Everything’s perfect. The display is
beautiful, your team is well-trained, you’ve got fantastic giveaway items and the
best pre-show promotion you’ve ever had. This is going to be the absolute best
tradeshow ever.
Are you sure? You might be the last person who can answer
this question honestly. It’s not that you don’t want to -- it’s that you
can’t.
Let’s face it. After you’ve spent weeks, even
months, planning, preparing and practicing your exhibit routine, you’re no longer
objective. You’re too close to your work to see it as a stranger would. This is no
fault of your own. It’s human nature. We can’t engage with our work and distance
ourselves from it at the same time.
Yet it is critical that our tradeshow performance be
excellent. Your organization’s financial well being depends in part of what attendees
learn about your company from your exhibit. How will you know, at the end of the day, what
they thought of your booth?
This is where the mystery shopper comes in. By stopping by
your exhibit and doing a little covert surveillance, the mystery shopper can provide you
with a critical and fair assessment of your performance.
This skilled professional will assess your booth on many
levels. Was your team as polished as you thought they were? Was that clever signage really
that funny? Did the giveaway items appeal or were they just so much more stuff to haul
around the show floor? The mystery shopper can tell you.
Getting an objective opinion of your exhibit is one very
valuable and valid reason to hire a mystery shopper. It’s not the only one.
There’s another reason to consider hiring a mystery shopper, especially if you have a
larger company with several display teams.
When the cat’s away, the mouse will play. It’s an
old saying, with more than a little modern truth to it. Any time the boss is out of the
office, for example, employees tend to slack off a little bit. It’s a good time to
chat and surf the web.
What happens when it’s not the boss who’s away,
but the employees? If you’ve packed up your sales team and shipped them across the
country to a tradeshow, how do you know they’re performing up to your standards?
We all like to hope that professionalism and responsibility
will carry the day. Employees who do a good job all the rest of the year will probably
continue to do well in the tradeshow environment. It might be a safe bet -- but do you
want to take chances with your company’s reputation?
If the answer to that question is no, you have a few
options.
The first is to go to the show yourself, and keep an eye on
things. If you can’t go, you could delegate this duty to a trusted supervisor.
If that doesn’t work, or you want a wholly objective
opinion, you can hire a mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers walk the show floor, and will
visit your display. Without identifying themselves, they assess your team’s
performance. Were they greeted promptly? Did your team ask qualifying questions? Was the
level of professionalism and product knowledge displayed in keeping with your
company’s expectations?
The mystery shopper will let you know. These professionals
are not only objective, the best ones are well versed in what makes an effective tradeshow
exhibit. Simply knowing that a mystery shopper will be stopping by the booth can act as a
de facto ‘cat’ for your booth staffers. When they don’t know who the
important attendee they have to impress is, all attendees become important. That’s
good news for your company!
You might also opt not to let your team know about the
mystery shopper. This way, the mystery shopper will get to assess the exhibit as it really
is, without any special pretense or put-on behaviors. If your team is doing a good job,
the mystery shopper will see that. If things aren’t as you might wish them to be, the
mystery shopper will see that too.
The mystery shopper can let you know of any performance
problems. The first step to improved performance is to have an accurate assessment of the
current exhibiting situation. This assessment will allow you to identify weak areas and
pinpoint performance problems -- information that’s critical to have if you want to
formulate solutions. That’s what a mystery shopper can provide.
From critical exhibit assessment to objective performance
review, the mystery shopper provides a critical service to the exhibitor. Everyone can
benefit from having a fresh set of eyes on them, from fledgling exhibitors to the
‘old pros’. Consider having a mystery shopper work with you on your next show.
You’ll be amazed what you can learn. |
