Compliance Audits

Compliance audits are critical for any organization to establish a baseline of excellence.

Establishing foundational excellence for your company demands compliance with various requirements. We offer our clients customized audit programs that focus on their specific opportunities. Two common opportunities for audit programs are merchandise availability and pricing accuracy.

Merchandise Availability

Studies show that customers leave stores without purchasing because they cannot locate the products they want to buy. One such study found that customers left without purchasing three times more often because they couldn’t find merchandise than for lack of, or discourteous, service.

The vast majority of these “walkout” customers assume that the merchandise is out of stock or unavailable because it’s not located in the area they expect it to be; in reality, the merchandise is often just misplaced in the store. Ensuring merchandise is out on the selling floor in its proper place is a very basic but very profitable opportunity for all retailers and manufacturers.

No customer should leave empty-handed and disappointed because merchandise isn’t placed per planogram specifications or hidden in back rooms or other storage areas.

Price accuracy

As outlined in a Trade Commission report, failure to comply with pricing accuracy laws can lead to substantial fines and administrative or judicial orders.

The Department of Weights and Measures regularly sends inspectors to retailers to verify that prices are posted and that shelf prices match checkout prices. Violations typically occur when a store exceeds a 2% error rate.

In addition to legal risks, inaccurate pricing causes customer inconvenience, dissatisfaction, and distrust.

It only takes one overcharge incident to significantly damage your relationship with a customer, and some customers won’t give you a second chance. It is estimated that 1 percent to 3 percent of customers will completely stop shopping at a particular store if they discover they have been overcharged*.

Undercharges, too, harm the bottom line. When prices are higher on the selling floor than they are at checkout, sales are deterred. Customers’ perceptions of your competitiveness are negatively impacted.

The TopHawk Advantage — Compliance Audit

We can help you understand which critical opportunities you need to address for your business, and we can customize an audit program for your specific needs.

At TopHawk, we understand operations, technology, and research, and we know what it takes to implement an exceedingly effective auditing program:

• Auditor Coverage: We have auditors where you need them – in more than 40 cities and towns across the country.

• 100 Percent Completion: TopHawk never breaks our promises. Our promised completion rate is 100 percent – no exceptions, no excuses. Furthermore, our audit results are the highest in the industry. (See details about our Quality Assurance Processes).

• Audit-Specific Expertise: Many companies that offer both mystery shopping and auditing services fail to recognize that these two types of programs are very different and need to be managed as such. Not all mystery shoppers can be successful auditors and vice-versa. We understand that training, instructions, and certification for auditing programs must be different from mystery shopping. We are experts on the most effective methodologies for both. Our extensively trained and tested auditors will know exactly what to inspect at your location.

• Trained, Certified, Talented Auditors: Effective audit programs often require auditors to work directly with line-level employees. TopHawk auditors understand that their job is not to point fingers but to respectfully partner with your employees. This is towards the ultimate goal of identifying improvements and maintaining your company’s positive brand image.

A TopHawk compliance auditing program enables our clients to:

• Increase sales by ensuring merchandise is correctly priced and appropriately placed on the selling floor. In addition, promotional signs and displays are present and correctly positioned
• Maintain a positive brand image by understanding and focusing on the key merchandising areas that most significantly affect their customers’ perceptions
• Avoid legal issues
• And much more

We are here for you, and we are wearing our thinking caps