Companies that increasingly gain market share and sustain high customer loyalty don’t achieve these accomplishments by accident. Leading companies know that if they want to keep customers from defecting to the competition, they must listen and respond to what customers want.

Insight from Customers that Don't Purchase

Reports indicate that anywhere from 50 - 82% of customers leave retail stores without purchasing. For most retailers, increasing the percentage of purchasing customers by a very attainable 5% could make a tremendous difference to the bottom line. For example, if 50% of a store’s 200 daily customers typically make purchases, and this store’s average sale per customer is $40, raising the store’s purchase rate to 55% (only 10 more purchasers per day) would equate to an additional $400/day and $146,000 annually. If that store was part of a 100-store chain, and they all raised their purchase rates from 50% to 55%, the additional annual sales would equate to almost $15 million.

How can you ensure that a higher percentage of your customers make purchases? You must first ask your customers why they are not purchasing, understand what wants and needs you are not fulfilling, and act.

The BestMark Advantage – Customer Intercept / Exit Surveys

Customer intercept interviews (also called exit interviews) are especially insightful because the interviews take place at your locations, during or immediately after your customers’ shopping experiences. It is here that customers can accurately recall details of their shopping experiences and express their reasons for purchasing or not purchasing.

BestMark will help you create an interview that directly and concisely uncovers the information you need to know:

What are your customers’ unfulfilled needs?
Why are customers leaving your locations without purchasing?
Are your promotional materials/displays bringing customers in and making an impact?
Where else are your customers shopping and why?
And much, much more…

Why should you choose BestMark for your exit interviewing needs? First of all, most companies that offer exit interviews charge approximately double the price we can offer. Some of these companies even charge many times more because they fly exit interviewers to certain locations. At BestMark, we have qualified exit interviewers across the country, which typically enables us to avoid travel costs altogether.

Furthermore, our lower costs do NOT equate to lower quality. Due to our efficient processes, rules-based systems, and sophisticated training, our error rate is almost non-existent, and we pride ourselves on having the best quality assurance processes in the industry:

Strict Hiring Criteria. Before BestMark even considers someone for an exit interviewing project, the applicant is carefully screened, interviewed, and evaluated. If they fulfill our first set of qualifications, potential interviewers must successfully complete extensive web-based training and pass a certification test based on the exact specifications and parameters of your specific program.
Direct One-on-One Management of Exit Interviewers. When assigning exit interviews, our dedicated staff of in-house schedulers will speak one-on-one with your exit interviewers to ensure that they are fully prepared, that they completely understand the specific requirements, and that they know immediate support is only a phone call away should any questions or concerns arise.
In-Depth Data Review. BestMark’s staff of Quality Editors, who are trained on your company's exact standards, will review and edit your exit interview results to ensure you receive the most thorough and actionable information possible. On the extremely rare occasion that there is a breach of methodology, question of credibility, or insufficient detail in any report, the interviews are rejected, and we send another interviewer at no added expense to you.
Consistent Evaluation of Exit Interviewer Performance. Quality Editors follow-up with the majority of exit interviewers to ask very specific questions and provide recognition and/or constructive feedback for future interviews.

At BestMark, we also understand that the conduct of our exit interviewers reflects on your company. If exit interviewers are pushy, unprofessional, or just act bored with the interviewing process, this gives your customers the message that you don’t genuinely care about what they have to say. Our exit interviewers know that the manner in which they gather your data is just as important as the data itself. As an extension of your company, they will be courteous, appreciative and sincerely engaged when interacting with your customers.

Actionable Insight

Too many companies have made the mistake of gathering customer feedback and then finding that they have an overwhelming amount of data that they aren’t sure how to use. We can help you understand which customer-suggested improvements will give you the greatest return on investment through increased customer loyalty and profitability. We can also measure the progress of your action plans with additional services and solutions such as mystery shops, compliance audits, and follow-up exit interviews. This holistic and cyclical process will enable you to stay on the forefront of understanding your customers’ needs and help you optimally prioritize your actions for continually improving customers’ experiences and your bottom line.