever heard of Secret Shopper?".
I paused for about 15 seconds and looked at this guy and then just smiled and replied "Yes I have, why do you ask?". His response was "Well I am one and...
(continues)
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In my experience with RadioShack as a dealer, I have learned that RadioShack corporate isn't going to mystery shop agent stores unless they have a couple of qualifiers, 1st, they must have lots of sales, relative to the surrounding area, they don't bother with those of us who are barely squeeking by. 2nd, you must be in a metro area, RadioShack isn't going to pay a mystery shopper the milage it takes to shop us rural dealers. And 3rd, it doesn't matter anyway if they do shop you, you are a dealer. The worst thing that will happen to you is that you will get barked at by your DM, if you are lucky enough to see him more than twice a year.
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I used to work for a RadioShack in Clarksville TN that got MS'd at least 3x's a month... it was pretty intriguing to try and figure out who your shops were... Then again we were the best store out of the 20 in the district... Top 10 in the nation.. not to brag or nuttin...
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I work for Radioshack Retail Services, and the people who shop us are the carriers we sell. Its suck BS too, because I put the customers needs first. Cingulars mystery shopper failed me because I was pushing T-Mobile, but the reality is T-Mobile is cheaper and the questions they were asking me made pushing T-Mobile a better solution for the customer than Cingularethen our Account Rep from Cingular was livid with me and has since quit coming into our store. Oh Well. My DM actually found it to be pretty funny. Point is MS are complete idiots.
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They don't even come here, we can't do Cingy, we are in roaming area, we can't do Sprint, crappy coverage, Verizon has only recently tried to get in the state, and is only in 2 cities (if you can call them that). We stopped selling Dish, for lack of an installer and lack of patience dealing with RadioShack on the issue, and we do very small amounts of Sirius, so we don't get shopped, or when we do, we make them realize that we are a USCellular Agent with RadioShack decorations, basically!
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On a secret shopper repot I got a 7%. On another one 4 days later at a different store I got a 100%. Go figure... 🙄
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