Incognito Journal

Competition is healthy for any business, but how can you gain extra access to important insights that allow you to stay on top? Mystery Shopping. 

While companies have traditionally hired mystery shoppers to determine the effectiveness of a sales or promotional campaign or targeted product release, you can learn a lot more from mystery shopping than whether or not placing that ad during the Super Bowl was a good idea.

Mistakes happen. Everyone from the boss to the mailroom clerk will eventually commit an error that impacts a client. Instead of panicking or denying, however, preserve and strengthen your customer relationships by following these steps:

It’s no secret that buying a car is one of the most painful consumer experiences there is.

Who doesn’t dread the proverbial aggressive car salesperson and the agonizingly long negotiating process? But according to the 12th annual “U.S. Auto Industry Benchmarking Study 'In-Person ,” in which mystery shoppers visited nearly 3,500 American auto dealerships, it turned out Audi offered the best customer service experience of any brand, while Tesla tanked out at the bottom.

Wouldn’t you like to know how your brand stacks up against the competition and, more specifically, what your salespeople are doing to make it happen?

Want to know the big difference between sales and marketing that works and sales and marketing that doesn’t? It’s all about addressing your customer’s pain points. And if you don’t identify what those pain points are, all you are doing is creating solutions for non-existent problems.

Content marketing is a buzzword these days, but what the heck is it?

When choosing how to market your business, it’s crucial to tailor your efforts to the forms of social media your current and prospective clients use. Here’s a quick rundown the demographics of three platforms. 

Direct mail continues to boast one of the highest response rates and ROI among marketing solutions, even with young adults and even in an age where everyone seems glued to their mobile devices. Here are three reasons why savvy business people should not overlook this critical marketing tool:

Content marketing is all the rage right now--using “editorial” to establish yourself as a thought leader, to drive traffic to your website, to generate buzz about your business. According to the Content Marketing Institute, more than 90 percent of B2B businesses employ content marketing, and 70 percent of those claim it has increased leads and customer engagement.

Customer satisfaction surveys are increasingly important for benchmarking your business’ customer experience, but they don’t provide the full story. Mystery shopping can provide a level of intelligence that surveys won’t. Here’s how: