The IntelliShop Blog

On Sunday, February 5th, the New York Giants and New England Patriots will face off in the Super Bowl and fans across the country are hoping they deliver.   Many of those same fans will also be counting on their favorite pizza chain to deliver a hot fresh pizza in time for the game.  Papa Johns, the Official Pizza Sponsor of the NFL, set a single-day sales record last year on Super Bowl Sunday!  Domino’s predicts they will deliver over 1 million pizzas this year and Pizza Hut is forecasting more than 2 million.  How many of those pizzas will make it to their...

I LOVE Chipotle.  Fresh food, always tastes great, local ingredients, friendly people, controlled chaos behind the counter.  I eat there 2-4 times/week, and have literally never had anything close to a bad experience.  Many have just been "to expectations".  It's tough to serve that many people, in a "fast food" restaurant, and deliver a consistently great experience, right?  However, today's was, truly, an Experience.  My best ever at a "fast food" restaurant.  Why the quotation marks?  Read on.
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American consumers are an ever-changing breed, and a smart businessman knows to stay ahead of them – or at least to keep up.  This year, according to the American Express Global Customer Service Barometer, consumer changes include being less willing to deal with customer service that they view as becoming worse.

This recently released report includes several undeniable trends and unsettling statistics regarding American consumers:

• 60% believe businesses haven’t increased their focus on providing good customer service
• 78% have ended a...

About a year ago, I went through the process of purchasing a new car.  My salesman was personable, and overall the experience was pleasant.  When we finished, he handed me a customer survey to fill out.  The salesman explained it would be sent on to the manufacturer to monitor the dealership’s overall performance and my experience.  Incredibly, I was then told by the salesman that should I mark all areas ‘excellent,’ I would get my first oil change free.  I’m thinking that the manufacturer is getting a lot of ‘excellent’ surveys...

A recent article in USAToday reports that, "The government is introducing sweeping protections for fliers to bar long tarmac delays on international flights; require airlines to reimburse bag fees if luggage is lost; and pay people double if they're bumped off flights."  The article further points out that after regulations were implemented a couple years ago barring tarmac delays on domestic flights, long tarmac delays...

It’s April 1st. Hopefully you were prepared for your friends’ and co-workers’ attempts at humor by telling you that your zipper is down or that Pierce Brosnan died.

Today we are saluting a company that understands its customers, respects its employees and pranks us all every year on April Fool’s Day.

Google got into the April Fool’s Day game in 2000,...

Rather than take a plane to Chicago to meet with some of my clients, I decided that, for fun, I would try the train. (Blame it on my recent visit to Cincinnati’s beautifully-preserved, sickeningly Art Deco Union Terminal train station, coupled with my love for old movies in which motors and planes were less accessible.) While my expectations for this form of travel weren’t abundantly high, per se, I was still kind of excited to try something new.

Upon arriving, I got in line to retrieve my ticket. In front of me was a kindly older woman inquiring about an $18...

Many companies choose to employ mystery shoppers and mystery shopping companies to ensure their employees are offering the best and most reliable service they can.  Firms improve the customer service they offer, shoppers earn money, and sometimes employees even receive bonuses based on their performance with these secret shoppers.

Sometimes, however, this system works in a different way.  Occasionally, the mystery shopper is not contracted by a mystery shopping firm or even the business entity itself. These shoppers can be self-driven, media-related, or even...

Bruce Hornsby famously sang, “That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change.” A younger generation of readers will recall those lyrics as they were sampled by 2pac some years ago, and the words are no less relevant now.

Dr. Chip Bell, an expert consultant on customer loyalty, has said that after a person is employed for about ninety days, he becomes blind to the details that his customers see. This accurately defines one primary function of mystery shoppers, but it also points out a risk that even mystery shoppers face.

When we become comfortable...

Want an easy way to jump-start your sales in 2011, while at the same time helping your associates and managers avoid or get out of the post-holiday blahs?  Run an upsell contest and reward your star performers.  Studies have shown that uspell contests measured using active mystery shopping programs can improve upsell percentages as much as 50% in a very short period of time. 

Whether you have stores, restaurants, branches, call centers, or other types of locations, you can use such programs to jump start sales this year, and also get your frontline people fired up and...