Mystery Shopping - Courier Client Resolves Soft Sales

A courier client had set up distribution of their Priority Worldwide (PWW) shipping service through a major drug store chain.

However revenues through this new channel were much lower than anticpated.

The client asked us to find out why.

We first developed a hypothesis to be tested through face to face mystery shops:

"Store staff view PWW as an expensive, last minute option to other courier services. They also have been poorly trained, so they frequently overlook gaps and errors by customers completing a PWW waybill"

Shoppers were then told to ship an envelope overseas, but to leave out the receiver’s phone number or to send restricted items such as food or cash.

A myriad of issues were discovered including store staff:

• Not displaying PWW posters or counter cards
• Lacking important knowledge such as knowing weight limits or that multiple packages cannot be shipped using a single PWW airway bill.
• Failing to notice missing information from the shopper’s PWW airway bill.
• Allowing shoppers to send restricted items.
• Discouraging shoppers from using PWW.

The client used  findings to have store staff persons attend a 1 day training program. 

3 months after training was completed, sales increased 15%, by the end of 9 months; sales were up 38% and in line with the client’s revenue goals.