How can I use PSI?

PSI Mystery Shopping – Improves sales, share, and customer loyalty by "shining a light" on how effectively a sales team works to turn shoppers into buyers.

What do customers really experience today when they reach out to your retail locations:

• By using the retailer's website, or
• By phoning the retailer, or
• By visiting the retailer in-person

What specific behaviors can your team change to be more helpful and sell more effectively or improve service customer loyalty? How can we measure how effectively a sales or service team interacts with customers, and use the results to drive improvement?

PSI mystery shopping is the solution.

PSI mystery shopping shines a light on "what is really happening" which allows retailers to identify sales and service process areas in need of improvement and increase sales and customer loyalty. PSI uses web, phone and in-person mystery shoppers, but only as actors and fact-gatherers, measuring whether specific sales or service steps happened or did not happen. PSI relies on a foundation of facts which tie specific retail behaviors to sales and service success.

Brands, manufacturers and national retailer groups contact Pied Piper to order PSI mystery shops for their retail network. For the motor vehicle industry, individual dealerships may also order Pied Piper PSI evaluations directly on this website.

How does an ongoing PSI mystery shop program work?

1. Every retailer should "own" their own sales and service processes – in writing. Pied Piper has found that sales and service processes vary by geography: successful steps that work on Long Island can be different from those used successfully in Des Moines, or San Diego. Processes can also vary by the product sold or serviced. Therefore, Pied Piper suggests that each retail location should define their own simple sales and service processes in writing: Define 3 to 5 simple, memorable steps your team will always follow if a customer is willing to spend time with them. The most successful retailers may interact with customers in ways that are subtly differently, but they all have something in common: they ensure that their sales team always follows the retailer's sales or service process.
2. What about ideas for sales process "Best Practices" to get us started? Call Pied Piper to hear about Pied Piper's simple five-step Sales Best Practices that many retailers use as a starting point from which to develop their own "local" sales best practices.
    
3. Order 4 different types of monthly PSI mystery shops to measure whether the retailer's sales or service processes are being followed:

• Internet Lead Effectiveness^® (ILE^®) Sales customers using the retailer's website - (PSI Internet Sales Mystery Shop)
• Telephone Lead Effectiveness™(TLE™) Sales customers phoning the retailer - (PSI Telephone Sales Mystery Shop)
• PSI^® - Sales customers visiting the retailer in-person - (PSI In-Person Sales Mystery Shop)
• Service Telephone Effectiveness™(STE™) Service customers phoning the retailer to get a service appointment- PSI Service Telephone Mystery Shop

All of these measurements are compiled into a comprehensive PSI report, which is emailed directly to the client. Additional reporting is also available on-line for viewing and printing.

What PSI information is reported to the client?

Each PSI report includes an overall PSI score, which allows performance comparison to the industry overall as well as to a specific brand. The score answers the question, "How does this retailer's overall performance compare?" In addition, each PSI report includes an easy to understand "A - B - C - D - F" letter grade for the individual evaluation as well as for the retailer's average of the past 6 PSI evaluations.

Depending upon the type of evaluation – internet, phone or in-person – many different measurements are reported:

For PSI Internet Sales, a 7-page report is provided, with approximately 20 yes/no measurements, plus images of the shopper's initial web-inquiry, as well as the retailer's emailed responses. Also included are multiple digital diagnostic measurements, such as whether the website and CRM system are functioning correctly, and whether CRM or salesperson email responses are ending-up in the customer's spam folder.

For PSI Telephone Sales, a 4-page report is provided, with approximately 20 yes/no measurements, and voice recordings are included for locations where legal.

For PSI In-Person Sales, a 7-page report is provided, which includes 50+ yes/no measurements of the visit as well as 9 verbatim descriptions.

For PSI Service Telephone, a 4-page report is provided, which includes 30+ measurements of the conversation as well as verbatim descriptions and voice recordings for locations where legal.

What else can I see? On-Line Benchmarking.

On-line benchmarking allows the retailer to see how their operation compares - question by question - to the national average for other same-brand retailers, as well as to the overall industry average.

On-line reporting also includes an average of the retailer's last six evaluations to determine the retailer's "average" sales or service process. Retailers are then able to measure and track their process improvement, rather than just focusing on one-off evaluations of a single salesperson or a single shopper.

See how your retailers compare.

If you work for a brand, manufacturer or national retailer group, call or email Pied Piper to get started. If you work for an individual motor-vehicle dealership, click here to go ahead to go ahead and try Pied Piper PSI mystery shops at your location.