According to an American Express survey, 70% of shoppers
state that they are willing to spend up to 13% more with companies they believe
provide excellent customer service.
How does your customer service measure up? One way to find out is
to develop a mystery shopper program for your business. According to Inc.com, “mystery
shoppers provide objective quantitative and qualitative feedback about their
customer experience and conditions.”
7 Benefits of an Effective
Mystery Shopper Program
- Monitors and measures service performance
- Improves customer retention
- Makes employees aware of what is important in serving customers
- Monitors facility conditions
- Ensures product/service delivery quality
- Supports promotional programs
- Identifies training needs and sales opportunities
Many experts would advise you to hire a third-party to work with
you to develop and implement a mystery shopping program that suits your
business and in some cases offers consulting for how to best use the results of
your findings. If you do choose to hire a third party, beware of mystery
shopper scams. Look for a certified mystery shopping provider near you through the
trade association Mystery Shopping
Providers Association (MSPA).
If you’re considering bypassing a third party, here’s three points
to consider when creating your own mystery shopper program.
1. ESTABLISH CLEAR
EXPECTATIONS
What do you wish to accomplish by employing a mystery shopper
program (view the list of benefits above for ideas)? Use your goals for the
mystery shopper program to determine the direction of your shopper evaluation. If your goal
for the program is to measure service performance, your evaluation should focus
on customer service.
2. CREATE AN OBJECTIVE
EVALUATION
It is difficult to make improvements based on results to subjective
survey questions such as “did you enjoy your shopping experience?” Instead,
specific questions like “Did an employee greet you with ‘Good
morning/afternoon/evening within five minutes of entering store?’” If the
answer to this question is an overwhelming “no,” a corrective action should be
easy to come up with.
3. FREQUENT SHOPPER
Experts agree it is best for mystery shoppers to visit your retail shop at least two to four times to set an accurate performance benchmark. "One shop every six months is so random that it reveals little," says Bob Phibbs with The Retail Doctor. "Over time, patterns emerge that make managing your customer experience much clearer."
A mystery shopper program can be a powerful tool to fix, change or
improve your business, but the true value in an effective program is putting
into place actionable steps to help you reach your end goals.
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