Mystery Shopper: Banbury

5: Carphone Warehouse

Product range – 4/5
Product knowledge – 2/5
Airtime knowledge – 3/5
Questioning ability – 2/5
Sales ability – 2/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 18/30

4: Vodafone

Product range – 4/5
Product knowledge – 3/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 3/5
Sales ability – 2/5
Shop appearance – 4/5
Total – 20/30

=2: 3

Product range – 5/5
Product knowledge – 4/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 3/5
Sales ability – 3/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 24/30

=2: Orange

Product range – 4/5
Product knowledge – 4/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 3/5
Sales ability – 4/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 24/30

1: O2

Product range – 5/5
Product knowledge – 5/5
Airtime knowledge – 4/5
Questioning ability – 5/5
Sales ability – 5/5
Shop appearance – 5/5
Total – 29/30

Summary

Overall, there was a considerable amount of waiting around and a lack of demonstrations.

Customers go into bricks-and-mortar stores to get advice and to see the options available. This is a clear differentiator to the online experience.

Yet Orange and O2 were the only stores that demoed the product. Orange missed out on top spot because of the 15-minute wait to be served. No stores were pushy, which was great. Stores need to know more about te operating systems on smartphones they sell to give customers a proper comparison.

Not one store was able to offer me a run-down of the OS differences.

Full review in Mobile News issue 452 (November 16, 2009).

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