Right on cue

For most marketers, mystery shopping means sending consumers to a retail outlet to check on service issues like employee attitude and store appearance. But mystery shopping can be used for many other purposes, including boosting product awareness. For example, Yamaha Corp. of America, a Buena Park, Calif., maker of musical instruments, uses a mystery shopping program to stimulate interest in and sales of its line of Clavinova digital pianos.

When the product was introduced in 1985 it was an innovation, an electronic piano with weighted keys and digitally sampled sounds to match the feel and tone of a "real" piano.

As a leader in the new piano market, Yamaha saw the Clavinova line as a way to grab a share of the much larger used piano market while not competing against itself for new piano customers. The digital pianos' reasonable price points make them an option for consumers who may be seeking a used piano because they think a new one is unaffordable.

"The market for new pianos is approximately 100,000 pianos a year," says Jim Lynch, assistant general manager of the Keyboard Division of Yamaha. "The used piano market is 500,000 per year. Not all of those are sold - some are passed between family members - but a lot of retail stores get customers who say they're interested in a used piano. We felt if we could get those customers to look at a Clavinova, we'd sell a lot of product, so that's how the secret shopper program started."

Gist is simple

The gist of Yamaha's secret shopper program is simple and hasn't changed since the program was introduced several years ago. The shopper enters the music store and tells the salesperson that he or she would like to see a good used piano. The salesperson is free to show them a used piano - that is, after all, ostensibly why they're there - but if the first new piano they demonstrate for the customer is a Clavinova they are immediately given a check for $100 and told that they've "won."

"It's important to give the money to them on the spot. It's a completely different thing to say, 'You're a winner and we'll mail you the check,' as opposed to handing it to them right there. It generates a lot more excitement," Lynch says.

"When we first started doing this program the salespeople who won would get so excited that they'd call us. They don't do that so much anymore but it still creates a lot of positive effects. For example, if the secret shopper visits a chain store and someone wins, the salesperson will often call their friends in two or three stores and at that point we feel that the Clavinova gets a lot of attention that it might not have gotten otherwise, for a low cost."

If the salesperson doesn't show the shopper a Clavinova, the shopper is instructed to terminate the interaction quickly, without revealing their identity as a secret shopper. "If the salesperson doesn't win, the shopper doesn't say anything. They've taken up the salesperson's time and we don't want to have a negative impact by having them spend time on a sale that's not real," Lynch says.

(While the shoppers aren't supposed to be truly interested in buying a piano, Lynch says that each year, a few secret shoppers buy a Clavinova as a result of participating in the program. "They may not have been aware of the product before and once they find out about it, they remember how much they used to enjoy playing the piano and purchase one.")

Explicit instructions

Elrick & Lavidge, an Atlanta research firm, conducts the secret shopper program for Yamaha. The program begins in the fall (Yamaha's busiest sales time of the year) and runs for three months, encompassing about 700 shops a year across the country.

Shoppers get very explicit instructions prior to visiting the music store, says Jeff Hughes, account executive, Elrick & Lavidge. "They are to ask about a particular feature or benefit and leave it open for the salesman to direct them to a particular product. In this case, they ask for a good used piano and then see if the salesman takes them to the Clavinova."
Prior to the shop they're given Clavinova brochures to familiarize themselves with the product. "That way the shoppers are more comfortable and they have a better feel for what they're doing. It requires a little advance coordination because you have to get the information to the research firm in time to distribute it to the shoppers, but it's well worth the effort," Lynch says.

Positive reinforcement

The program has logged a 50 percent or slightly higher "win" rate every year. Salespeople most often lose because they show the shopper one of the many inexpensive portable pianos on the market. "The Clavinova line starts at $2,000 retail and goes to $10,000. Portable keyboards can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. Some salespeople may feel that because the customer came in asking for a used piano, money is the main consideration, and so they take them to a portable keyboard since they're probably looking for a bargain," Lynch says.

In cases where salespeople don't win, one of Yamaha's 14 regional general managers will talk to them, to reinforce in a positive way that they missed an opportunity. That positive approach is key to handling store personnel who don't perform well in the mystery shop, says Hughes. "For manufacturers, talking to store management and employees is a way to say, 'Here's where you can improve the sales of our products by following these guidelines and using the sales tools that we provide you. If you follow these you probably would see sales increase.' It's not a way of catching somebody doing something wrong, it's a way of catching somebody doing it right and promoting it."

Though mystery shopping started out as a way to monitor employee honesty, Gary Harper, vice president of marketing services, Elrick & Lavidge, says his company stresses using it as a tool for positive reinforcement. "We do not like to get involved in negative mystery shopping programs. A lot of people believe that mystery shopping should be done to catch the thief or the person who's not doing their job. It's something that mystery shopping can do and has done but we think that's a poor application of a good tool," Harper says.

"We want to be involved in positive applications, because it puts us in a favorable light, and it puts the shopper and the salesperson in a favorable light. Nobody wants to mystery shop knowing that they're doing somebody harm. We counsel our customers in that same direction."

Top of mind

For Yamaha, what started as a way of bringing attention to a new product now serves as a way to keep the Clavinova top of mind with salespeople. "Yamaha wanted to find out what dealers were saying about the Clavinova," says Harper. "That's usually one of the goals of this kind of mystery shopping program. Manufacturers want to find out how their brand is being presented to the buying public. Is it number one on the salesperson's mind? Do they tout it as being the best? Any manufacturer spends a good deal of money with the retail trade trying to stimulate interest in their brand, trying to get the channel to say something positive about their brand and sell it ahead of everyone else's."

In addition to monitoring salespeople, Yamaha's secret shopper program also provides valuable retail-level data about the stores that sell Yamaha products, Lynch says. "We welcome comments from shoppers, and we pay attention to them. Some will say that the store didn't have any brochures, for example, but whatever it is we pay attention to them because it's direct input from retail. We're in the wholesale end of it so we don't get a lot of that kind of information."

Know the punch line

Because the program has run for many years, there are salespeople around the country who know that the line "I'm looking for a good used piano" most likely means the customer is a secret shopper and that they'll earn an easy $100 by showing them a Clavinova. Lynch says Yamaha is happy to award these veteran salespeople. "The fact that a person may pick up on the punch line is OK. It costs us some money but it doesn't bother us at all. We've made that salesperson happy and they'll probably try to sell more of our product as a result."