WORCESTER, Mass. — In the 2022 Intouch Insight Mystery Shop evaluation, Nouria Energy Corp., Worcester, Mass., is home of the only dispensed-beverage program in the revealed audit that earned a perfect score in the three surveyed areas: fully stocked, clean machine and all flavors operational.
The winner is calculated by two studies conducted by Intouch Insight: an anonymous mystery-shop evaluation and a formal (revealed) audit, which the convenience stores knew was coming but didn’t know when. The mystery shop score accounts for 40% of the overall score, while the audit is 60%.
A large part of what this c-store chain does to ensure cups, lids and straws are always stocked is simply part of the attention given to cleaning routines, said Tania Sloan, senior manager for foodservice and dispensed beverage at Nouria, a chain of 170 stores.
- Nouria Energy is No. 47 on CSP’s 2022 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by number of company-owned retail outlets.
“We talk a lot about appearance and making sure that things are stocked and clean at all times,” Sloan said. “We’re on a daily task list that encompasses not just the fountain area but the entire dispensed-beverage area. They’re also on a good cadence of deep cleaning weekly, so there’s a lot of attention to detail that has been sent out to the stores to keep them on track to make sure they’re touching that area multiple times a day.”
“To know we are still executing at such a high level [per the Mystery Shop results], even though we’re having some staffing issues out there, that just says a lot about what our team members are doing out there,” she said.
Sloan attributes that high level to internal training—documents, videos, online and hands-on—that new hires go through.
“We also have added field support to foodservice and dispensed beverage in this past year,” she added. “We now have somebody from the office who actually goes out and visits the stores, and anything that they’re seeing (being done incorrectly), they do a retrain.”
Also, a third-party company conducts food-safety audits. “That has brought a lot of attention to areas where we may have been missing the mark,” she said.
To stay on top of potential shortages, Sloan works with vendor partners to make sure they have substitute items and keeps lines of communication open “so if the store has an issue, they’re reaching out immediately, and we are figuring out how to fix that problem that day.”