Operating a retail store in a mall comes with great opportunities to reach many potential customers. However, it also comes with challenges around understanding customer experiences and feedback.
Gathering Mall Shopper Feedback
There are several approaches mall stores can take to gather feedback from customers about their experiences:
Accessing and analyzing customer comments about mall stores is crucial for success. This guide will explore best practices for mall feedback management.
In-Store Interactions
- Train staff to politely ask customers about their visit as they checkout. This provides immediate verbal feedback.
- Set up a feedback station with a tablet for customers to quickly tap responses to preset questions as they exit. Offer small rewards for participation.
- Position staff near exits to actively invite feedback from customers as they leave. Capture feedback with written forms.
Online Review Monitoring
- Claim and monitor the store's mall directory listings on Google, Facebook, Yelp and other platforms. Read and respond to customer reviews.
- Email receipts with a link to an online survey or review page to convert recent shoppers into reviewers.
- Offer incentives like discounts to customers who share feedback on third party sites after a purchase.
Ongoing Community Engagement
- Build an owned review page on the company website to motivate customers to share reviews over time.
- Reward loyal customers with special perks when they write reviews on various platforms.
- Share user-photo content from reviews on owned channels to foster community.
- Regularly request reviews via email and in-store signage.
Using several methods provides better visibility into different shopper segments visiting the mall store.
Best Practices for Processing Feedback Data
Once various sources of mall shopper comments have been accessed, stores should follow best practices for processing the data:
- Centralize feedback gathering through a CX management platform that connects in-store and online channels.
- Categorize reviews (e.g. by aspects like service, quality, atmosphere) to uncover primary pain points.
- Flag reviews for priority attention based on sentiment scores.
- Monitor changes in review volume and ratings week-over-week.
- Mine feedback for recurring themes around problems or praise.
- Assign tasks to store managers based on analyzed review data to address fixes.
- Close the loop by following up with dissatisfied reviewers when issues have been addressed.
Taking this analytical approach ensures stores make the most of mall shopper feedback instead of missing crucial insights in a sea of comments.
Responding to Negative Mall Reviews
Despite best efforts, every mall retail store will inevitably receive some negative feedback. Handling these reviews properly is critical for brand reputation.
Best Practices
When facing negative mall shopper comments, stores should:
- Respond promptly - ideally within 24 hours. This shows customers the feedback is valued.
- Apologize for poor experiences without excuses. Take responsibility.
- Thank the customer for taking the time to share feedback even if it was negative.
- Move conversations offline to resolve complex or sensitive issues.
- Have management follow up personally via phone or email in some cases.
- Offer resolutions like free products, gift cards or coupons when reasonable.
- Fix issues in-store to prevent repeat negative experiences for future shoppers.
What to Avoid
Mall stores should avoid certain response tendencies to prevent further damage:
- Ignoring negative feedback - lack of response looks like the store does not care.
- Getting defensive - rebutting complaints or making excuses usually inflames customers.
- Being impersonal - short, generic comments fail to resolve issues satisfactorily.
- Responding strictly online - some issues require personalized attention offline.
- Waiting too long - delays between reviews and responses reduce effectiveness.
- Hiding negative feedback - suppressing or removing fair criticism damages credibility.
The right mix of speed, personalization, responsibility and resolution helps mall stores recover after negative reviews.
Using Analytics to Improve Stores Over Time
The most successful mall stores take an analytical approach as they incorporate shopper feedback into long-term improvement plans through:
- Reporting review analytics like sentiment trends to corporate leadership monthly.
- Monitoring metrics like net promoter score (NPS) relative to company goals.
- Tagging feedback data to identify problem locations like fitting rooms.
- Examining reviews to guide employee training and development.
- Tracking changes in ratings metrics after launching customer experience (CX) initiatives.
- Comparing performance against other mall stores using benchmark data.
- Setting targets for review volume, response rate, resolution rate and review sentiment.
- Building a CX feedback loop to continually reference review analytics while making store improvements.
Careful analysis of mall shopper comments ensures this powerful feedback guides ongoing success.
FAQs About Accessing Mall Reviews
Mall shoppers often have additional questions around leaving feedback and stores accessing comments:
Why should I leave reviews for mall stores?
Writing mall store reviews helps other shoppers have better experiences. It also directly improves the store through your suggestions. Many stores offer incentives in return.
Do stores actually pay attention to mall reviews?
The best mall stores closely monitor online and offline feedback. They analyze patterns, respond, and make fixes to improve. Your specific issues may even get personal attention from managers.
Is leaving a negative mall store review helpful?
Yes - negative feedback gives stores crucial perspectives on problems. Though difficult to share, your constructive criticism has high value for identifying areas needing change.
Key Takeaways for Mall Feedback Management
- Gathering mall shopper feedback should utilize various online and offline touchpoints to understand different customer segments.
- Centralizing data and taking an analytical approach ensures no crucial customer insights get lost.
- Speedy, responsible responses to even negative reviews demonstrate stores value input.
- Careful tracking of metrics over time guides effective improvements across mall locations.
- Protecting customer privacy builds loyalty as stores access the powerful insights within reviews.
Conclusion
For mall stores, shopper opinions offer invaluable direction - both praising elements that delight guests as well as critiquing areas needing improvement. By taking an intentional, analytical approach to accessing feedback across channels and responding responsibly, stores reinforce a commitment to understanding the customer. This builds loyalty even among dissatisfied shoppers by demonstrating action towards better serving their needs during future visits. Stores that nurture an ongoing dialogue through reviews create emotionally invested communities eager to see their neighborhood mall succeed.
