[Type the company name]
Mystery Shopper Project
O’ Briens - wine. Beer. Spirits.
Ashley O’ Sullivan, Laura Reddy and Oisin Cullen
14
Table of Contents
Introduction
Methodology
Main Findings
Recommendations
Appendix
Reflective essays
Introduction
O’Brien’s wine off licence group is one of Irelands largest family owned business and the
largest independent drink retailer in the country. It was set up in August 1968 in Co. Dublin.
It is also one of the largest drinks retailers in Ireland.
They have a complete range of over 1,000 wines, the largest local and international beer
selection and spirits offering in the country. O’Brien’s are well known for their wide range of
products and this attracts a market of all ages. O’Brien’s have great consumer loyalty
because they give consumers friendly and knowledgeable staff, great promotional offers
monthly, along with a customer loyalty scheme.
They have 32 stores in total which are based throughout Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, Cork and
Galway, and they employ over 250 staff in total. The company is continuing to grow and
they are hoping to open another store in Cork this
year.
They are proud award winners of the Retail
Excellence Ireland - Company of the Year Industry
Leader in 2009 and 2010, and they won best
multiple wine chain 2014 from Tomas Clancy with
the Sunday Business Post. This is a fantastic track
record and we hope they live up to their
reputation of great service provided by
knowledgeable and friendly staff, which will give
us a pleasant visit through our mystery shopper
visits.
“The family has five core values of great retail – value for money, knowledgeable and
friendly staff, an exciting and relevant product offering, a relaxed retail environment and the
right store location.” (O’Brien’s wines group)
O’ Briens strive to provide a unique shopping experience with their modern stores,
contemporary layout, daily in-store tastings, monthly promotions and excellent service from
their knowledgeable and friendly staff.
Some of the other services they provide is sale and return of 25%, free delivery in the
Republic of Ireland with purchases of €60 and above, exchange/refund with receipt (so long
as the product is of retail standard), a satisfaction guarantee, loyalty card scheme, and free
gift wrapping in cellophane or you can purchase cases/hampers that they will make to your
liking. This is an extensive offering which seems very impressive but we will be testing as
many of these offerings as we can throughout our mystery shops.
Methodology
After identifying O’ Briens as the service company to research, a series of mystery shops
were carried out in their Carlow store. The points of contact that were used were face to
face, telephone, email and a thorough examination of their website. The overall findings
from the mystery shopper reports showed that, for the most part, O’ Briens meet their
promises to the consumer which are to provide value for money, knowledgeable and
friendly staff, an exciting and relevant product offering, a relaxed retail environment and the
right store location.
The researchers started by developing an extensive list of criteria to examine for each of the
points of contact. Fortunately one team member worked in the Newbridge store of the
O’Brien’s chain and acquired the mystery shop guidelines O’Brien’s use in their actual
mystery shopper reports. Using this checklist, along with the help of the class notes the
researchers added a few areas that they also felt needed examining. The team developed
an in depth questionnaire to thoroughly examine the service company, inside and out.
Face to face
The face to face criteria needed to examine everything that contributes to having the best
service experience. The researchers started with the exterior to begin with. The criteria
created to examine the exterior servicescape was, the journey to the store (easy to find,
good signage, etc.), the parking (close to store, free spaces, free parking), the external
appearance (cleanliness around store, tidy and pleasant surrounding area, good shop
presence, visually appealing to the consumer, and nice window displays), the location
(convenient, easy accessible location). The mystery shoppers felt these headings covered all
aspects of the exterior environment where the service took place.
For the internal examination, the researchers looked extensively into what makes a good
experience for the consumer. After a lot of research and reviewing the criteria of O’ Briens
own questionnaire, the mystery shoppers built a checklist that they felt would best examine
all the interior servicescape factors and the service that the employee provides. The
checklist was composed of the greeting, signage (easy to find products), engagement
(availability, helpfulness, interest, eye contact, smile, empathy, and honesty), staff product
knowledge, housekeeping (clean floor, free from obstruction), wine bays, beer fridge, spirits
shelves, counter, and window displays. These criteria touched on all the important aspects
of the face to face meeting and interaction between the consumer and employee.
The researchers also created a small checklist for the salesperson who served them and the
atmosphere in store. The checklist included uniform, name badge, vibe in store, background
music, loyalty card, receipt supplied, gift wrapping offered, and a few other things.
Ashley and Laura carried out the face to face mystery shops. Both reports showed an overall
great experience. The shop was visually appealing to the consumer, sticking to their promise
of a modern and contemporary feel. The outside of the shop and windows were clean,
vibrant and inviting to the consumer. Inside the store delivered on creating a relaxed retail
environment. They had an extensive product offering that was not overwhelming because
they had beautiful displays for promotional offers and all the bays and shelves were clearly
signed to make shopping easier. The staff were courteous and polite, they welcomed any
preferences or specific needs/wants, and offered friendly and knowledgeable advice on
what to purchase. They gave a couple of options to best suit their individual needs and
when the mystery shopper made a decision they went a little bit further to offer chilled
wine from their fridge and offered to wrap the prosecco.
“Successful experiences are those that a customer finds unique, memorable and sustainable
over time and would want to repeat and build upon and enthusiastically promote via word
of mouth” (Pine and Gilmore 1998)
The face to face meeting delivered a successful experience, in the researcher’s opinions, as
O’ Briens provided a pleasant experience in store by understanding the customer’s needs
and responding willingly and effortlessly. It was an experience that the researchers would
repeat and happily promote via word of mouth.
Email
The email mystery shop was carried out by Ashley. She wrote to the manager of the Carlow
store, Paul, with a particular scenario to see how quickly she would get a reply and to see if
the manager gave her good attention and advice. The scenario was that she was organising
a 21st party and was expecting approximately 100 guests. She wanted a prosecco for the
reception, preferable a rose, that would be suitable for the party. She asked what options
were available to her and their prices. The manager sent a reply in the same day; he was
extremely forthcoming with information. He showed that he understood her needs and
wants and wrote her a detailed email of what prosecco’s that he thought would be most
suitable and their prices, including promotional offers on them. He also informed her that
there was a “10% back on your loyalty card” weekend coming up, which would be a good
time to purchase so she could get money back on her loyalty card. He concluded by offering
her to drop in if she would like to taste any of the prosecco’s to get a feel for their taste and
quality and that if she had any other questions to email, ring or drop into the store during
their opening times. This was a fantastic example of providing a great service, the manager
was PERFECT. He was Polite, Efficient, Respectful, Friendly, Enthusiastic, Cheerful, and
Tactful. O’ Briens certainly delivered on their promises in this part of the mystery shop.
Telephone call
The telephone call was completed by Oisin. A busy time of the evening was chosen when the
researcher would be more likely to mystery shop a staff member that was not a manager. The
researchers felt it would be beneficial for the study to test as many staff members as possible. The
time of day decided upon was 19.25 on a Monday evening. From experience the shop is supervised
by part-time staff at this time of the evening. A questionnaire was created four days in advance of
the phone call to give plenty of time to make necessary revisions.
The researchers wanted to examine as many of the O’Brien’s promises to customers as possible. This
objective was made harder by using the telephone as a point of contact. To facilitate our objective
we decided to use the theme of a wedding. A wedding theme offered many opportunities for the
staff member to deliver on the O’Brien’s Wines ethos of high quality customer service and value for
money. Examples of responses the researchers were hoping to receive were the O’Brien’s loyalty
card being offered, sale & return being outlined, free delivery, wine promotions, wine knowledge
etc.
The items requested during the phone call were white and red wine and prosecco. These items were
needed to satisfy 150 wedding guests in the summer. The reason the theme was so specific was
because there was certain things a knowledgeable staff member is expected to know, such as the
amount of wine needed to satiate a certain number of guests and that the ratio of white to red wine
should lean more towards white wine during the summer months. It was felt that it would be very
important that a staff member get these bits of information right. On the O’Brien’s website it states
that when planning quantities for a wedding it should be assumed there are 8 glasses of
prosecco/champagne per bottle and 6 medium sized wine glasses per bottle. A person should expect
each wedding guest to drink a half bottle of wine and 2-3 glasses of fizz. This may seem a lot for a
staff member to know but giving the wrong amounts to a customer could see the wedding having
too much or too little wine which could leave the guests feeling unhappy.
The member of staff would need to be very well trained and be constantly adding to their wine
knowledge to complete score well on this questionnaire. The staff member would also need to have
a perfect understanding of company policies and rules regarding big wine and fizz orders. The
researchers felt it would be important to be as thorough as possible when creating the questionnaire
because a wedding costs a customer a large sum of money. With such a large amount of money
being spent one would expect service and knowledge to of an exceptionally high standard.
Online website
The website mystery shop was completed by Oisin. Oisin did not do a face-to-face as he was
familiar with the staff members in the Carlow store. For the purpose of this mystery shop it
was felt that a purchase was unnecessary. When delivery charges etc. were factored in it
would have been too costly an activity just to find out if the company stuck to its delivery
promise of 2-3 days. The website was assessed on many different levels including the
technical design of the website, the aesthetic design of the website, ease of use, payment
options, etc.
The websites aesthetic appeal was the first obvious thing to be assessed because that is the
first chance a potential customer has to form an opinion on the website. Things being
analysed included the user interface, the colour scheme, typeface and the quality of
pictures used. The quality of content provided was looked at as this is one of the most
important parts of a website. For this objective many things were examined, such as well
written page content, well written product descriptions, grammar and spelling mistakes and
dead links.
To test the websites navigation sufficiently three product items were searched for. For each
product a different website pathway was chosen. What is meant by this is a different route
was used to access to product in question. For example, the wine was found using the
search option, the beer was found by following a series of drop down menus and the beer
was found by searching the term straight into Google. Each of the chosen routes yielded a
positive result. This shows that O’Brien’s considered the buying process carefully when
designing the site and SEO campaign.
The last thing to be looked at was the payment process. This is a very important part of
online retail because the researchers felt this is the part of the process customers are most
uneasy about. Things like payment options offered and payment page security were
examined. The things looked for were the SSL or TLS sign to show the customer that the
payment page is in fact safe to use. The payment options that should be available like Visa,
MasterCard, American Express and PayPal were noted during the process. The shopping cart
was analysed to see if it was easy to use and gave options to continue shopping after adding
each item.
Main findings
Main Positive Findings
The overall experience of O’Brien’s was excellent. The researchers gathered the key positive
findings of all the reports combined. The exterior of the store was inviting to the customer
by having wide windows which allowed you to see into the store, and the window displays
were eye catching without being invasive. The layout in store was easy to navigate and well
signed to make it easier to locate your product of interest. The displays were well set up,
causing no obstruction around the shop. Pricing was clearly labelled, as well as promotional
offerings.
The staff members that dealt with each of the mystery shoppers were friendly and
approachable. Their appearance was neat and tidy which was a good representation of the
brand. They were more than willing to help and offer advice specific to each of our needs.
They listened and had a good understanding of the customer and gave a professional
presentation of the products. They had great engagement with the consumer and when a
product was selected they went above and beyond to give the best possible service. Ashley
was offered a chilled white wine from their fridge which demonstrated good customer care,
Laura was offered gift wrapping for her prosecco this showed attention to detail, and Ashley
was offered a tasting of prosecco’s for her 21st which proved O’Brien’s take every possible
opportunity to satisfy their customers.
Main negative findings
The store was in a prime location in the centre of the town. However for a consumer that isn’t
familiar with the town, it was signed on the journey to the store which made it difficult to find.
Although there was a car park straight across from the store there was limited spaces available and
it was pay parking. This can be off putting if you’re only making a quick visit.
The vibe inside the store was too quiet; it needed more background noise/music to create a better
atmosphere for the consumer. One of the mystery shoppers was not greeted when she walked into
the store, and neither of the employees were busy at the time.
For the telephone call, Oisin found that the employee was throwing the information at him a little
too quickly. Although he covered everything, Oisin found it hard to absorb all the information at
once. He was also given inaccurate quantities needed for his guests which could be detrimental for a
wedding.
The online website was very well laid out and easy to navigate, the only negative finding was one
dead link and some descriptions were too brief.
Recommendations
The only recommendation to improve their face to face service would be to have some signs
on the journey to the store to make it easier to find and if possible offer some free parking.
The in-store environment, although nice, the vibe was a bit quite and the researchers felt
that if there was a bit more music it would make the atmosphere in-store more comfortable
and inviting. One of the researchers was not greeted on entering the store. She felt that she
was not approached until browsing the wine and would recommend a brief interaction from
the employees initially to put the customer at ease. But an overall fantastic service was
provided.
Ashley had no negative findings with regards her e-mail mystery shop. The employee
understood her brief and went above and beyond to offer help and advice toward her
query.