National Shopping Service Provides Musicland With Mystery Shopping Services to Enhance the Customer Experience

When: 11-30-2004
Where: Market Wire (press release) - USA

Leading Retailer Uses In-Store Evaluations to Measure and Reward Employee / Customer Interactions and Improve Business Performance

ROCKLIN, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/30/2004 -- National Shopping Service, a leading provider of customizable mystery shopping services, today announced that Musicland Group Inc., a leading national specialty retailer of music, movies and games, is utilizing its mystery shopping services to drive consistent sales processes and improve customer service in stores across the United States. In just five months, Musicland has seen steady improvements in customers' in-store experiences.

Musicland chose to employ mystery shopping services to obtain insights on associate / customer interactions that would increase customer loyalty and retention -- especially leading up to the busy holiday shopping period. This is part of Musicland's ongoing efforts to meet and exceed customers' increasing desire for individualization, customization, connectivity and technology.

"Musicland customers are trend-conscious, entertainment-focused consumers, and we continue to find new ways to enhance their overall experience with us. We determined that mystery shopping services can help us do just that," Musicland President & COO Mike Madden said. "We chose National Shopping Service to provide the objective data our managers need to influence and reward associate behaviors that improve customer satisfaction."

National Shopping Service offers the industry's largest active network of mystery shoppers to provide evaluation and feedback services for worldwide retail organizations, giving them unbiased, actionable data that can be used to improve staff performance and increase customer loyalty and retention.

National Shopping Service's mystery shoppers call on more than 900 Musicland sites each month, including Sam Goody, Suncoast Motion Picture Company and Media Play stores in 48 states and Puerto Rico. The shoppers pose as ordinary customers and, using technologies such as PDAs, digital cameras and audio recorders, provide detailed evaluations of their experiences on the store floor, at the cash register or during the returns process. All of the completed evaluations, as well as weekly and monthly summaries, are available to Musicland management via Web applications, typically within 48 hours of the shop. This fast turnaround enables managers to act quickly to influence staff performance.

National Shopping Service's advanced technology infrastructure supports customized online tools and flexible, real-time data modeling. Dedicated account managers personalize the data into easy-to-understand patterns and trends for Musicland managers and front line staff. They take a consultative, collaborative approach to ensure that feedback, accountability and recognition programs are tied to specific corporate strategies and continue to meet Musicland's evolving business objectives.

"Musicland appreciates that staff performance and customer satisfaction assessment services can have significant impact on overall business performance," said Matt Wozniak, president and CEO of National Shopping Service. "Our proven best practices, combined with our fresh perspective, give Musicland the market research and quality assurance programs that help them safeguard their customer experience."

With more than 160,000 technology-enabled mystery shoppers, the largest active network within the $1.5 billion mystery shopping industry, National Shopping Service provides clients with broad shopper rotation, fast turnaround times and vast geographic coverage. This translates into complete shopper anonymity, faster information delivery for time-sensitive research, and increased service availability in even the most isolated geographical regions. All National Shopping Service shoppers go through a thorough verification and training process, making them the most qualified and technologically savvy mystery shoppers available, serving a number of retail industries, including restaurants, automobile and boat dealers, convenience stores and others. Many National Shopping Service shoppers are gold- and silver-certified by Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA), the industry's leading trade organization.

About Musicland

Musicland Group Inc. is a leading national specialty retailer of music, movies and games that appeal to trend-conscious, entertainment-focused consumers. The company is expanding and diversifying its key entertainment offerings to satisfy the changing needs of its consumers. Musicland operates more than 900 retail stores and online under the names Sam Goody (samgoody.com), Media Play (mediaplay.com) and Suncoast Motion Picture Company (suncoast.com) in 48 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

About National Shopping Service

National Shopping Service offers customizable mystery shopping services and solutions for Global 2000 retail organizations. Through its personal, consultative approach, National Shopping Service uses state-of-the-art data collection methods, Web-based technologies and proprietary processes to give companies the information they need to understand and affect their businesses at points of customer interaction. Its work provides managers with third-party data validation for programs that increase customer loyalty and retention while also improving staff performance throughout the organization. With a network of more than 160,000 trained mystery shoppers conducting more than 30,000 site visits per month, National Shopping Service provides insights on employee / customer interactions that help companies improve business performance. More information can be found at: http://www.nationalshoppingservice.com.

CONTACT:
Kim Dion
Brodeur Worldwide
(415) 593-2262
kdion@brodeur.com