When a business has two or three stores, it’s relatively easy to stay close to what’s happening on the ground.
You know the teams, you see the customer interactions and you can get a feel for the experience your customers are receiving.
But what happens when you grow rapidly?
That was the challenge facing July, the Australian design-led luggage and travel accessories brand founded in Melbourne in 2018.
After opening its first store in 2019, July grew rapidly across Australia and internationally, including a period where it opened seven new stores a year for three consecutive years. With that growth came a challenge that many multi-site businesses face: maintaining a consistent customer experience across an expanding network.
From sceptical to seeing the value
When Human Experience approached July in 2024, mystery shopping wasn’t something the business had been considering.
In fact, the initial reaction was that mystery shopping felt outdated.
As a boutique brand that places a strong emphasis on individualised customer service, July was concerned that mystery shopping might create a “cookie-cutter” approach to customer interactions.
But the way we approached the program was different.
Rather than using mystery shopping to catch team members out, the focus was on using objective customer-experience insights to identify opportunities, support the team and target training where it would have the greatest impact.
It also came at exactly the right time for July. The business was trying to determine what its next training module should focus on, but wasn’t quite sure where the gaps were.
Mystery shopping helped provide the answer.
CHECK OUT THE JULY CASE STUDY HERE
Finding the gaps that weren’t visible from head office
The first mystery shopping assessments revealed some clear patterns.
July wasn’t consistently delivering some of its key customer-experience pillars across its stores.
For a luggage business, conversations about where a customer was travelling and what they needed for their trip should naturally be an important starting point. But those conversations weren’t always happening.
The result was that some customer interactions were more transactional than July wanted them to be.
The assessments also highlighted another opportunity: demonstrating products rather than simply showing them.
Luggage is something customers should be able to touch, feel and experience. Demonstrating the features that differentiate a product from its competitors can turn a simple product interaction into a much more engaging customer experience.
Once those gaps were visible, July could address them.
Raising the bar
The results have been significant.
When July first started mystery shopping, its stores were typically achieving scores of around 65–75%, with a score of 75–80% considered an outstanding result.
Two years later, the picture is very different.
July’s stores are now averaging 85–95%, with anything below 85% prompting the team to ask what happened.
That’s a 15–20 percentage-point improvement in its service standard.
But perhaps more importantly, the expectations have changed along with the scores.
What was once considered an outstanding result is now the minimum standard July expects its stores to achieve.
Turning data into better training
One of the biggest benefits of the program has been the way mystery shopping has changed July’s approach to training and development.
Rather than running broad training sessions that try to cover every aspect of customer service, July can now use the mystery shopping data to identify specific areas that need attention.
With larger training sessions taking place approximately once a quarter, the business can focus those sessions on the actual gaps being identified across its stores.
The mystery shopping results also create a starting point for conversation.
Instead of simply telling teams what they should be doing, the data provides real examples that can be discussed collectively — helping everyone understand what great customer service looks like and how the different elements of an interaction come together to create a better experience.
Creating a culture of celebrating great service
Introducing mystery shopping wasn’t without its challenges.
In the early months, some team members felt that the process was about finding holes in their service, creating a subconscious divide between head office and the retail teams.
For July, how the results were communicated became critical.
The focus shifted towards celebrating the positives.
Outstanding results are recognised and team members who perform particularly well are celebrated. When a store doesn’t achieve the strongest result, the emphasis isn’t on identifying the individual — instead, the report becomes an opportunity for the wider team to learn.
As July found, celebrating the wins has been one of the biggest factors in building team buy-in.
More visibility across the entire network
For a rapidly growing retail business, maintaining visibility across every customer interaction is difficult.
Mystery shopping has given July another way to understand what’s actually happening in its stores — even when senior leadership isn’t there to observe it firsthand.
The business has also seen consistent improvement in its Google reviews and direct customer-service feedback, providing another indicator that the improvements in customer service are translating into the customer experience.
And importantly, the mystery shopping program hasn’t remained static.
After two years, July has raised its own standards and updated its assessment criteria to reflect more advanced service benchmarks.
From a three-month trial to a three-year partnership
July initially approached the relationship cautiously, starting with a three-month trial rather than committing to a full year.
They’re now entering their third year working with Human Experience.
For us, that’s one of the most rewarding parts of the story.
Mystery shopping isn’t valuable simply because it produces a score. It’s valuable when businesses use those insights to make meaningful changes — to their training, their teams and ultimately the experience they provide to customers.
July has taken the information from its mystery shopping program and turned it into an ongoing tool for improvement.
As James Donato, July’s Head of Retail, puts it:
“It’s changed how we operate as a business. It’s elevated us beyond where we even thought we could be.”
Mystery shopping that works for your business
July’s experience is a great example of why mystery shopping shouldn’t be a generic checklist exercise.
The questions, criteria and customer journey need to be designed around your business, your customers and the experience you want to deliver.
When that’s done well, mystery shopping can give you something incredibly valuable: visibility.
Visibility into what’s working.
Visibility into where the gaps are.
And visibility into where your training and development efforts can make the biggest difference.
At Human Experience, that’s what we’re passionate about — helping businesses objectively measure their customer experience and use those insights to positively shift team performance.
Want to know what your customers are really experiencing?
