Store Appearance QuickGuide

Are You Turning Away New and Existing Customers Because of Poor Store Appearance?

70% of customers won’t return to a restaurant if it appeared dirty to them. Even worse, only a third will tell a manger, while 80% will tell friends and family about their experience. Therefore, cleanliness is critical to running a restaurant that attracts new customersand retains old ones.

Best Practices in Measuring Store Appearance

1. Mystery Shops

Mystery shoppers (or secret shoppers) are one of the most popular methods currently used to monitor cleanliness in quick serve and fast casual restaurants. Typically, most restaurant owners will hire a mystery shopping firm to send shoppers to each location anywhere from one time to four times per month. As part of their visit, the shoppers will assess the appearance and cleanliness of the location, including the restroom. Mystery shops typically cost between $40-$80 per visit and the information is returned to the owner/operator in the form of a manually written report that details the shopper’s experience.

2. Customer Satisfaction Systems

These systems allow customers to provide information about their visit either through a toll-free phone number, or a website. Typically, the customer is rewarded with an entry into a sweepstakes or a coupon for product as compensation for their participation. When a customer participates with these systems, they take a survey about their experience that will include how clean the store appeared to be during their visit. One of the challenges of these customer satisfaction systems is that they typically attract responses from either the most satisfied or most dissatisfied customers. Therefore, the typical customer experience is often not included in this data.

RETEL TECHNOLOGIES