Retailers get high marks in maintaining health and safety

The nearly year-long focus on safety protocols is resonating with customers, but it may be diverting attention from other areas.

Retail Zipline and Coyle Hospitality hired secret shoppers for a study to visit more than 80 retailers with a goal of scoring them in five categories of execution: speed and convenience; signage; health and safety; sales execution; and holiday readiness.

The top performers overall were Maurices and Hy-Vee (with a score of 97.67%), followed by Disney Store (95.59%), Gap Inc. (94.67%) and Build-A-Bear (93.17%). 

The average health and safety score across all retailers was 78%. But with an average sales execution score of 50% and a holiday preparedness score of 20%, it appears that energy is being diverted from customer engagement to ensure that stores are safe, the study said. For example, only 24% of retailers created an environment that felt “festive.” 

In other findings, the behavior of stores and their customers seem to be affected by prevailing attitudes towards the pandemic. Coastal states such as New York and California took greater health and safety precautions, 84% overall score, while those in the interior U.S., like the midwest and south, took less at a 71% overall score.

Similarly, customers in New York, California and Canada were far more likely to wear masks than those in the central U.S, 98% versus 82%.  Even employees showed regional discrepancies in mask-wearing, 100% versus 89%. 

The differences were reflected in how safe the secret shoppers felt: 85% felt very safe in New York and California. Only 67% felt very safe in the central U.S. 

The study cross-referenced job site Glassdoor scores to understand how retailers’ performance is impacted by employee satisfaction. Companies with ratings over 3.5 on Glassdoor performed 15% better overall than those with ratings lower than 3.5, on a scale of 1-5. In the secret shopper analysis, the difference was particularly pronounced on personal interaction measures, e.g., proactively approaching the shopper regarding sales/specials (+115%) or greeting the shopper warmly (+44%). 

Here is a list of the top 10 overall performers in the study: