How to Improve Grocery Store Customer Experience?
As a grocery store owner or manager, you take pride in your building and the products and produce you provide. Most importantly, you understand that the customer experience is what makes your store stand out.
Does grocery store mystery shopping still work? Yes! Absolutely. These days we have more tools than ever to measure any part of the customer experience and employee interactions.
How do you know if your grocery team is providing the best in service, options, and customer experience? That’s where grocery store mystery shopping provided by Reality Based Group™ offers an essential service to your business.
Here, we offer seven ways to improve the customer experience at your grocery store.
7 Ways to improve grocery store customer experience
The key to any successful business is to always find ways to improve. The following are some ways to enhance the customer experience at your grocery store.
Utilize video mystery shopping
As a grocery store owner or manager, you understand the business side of the job. But sometimes, you can miss the nuances of the customer experience.
Utilizing grocery store mystery shopping shows exactly what the customer experiences in your store. And since it is completed with a hidden video camera called GameFilm®, you experience your store through the customer’s eyes.
Video mystery shopping allows you to evaluate:
- Cleanliness
- Customer service
- Friendliness of the staff
- Organization
- Check-out procedures
- Stock and availability
- And much more
Focus on your employees
Happy employees work harder and go the extra mile. Take steps to make sure they are satisfied. Investing in employee training is a must.
Ask yourself:
- Is the pay rate at or above the market and competition?
- Do you offer benefits?
- What perks come with the job?
- Is your training program engaging?
By utilizing video mystery shopping, you’ll be able to take the pulse of your employees to see how happy they are on the job.
Make it an educational experience
An easy way to increase grocery sales is to educate your customers. If your employees are well-educated about the products they sell, they can impart that knowledge to the customer.
People love to learn new things. When your employees make customers feel comfortable about new and exciting ingredients, they feel empowered to make a purchase that they might not normally make.
How do you know if your employees are educating and empowering your customers? Turn to grocery store video shopping.
Embrace efficiency
Nobody likes standing in line, especially customers at the checkout counter.
When a patron enters your grocery store and sees lines in front of the cash registers that extend all the way back to the aisles, they are more likely to turn around and walk out.
Customers don’t want to wait. Make sure you are staffing correctly and utilizing a mix of self-checkout and traditional registers.
Efficiency includes making sure your grocery store is clean and orderly. Cluttered aisles or messes on the ground slow customers down. Plus, it makes it look like you don’t care.
Shopping online is the ultimate in efficiency
And don’t forget about your customers shopping for their groceries online. Online ordering isn’t a short-lived phenomenon — it is the future of retail.
Therefore, you need to know how customers perceive the online experience. Just like with in-person mystery shopping, there is online mystery shopping, too.
Feel like family
Make sure your employees are getting to know your customers. If someone often frequents your grocery store, get to know them. Find out the foods they enjoy, if they have a family, and what they need help with.
Bottom line: make your customers feel like they are part of your family.
Host events
Looking for a fun way to get customers to come to your grocery store? Consider hosting events. Think cooking classes, cheese and wine tastings, or a butchering tutorial.
The ideas are endless, but they all serve the same purpose: to get more customers through your doors.
Once people arrive, try to collect as much contact information as possible. That way you’ll be able to send customers promotions, deals, and information about future events.
Create ways to reward the people who show up for your events. It could be a small gift or a percentage off their next purchase. A reward, no matter the size, makes customers feel appreciated.
Rearrange
Every few years, it’s time to rearrange your grocery store. That allows customers to explore new aisles and view products they normally would have skipped over.
To not cause confusion, make sure your staff is prepared to direct the customers to the correct new aisles. That is another opportunity to improve your customer service and make connections with your grocery store’s patrons.
Improve grocery store customer experience with Reality Based Group™
The best way to improve the grocery store customer experience is to know exactly what is happening inside your store.
As an owner or manager, your employees act differently when you are around. So how do you get an unbiased view from the eye of the consumer? Turn to the experts at Reality Based Group™.
Here’s how it works:
- First, we send in a series of grocery mystery shoppers.
- Next, we compile their findings into usable and informative data points.
- We analyze the typical shopping experience for patterns, touch-points, and obstacles.
- Finally, we deliver a program to help you improve your store.
Reach out to the Reality Based Group™ for your free grocery store customer experience consultation today.
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