May 2016

The 6th Conference Mystery Shopping Day

The 6th Conference Mystery Shopping day was held on Wednesday, the 9th of March 2016 in Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel, Ljubljana.

It was intended for our existing and future customers, and for all who were interested in the “Mystery Shopping” service. The topic of the conference was “The quality of services in the retail market” and this year we joined forces with colleagues from the Croatian Agency, Heraklea and offered one conference in two different countries, Slovenia and Croatia.

Date of the event: 9th of March 2016
Time of the event: 09:00 am – 03:00 pm
Place of the event: Ljubljana, Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel
Event title: “The quality of services in the retail market”

The conference was opened by the director of Skrivnostni nakup, Ms. Natalia Ugren, with the presentation of results of Guest study. In the lecture, she included various important elements of sales process, which she obtained in 20 years of experiences.

Our next guest, director of Better Business World Wide (Sweden), Ms. Veronica B. Karlsson, in detail presented how their Mystery Shopping Agency is working in the field of Mystery Shopping. Ms. Veronica B. Karlsson is also the founder and first president of the MSPA – the Association of European agencies of Mystery Shopping.

Later on Ms. Barbara Birsa, head of retail in the company Metro (Mana stores) and Mr. Boško Mastikosa, also head of retail in the company Tobačna (newsstands 3DVA) revealed “Examples of good practice” when using Mystery Shopping as a tool for determining the quality of service. Each presented how they are using Mystery Shopping service and what they do with the results obtained in the process.

One of the essential objectives of the Mystery Shopping method is also improving the conditions of employees in the workplace. Employees who are satisfied with the work they are doing are more motivated. Quality payment systems also contribute to positive motivation and organizational climate. This was the topic of Dr. David Đukić, director of Institute of professional sales, who was talking about “How quality of payment systems are affecting sales results and organizational climate”. He told us different ways, aims and objectives of rewarding, presented the consequences of poorly set system and proposed to us that the rewarding system should be smart, yet simple.

After that followed a round table where we had the opportunity to meet our mystery shoppers. After the short presentation, we were hearing about good and bad experiences from the field.

We concluded with the presentation of Mr. Janez Hudovernik, director of company Pro Acta, who explained to us “How to recruit winners in the sales team”. He talked about the DISK® method, which shows the behavioral traits of the candidate at the specific workplace and helps us to determine the affinity of a person to a particular area.

At the end of our get-together, we announced the project “Mystery Shopping star”, with the aim to encourage companies to reward their employees based on the Mystery Shopping results. This year’s Mystery Shopping star went into hands of company Metro. Ms. Barbara Birsa, the head of retail, expressed the satisfaction and added that they received another confirmation that they were on the right track.

Finally, we gave away some books and then we thanked all of our sponsors, partners and the media sponsor of the event.

Pleasant event was followed by socializing with a cup of coffee and some treats. We were all unanimous that such events are rare, which was a hint for us as, organizers, to meet again.