Secret Shopper

I'm bummed. My store got a secret shop report and it was not favorable. This is a blow to my ego and I am embarrassed. It has been eating a way at me, how I have failed. I have let myself down, and my team.



This reminds me of exactly how I felt when I, as the youngest player on the cities all-star softball team in 1980, was up at the plate. We were down by a few runs, late in the game. This was the final game of the series for the championship. I was a homerun hitter and thrived in those pressure situations. Here's the pitch and WHACK! HOMERUN! GRANDSLAM! I ran around the bases and approached home plate to the cheers of the team and took my place on the bench as the inning continued. We were now confident about the outcome of the game as we had pulled ahead. Then, to my dismay, the manager of the other team instructed his pitcher to throw the ball to first base and the umpire called "OUT". The runners from my team were told to return to their bases and no runs scored. We ended up losing the game. In a split second I went from hero to loser. I had failed to touch first base as I rounded it. My grandslam negated. We lose.



It is those moments that cause us to wish that we could turn back time. How I wish I could have a second chance to hit first base. I bet Ernest Byner has never forgotten "the fumble" as he was about to score a touchdown for the Brown's during a close playoff game in the 80's, or how many Brown's fans would love to have a chance to watch the Brown's defend "the drive" and stop Elway this time. I wish I could go back to last Sunday and earn a better shop score.



My staff is taught to welcome every single customer into the store by acknowledging them with an oral "hello", or by simple eye contact and a nod. We are taught to help every customer that needs help to the best of our ability. We have had some great shop scores in the past and last Sunday the secret shopper never even got help. Never once were they even greeted. We never interacted with the shopper in anyway shape or form. I've been dwelling on how the heck this could happen? I am always trying to make sure I say hello to everyone...At the very least! How did we manage to ignore a customer completely? The report came back making it sound like we don't even care if customers come into the store needing help finding something. IT IS SO NOT TRUE! I don't understand how this could have happened.



Since it has been eating away at me, I decided to try to find out where the failure occurred. While I don't have excuses, I do have an explanation. I learned that at the time of the shop, there were 34 customers in the store. That is a lot of people to the 3 employees on duty. The secret shopper reported that for most of their visit all three employees were behind the counter. One of my pet peeves is being stuck behind the counter, and I'm always saying to my employees "if there are no customers at the counter, you don't need to be there either". Why were we all at the counter? One employee was ringing out customers as there was a "steady stream" at the register. Because of the cash flow, I was called up front to do a "pick-up" and remove the overflow of cash from the till to put in the safe. The other employee was apparently on the phone and my guess is with a Ticketmaster customer, since 60%-70% of our calls are people inquiring about Tickets. (I hate having to deal with Ticketmaster!) or it may have been a customer calling about something music/movie related. While reading the journal tapes from that time period, I learned that we sold some games which means I was getting out a Nintendo Game Cube game. That is a behind the counter task because we keep the games locked up in a secure place and I need to fish them out when a customer buys one. I too was ringing sales, because at one point my associate was called away from the register to help another customer.



We were not slacking. We were not ignoring customers. We were not playing around. We were all working diligently to service the few customers we could get to and unfortunately, the secret shopper was not one of them. It was 34 customers to 3 employees, that's more than 11 customers per employee! It was a pressure situation! We were going for the grandslam but missed first base. I hate that. I want another chance.



I have instructed my team to "shake it off". We will be shopped again, and we are going for the grand slam! I want to be a member of the "100 Club"! Just like after that game where my grandslam was negated, I have never missed first base again. We are all newly reminded how important it is to get to every single customer. It has helped us focus a bit more, and that is a good thing. I know my team and I can do it, and we are going to work on earning that shop score that represents the wonderful team we are! I'm chalking this up as a "fluke" and we will do better next time. "Resistance is futile."