In 1989, three friends started selling American jeans and shoes in Amsterdam. Despite its name, America Today is a thoroughly Dutch company. Although they also carry brands like Converse and Vans, the focus is mainly on their own collection of quality basics, jeans, and, as a Dutch fashion brand, raincoats of course.
Judith Brekelmans is one of the three Area Managers at America Today. Judith has been working there for four years now and oversees 18 stores in the North of the Netherlands. We spoke to her in the Amsterdam branch on Ferdinand Bolstraat. After several challenging years due to the pandemic, the fashion company is once again on the upswing, with twelve new branches set to open in 2024.
Company: America Today
Industry: Fashion
Locations: 54 branches in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany
Client since: 2017
Spoken with: Judith Brekelmans, Area Manager
Judith: In retail, and especially in the fashion industry, it's increasingly about the experience. There are plenty of alternatives for buying clothes elsewhere. So, when someone comes to America Today, they should get an amazing experience and service.
By deploying mystery shoppers, we know how our customers experience shopping with us. They are our ears and eyes, as we can't always be everywhere. This way, you really get the customer's perspective on our stores, from our target group, since Secret View doesn't work with professional shoppers. That's incredibly valuable to us. Because the Secret Viewers come from our service area every month, it also keeps our staff on their toes.
Moreover, it helps us map out how upselling is going. For example, we always have good deals on boxer shorts, which should be mentioned, or another attractive offer. Thus, the mystery shopping research also contributes to increasing conversion.
Judith: The shoppers go through the entire customer journey, and the questionnaire is based on this. Did you get greeted? Is there eye contact? But also, whether the customer was prioritized over other tasks in the store. There are always a hundred things to do in a clothing store, but the most important thing, of course, is to help people. That's the feeling a customer should leave with, that they've been well helped and scored a great outfit.
There's also a category called Crew, about how our colleagues on the floor perform. But also whether they are dressed inspiringly. That's important to us; they all wear clothes from the store, and the intention is to inspire customers with their own outfits. That's information you can't easily get elsewhere.
As Area Managers, we visit all our stores, and our new director also visits the stores a lot. That's nice to see and gives him ideas too. But such a structured survey, which has also been running for a long time, gives you different insights. Per touchpoint, you see at a glance in the dashboard how things are going at each branch. If there's a particular point in the customer journey that's lacking, I always look into how this can be improved together with the store manager. This way, I can work very specifically with a store.
Judith: Everyone is incredibly involved in the research, from top to bottom in the organization. You see the printed report lying around in the store here, and it's well-read. Each store manager receives the results for their store by email and discusses them with the team.
The Area Managers receive the results for each store. With each result I get, I immediately dive into the dashboard to see how it scored. If one of my stores gets a 90% or 100% score, I make it a celebration. Next, I make a special visit to the store, bringing along a grand cake and vibrant balloons to celebrate their achievement. The top ten branches are also published in our newsletter, where we highlight them even more.
If there's a poor score, I do have a conversation, and we go through the questionnaire to see what happened. It doesn't have further consequences for bonuses, for example. It could be that a store had a very high turnover that day, and it was incredibly busy. That puts such a score into perspective. A poor score around Christmas is different from a poor score in February, which is the quietest time of the year. It often happens only once. The next time, it's usually back to standard.
My manager also receives and reads all the emails with the scores. With very high scores, I get a message right away, and with less good scores, the question of what's going on comes immediately. It mainly gives him a picture of the atmosphere and the overall trend in our customer experience in the stores.
Judith: Mainly a positive effect. We generally score well, which is nice. Everyone is involved and aware of it. In every store, the latest results are on the table and discussed in the team. That's great to see.
We recently opened a new branch, and a mystery shopper came by after just one day. They scored 100% right away, which is of course fantastic. Then everyone sends messages to the store manager to congratulate this new team.
The mystery shopping research has been running for a long time, of course. If you look at the trend over all those years, you see an impressive upward line. Then it also helps to zoom out at a lower score. What also helps, and is quite unique in retail, is that people stay with us for a long time. That's a huge amount of experience and also says something about our organization. The atmosphere is good, and we invest in our people. I see the mystery shopping research as part of that too. Through the constructive feedback from the shoppers, we learn and become a little better each time.
We have years of experience in various industries with customer experience research. We map out customer experience for restaurants, supermarkets, fashion, cinemas, and various other industries. The data is presented in the best dashboard on the market. So, you always have the latest insights at your fingertips and know what's going on in your stores. Have a look at our other cases or get a demo to see what we can do for you.