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Mystery shopping is a tool used by companies or regulatory institutions to measure the quality of service, compliance with regulation, or to audit the products and services available. Mystery shoppers assess a range of customer touchpoints. They might contact a call centre, access website or make an enquiry on a social media page. They might visit a shop and purchase a product or have an advisor visit them at home. After which they will report back on their experience, providing video, audio or photographic evidence. We all know that each customer should be seen not in terms of the value of a single transaction but in terms of the value of that customer's business over a lifetime. It is also generally recognised that it is far, far cheaper to retain existing customers than to attract new ones. The tangible elements of customer service such as delivery-as-promised aren't too difficult to measure. It's the intangible elements which are more tricky - but it's these which are most important to your customers. Elements such as: |
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- How the service they received compared with the service they expected.
- How much they trust you and your product.
- How your customer service compares with that of your competitors.
- How much loyalty they feel towards you as a result of their last transaction.
- How much they feel you value them as a customer.
- How much they feel they are treated like an individual person.
While most programmes are about measuring customer service, there are a range of other possible objectives including:
- Compliance - are your staff complying with legal requirements?
- Security - are your staff being honest about using the till, giving receipts, not pocketing cash, etc?
- Standards - are your staff following company laid-down standards and procedures?
- Incentives - we can help you identify staff who deserve a reward.
- Competitor Monitor - we can benchmark you against competitors - by service, by price or both (within Market Research Society guidelines)
- Benchmarking - we can benchmark your service against best-of-breed companies in their industries.
- Training Needs Analysis - identifying weaknesses in the service chain which indicate a training need, and confirm afterwards how effective the training has been.
- Continuous Improvement - we have techniques which provide you with an ideal basis for helping every branch or every staff member to strive towards excellence.
