Retailers need customization. From a ‘Mom and Pop’ store on Smith St. to a large corporate owned international chain, loss prevention programs need to focus on the intricacies of each business to have the most impact and gain the most success. With Service Sleuth and the Mershimer Group, HS Brands can provide retail mystery shopping, retail loss prevention programs and other services based on what your needs are.
Here is a list of services HS Brands can provide and the impact that it can have on a traditional retail business:
Retail Mystery Shopping
Retail mystery shopping is one of the most important loss prevention/customer service tactics a retailer can out in place. Retailers can learn a lot about what it is actually like to be a patron of one of their locations. Service Sleuth can compare and contrast different retail locations if you have them. Typically, organizations use mystery shopping when they want to evaluate customer service or loss prevention programs already in place, ensure new marketing campaigns and promotions are being executed properly and for competitive analysis.
Integrity Mystery Shops
Integrity shopping can help with employee honesty, loss prevention programs and to weed out a problem in a specific retail location. Service Sleuth can test employee integrity by making a simple cash purchase at a retail location. Contractors leave the money and depart without a receipt and then one of our auditors can watch to see if the employee actually puts the cash into the register. These types of retail mystery shops are widely used and are very popular when used with a retail loss prevention program.
E-Surveys
We can build a customizable post-visit E-Survey that can be e-mailed out to your customers for quick response. The data is collected and presented through our Sherlock system for you to dissect using the same tool used with the mystery shopping data. You can combine this data with the mystery shopping data or export all of the data out of the system to be used elsewhere.
Merchandising
Every retailer knows how critical it is to their business to ensure that their products are properly merchandised. If something isn’t merchandised correctly, then that can mean lost revenue and no push of a special product or promotion that is going on company wide. Service Sleuth can send out contractors to verify that product is placed properly, signage/promotional collateral is being utilized, and to verify if the store is meeting visual standards.
Loss Prevention Program
The Mershimer Group can create a custom loss prevention program tailored to a retail store’s needs. We have “a la carte services” or you choose us as an alternative to having your own loss prevention department. From loss prevention meetings, audits, investigations to corporate guidance and operational audits, The Mershimer Group can be a fully outsourced loss prevention department and has years of experience in loss prevention in retail settings.
Operational Audits
Our Mershimer Group division has professional auditors all over the country that specialize in retail operational audits. Why spend money flying an internal employee out to specific locations when we have a local auditor that can be trained on your company specific audits, who then report their findings back to you. If there is a larger issue brought about by an audit, a targeted visit can be made by your internal staff. This is a more cost-effective and targeted solution for retail audits.
