In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Editor Chuck Ulie (right) talks with John Pszeniczny (left), director of operations at Nouria, Worcester, Massachusetts, at the Outlook Leadership conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
On this podcast, Pszeniczny talks about Nouria being a finalist in the 2025 CSP Intouch Insight Mystery Shop audit, before the convenience-store chain learned at the conference that it won top honors for the second straight year.
He talks about the importance of having well-stocked restrooms, courteous cashiers, why Nouria competes in Mystery Shop and more.
“At Your Convenience” brings industry experts and analysts together with CSP editors to discuss the latest in c-store news and trends. From mergers and acquisitions to foodservice and technology, the podcast delivers the story straight to listeners in short-format episodes, perfect for the morning commute or a quick break at the office.
Listen to their conversation above, or read the transcript here, which has been edited for length and clarity:
Chuck Ulie: We’re going to talk Mystery Shop, which you guys are one of the three finalists. And it’s all about like a secret shopper program. In addition, sometimes you know the people grading you are coming. I’m going to just jump into it. Nouria’s best score was for was the restroom being properly stocked. You were the only chain among the 10 participants who scored 100%. Why is this category so important?
John Pszeniczny: Restrooms are very important to any organization that’s serving food. We want to make sure that our guests deserve a beautiful store that’s clean, well stocked, inviting, safe; and that’s especially important in the bathrooms.
Ulie: You guys placed first in the category of, 'Was the cashier courteous?' How does Nouria train its cashiers in the importance of this quality? And why is this one so important?
Pszeniczny: Well, how you treat people is very important. Our HR team, our learning and development team, work very hard building programs where we really teach the team members the importance of why giving great guest engagement is so important. Again, it all ties back to, 'How are you making them feel when they come into the parking lot?' Is the forecourt clean, neat and organized? And just being greeted with a very welcoming and inviting comments. It goes a long way.
Ulie: You guys placed second for the subject of would you recommend this store to others? Can you talk a little bit about what your company does on a daily basis to score so well?
Pszeniczny: Again, everything ties back to our most valuable asset, which is our team members and our guests. We want them to be our ambassadors. Our team members are our ambassadors. And when you treat people great, and you give them a great product with a great service, they will just inherently help promote your business and recommend you to others. But really driving that culture around why it’s important to give great guest engagement. And that’s what we strive for every day. And when we fall short, we pick up the pieces and we move forward.
Ulie: You tied for first on, 'Did the store appear well stocked?' Why is this important? How do you maintain locations being well stocked? What goes through a customer’s mind when they enter a store and they don’t think that a store is well stocked?
Pszeniczny: This is something that we work on very much every day with our category management team. The message I send to my team, the operations team, is our job is not to create the play, our job is to execute the play. So, when our category management team or our marketing team have initiatives, their job is to create it, it’s our job to execute it. And when you have a store that’s full, 100% full set to planogram, signed, clean all while giving great guest engagement, I think that’s why our great team out in the field performs as well as they do. Yeah, you follow the process every day.
Ulie: Those were some of the questions pertaining to the Mystery Shop, the secret part. I’m gonna just jump over just for a couple of questions on the revealed audit, and this is where the store managers knew that somebody was coming in to grade them. Nouria was half a point shy, 99.5%, on the category of employees, which is a great score. How do you encourage them to be courteous and make the guest experience?
Pszeniczny: I think with anything, if we give our teams the ability to work in a beautiful store that’s safe, it’s inviting, they’re with a company that has career pathing, so they see growth and you treat them well. I frequently say to the team, train them so well they can leave, treat them so well they don’t. And again, when we fall short, we own it, we correct the mistake and we move forward.
Ulie: You had the best score in pump island and in exterior. What goes into keeping these areas attractive to customers?
Pszeniczny: Our great general managers throughout the company, they have a checklist every morning that they fill out where they take pictures of the fuel island, the pumps, the trash barrels. For two things, one to showcase how well their properties look, because they are the CEOs of their own buildings, and we empower them to make a lot of great decisions. So this checklist that they fill out every day, it gets rolled up into another platform where the district managers can review it, the regional managers can review it, myself, or anyone in the corporate office. So, we believe in the ability to give them the tools to succeed. When we had these great programs where they can fill out these checklists and have it all collected under one data point, we’re able to help them address issues that may be global, whether it be landscaping or fuel pumps or snow plows. There’s a lot of issues, anything that could happen. This is a platform for them to help them continue to exceed the expectation for the guest.
Ulie: Why does Nouria want to do the Mystery Shop? You’ve done it several times. You won it last year. Why is this important to the company?
Pszeniczny: One, I am always in awe about the great companies out there across the country. So when I come here every year, I get to meet some incredible operators who I learned from every time I come here. We want to do it because, one, I want to show the team that their hard work is recognized. You know, Nouria potentially, you know, we’re in the top three, but they’re going to be recognized all the way out in the West Coast. And it’s because of the hard work of each man and woman that we have working for us. And so it’s important. It’s important to gauge yourself versus the best out there. And there’s so many of them.
Ulie: Are there any categories from past Mystery Shops that, due to a score you didn’t like, spurred you to make improvements in that category?
Pszeniczny: I believe it was two years ago, we fell short in the restrooms. I believe we were actually probably at the bottom. And we took the information to heart. We believed it. We didn’t try to make excuses about it, and we put actions together to create a daily checklist that we now have loaded onto Zenput. It’s a platform that you can load checklists, a task management system. That helped us tremendously. And we always had it, but I don’t think we leveraged it. We learned from that Mystery Shop years ago, it turned us around.
Ulie: And what categories pose the biggest challenges today?
Pszeniczny: Cigarettes is the biggest one, right? There’s restrictions, governmental restrictions and laws that are changing, requirements. So, those are headwinds we’re gonna have to continue to face. But again, we have to get better and sharper in all areas throughout the store. We’re gonna continue to strive and be the best in food, be the best with guest engagement, continue to have great scores with restrooms and giving that guest the best experience. Because at the end of the day, without our guests and without our teams giving great service, we run the risk of falling short, and we’re gonna work really hard to make sure that that doesn’t happen.
Ulie: Any closing thoughts on the Mystery Shop? Anything that I didn’t ask?
Pszeniczny: No, I would just say thank you again for having us. Nouria is privileged and honored to be participating up against the best of the best out there from California down to Texas.
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