A 'Best Practice' session was delivered by the EU Education Team at the MSPA Conference in Riga, May 2015.  The key messages that were communicated to delegates on the subject of How to define KPIs and How to demonstrate ROI are listed below. This information can be used by members to support the development of client relationships.

How to define KPIs 

• “Talk about it” – schedule a meeting to talk about KPIs, or at least ensure it is included as an item on your meeting agenda.   Keep it on the agenda, so that KPIs are regularly discussed with the client team.
• Involve the frontline team when defining the KPIs, otherwise there is a big danger of the KPIs not being accepted, because of a lack of emotional involvement by the people who need to deliver the service.
• Ensure that the frontline team are also involved in approving any changes made to the questionnaire or scoring system - again, it is important that they feel involved in this process in order to secure their buy-in.
• Keep a close eye on performance against the KPIs when there is movement of managers between stores.  Do any/all of the KPIs improve, if so, how?  If one manager is failing his/her KPIs, give them support.  Share best practice between managers to help improvement across the client organisation.

How to demonstrate ROI (Return on Investment)  

• Encourage the practice of comparing other data to Mystery Shopping data - as long as the questionnaire is good quality and covers the right elements of the customer experience, there will often be a strong correlation between Mystery Shopping data and employee/sales data. 
• Mystery Shopping monitors operational performance, which removes the need for supervisors/senior mangement to travel from shop to shop to carry out all these checks. 
• Many shoppers actually keep what they buy! So, Mystery Shopping creates more sales!
• Many shoppers get to know the brand for the first time through Mystery Shopping, so they convert into clients!