Shopping glee
Survey ranks downtown Naperville shopping in top third of the country
With the holiday shopping season soon to be upon us, wouldn't it be great to know which stores offer the best in service, friendliness, helpful employees and more?
In downtown Naperville, a local marketing firm has already done the legwork for you. Ann Michaels & Associates, which is based in Naperville, has been conducting unannounced shopping excursions locally as well as throughout the country and Canada for the past 11 years.
Representatives from the company recently completed a study to assess customer service levels at various retailers in downtown Naperville.
Results were based on visiting 34 retail locations over a two-week period and compiling more than 100 evaluations. Rankings were based on a number of criteria, including greeting of customers, employee interaction, interior appearance and overall impressions.
Ann Michaels & Associates general manager Marianne Hynd said a group of 14 mystery shoppers hired by the firm were turned loose in downtown Naperville between Sept. 25 and Oct. 16. Despite Ann Michaels & Associates being a hometown firm, Hynd admitted it was first time the company had studied Naperville.
"This study was initiated by us, and over the course of time that we've been doing these types of studies across the country, we've seen retailers really taking them to heart," Hynd said. "We focused here on things like initial greeting, employee knowledge and subjective impressions about the store and then look at the surveys and sort of compile a report card."
Hynd said the purpose of the study is to create "a general snapshot" of the business landscape while realizing that the environment in stores is likely to change in the next few weeks as the Christmas rush begins and again after the holidays, during what is traditionally a slow time in retail.
Based on the survey results, Hynd said the downtown Naperville experience "would rank in the top third of the country.
"One of the things we looked at was customer/sales associate ratio, and we found that in almost all cases, there was one employee for every pair of customers," Hynd said. "In terms of greeting customers, 71 percent of the people were greeted in the first minute they entered and another 16 percent were approached in the first one to three minutes."
In terms of overall impressions, 80 percent were positive, with 20 retailers exceeding the 80 percent level and four stores coming in at 96 percent.
Not surprisingly, the study also found some areas that need improvement, particularly in the area of stores' exchange or refund policies.
"Based on subjective opinion, many of our shoppers felt that stores were not flexible regarding their exchange or return policy," Hynd said. "People had concerns if the gifts were for a birthday that was a month or two away and there being only a 30-day exchange or refund policy. The feeling was that stores weren't taking the customer into consideration."
In another ranking, about 50 percent of the shoppers perceived their experience in downtown Naperville as being better than a typical retail experience. The other half found it to be as expected, but no better.
"There are a lot of mom-and-pop businesses rather than corporate ones in the downtown area, but for many shoppers, that did not make a difference," Hynd said. "Overall, we tried to focus mostly on clothing stores with a few others thrown in. We visited a couple shoe stores and even a pet store downtown."
To view the complete study, visit www.annmichaelsltd.com/uploads/Downtown_Naperville_Executive_Summary_Sun_1009.pdf.
