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Take A Town is ERT’s popular mystery shopping feature, where each month our mystery shopping team calls in on 10 retailers in a town to put the stores – both independents and multiples – through their paces.
Through a set 10-point criteria, each store is appraised on a number of areas, including product knowledge and customer service.
Our mystery shoppers pose as normal customers and look to buy a product or service and monitor how the sales staff interacts with them.
Take A Town is not out to put people down, it aims to promote retailing excellence, but our mystery shopping team can only report back on what takes place on each individual visit.
That said, it is worth pointing out that the mystery shopping team’s verdict of stores has to be taken at face value.
The team visits each store only once, so it is the service that they get, on that one visit at that particular time, on that particular day that makes the write-up in Take A Town.
Our industry has a great history of providing excellent customer service. Take A Town is part of ERT’s drive to raise store standards.
As a result, from January 2009, stores scoring over 7/10 in Take A Town will be automatically entered into the ERT Industry Awards, which will take place in the autumn.
| Merry Hill, Dudley
Our mystery shopping team has been out and about in the Merry Hill Shopping Centre and the Merry Hill Retail Park in Dudley, West Midlands, to check up on the sales skills of independents and multiples | |
| Take a Town - Weston-super-Mare
Our mystery shopping team has been out and about in Weston-super-Mare to check up on the sales skills of the town’s independents and multiples | |
| Bromley
Our mystery shopping team has been out and about in Bromley to check up on the sales skills of independents and multiples in the south-east London town. | |
| Special: Best Buy in Thurrock
Our mystery shopping team checks out the various departments in Best Buy’s recently-opened first UK store in Thurrock, Essex, to see if it lives up to its claims on customer service | |
| Eastbourne and Bexhill
Our mystery shopping team has been out and about in Eastbourne and Bexhill to check up on the sales skills of independents and multiples in the two East Sussex towns
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| Crawley and Haywards Heath
Our Mystery shopping team has been out and about in Crawley and Haywards Heath to check up on the sales skills of independents and multiples in the two West Sussex towns | |
| Cardiff
Our Mystery shopping team has been out and about in Cardiff to check up on the sales skills of the city's independents and multiples | |
| Tottenham Court Road
We sent our mystery shopping team to Tottenham Court Road in London to check out retailers on the street best known for its high concentration of consumer electronics shops | |
| Slough and Windsor
We sent our mystery shopping team to Slough and Windsor to put the local independents and multiples in the towns through their selling paces | |
