Using a "Secret Shopper"

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

I had an interesting experience recently, in which I got to play the role of a "secret shopper". My wife's friend is the manager of a store (I won't say what store or what type of store in the interest of anonymity), and she asked us if we would go to the store and evaluate the employees working that particular shift. Have you ever used a "secret shopper?"

She gave us a checklist that was several pages long, which consisted of all of the things that employees are expected to do regarding customers - greeting us at the door, wearing name tags, proper assistance, and things of that nature. Naturally I thought the experience would make for a good article.

As a business owner, particularly if you are in some form of retail business, you may not always be around. Your employees might be at the top of their game when you're there, but how can you be sure that this continues when you're not?

Getting someone to participate as a secret shopper could give you the insight you need for evaluating employee performance. There are programs out there that will connect businesses with secret shoppers, or you can just get someone you know to do it if they are willing.

Breach of Trust?

One downside to this approach is the possibility of losing the respect of your employees. If you do engage in a secret shopper situation, it is probably best that the employees never find out about it. They will not appreciate being spied on, and no longer trust you. If your employees can't trust you and/or respect you, they're not going to be happy working for you, and will quite possibly begin looking for another job.

You're Running a Business

Still, you're running a business. While the employees who know they are doing a good job would be peeved at the idea of a secret shopper, the ones who know they've been slacking may take the results as a needed wake-up call. The secret shopper project should be kept secret, but let the problem-employees know that you know what is going on. The amount of subtlety you apply is up to you.

If you do use a secret shopper and all of your employees pass the test with flying colors, reward them. Even if they don't know why you're rewarding them, you can show them that you appreciate the work they've been doing, and they will surely respect that.

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Mystery shopper takes it to extreme

By Julian Knight
Consumer affairs reporter, BBC News

Competitive edge

Mystery shopping has a long history in the UK.

The first mystery shoppers were employed 60 years ago to check financial advisers were doing an honest job. The Financial Services Authority still uses shoppers in this role from time to time.

Over the past decade mystery shoppers have been increasingly used by retailers, utilities and even the public sector.

"Mystery shopping offers a great deal to businesses. Crucially it gives managers a means to test their staff training...it also allows them check on the general ambience, store layout, stock handling and health and safety issues," says Dale Atkinson, spokesman for the British Retail Consortium.

"It (mystery shopping) should be an ongoing thing, firms checking that the service they offer is most competitive. Anything to give you an advantage on the High Street" Mr. Atkinson added.

Online shoppers let down by customer service

Emails go unanswered

By Steve Ranger

Published: Wednesday 20 June 2007

UK online retailers are still letting down web shoppers where it comes to customer service.

In a mystery-shopper exercise conducted by customer service software maker Talisma, 45 per cent of retailers failed to reply to customer emails - and only 47 per cent of those who did provided accurate and complete information in their response.

The company contacted 62 UK online retailers via email and asked them to provide details of their shipment charges, and to find out which credit and debit cards could be used to make payments on their sites.

While all 62 retailers encouraged internet users to contact them via email, 45 per cent failed to respond to these enquiries at all.

According to the survey, health and beauty retailers provided the best customer experience, with all emails and phone calls answered promptly and accurate information given in all cases. UK supermarket chains and toy retailers also fared better than average.

But Talisma said the clothing and accessories retailers contacted provided "a pitiful level of service", with only 23 per cent of emails responded to - and only 31 per cent of retailers providing accurate information via email.

The most successful online retailers will be the ones that respond to enquiries immediately with accurate information, treat every potential customer as an individual and interact with them through the channel of their choice, said Talisma.

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Mystery shopping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mystery shopping is a tool used by market research companies to measure quality of retail service. These companies send mystery shoppers to 'act' as shoppers in return for some combination of cash, store credit, purchase discounts, or reimbursement for the goods or services purchased. Instructions to mystery shoppers can include a script of behavior, questions to ask, complaints to give, purchases to make, and measures to record, such as time it takes to receive attention from an employee or receive a service, or the responses given to questions.

Mystery shopping is also known as:

History

Mystery shopping began in the 1940s and as a mechanism to measure employee integrity. Tools used for mystery shopping assessments can range from simple questionnaires to complete audio and video recordings. Many mystery shopping companies are completely administered through the Internet, allowing potential mystery shoppers to use the Internet to register for participation, find mystery shopping jobs and receive payment.

The most common venues to be mystery shopped are retail stores, movie theatres, restaurants, fast food chains, banks, gas stations, car dealerships, apartments, and health clubs. Virtually any context where there is a customer/business interaction is open to mystery shopping, including on-line surveys. More and more companies are beginning to see the value in experience measurement techniques such as mystery shopping, and as such larger organizations such as Hotels, Retail Chains, and even Airlines have engaged companies for these purposes. In the UK, mystery shopping is increasingly used to provide feedback on customer services provided by local authorities and other non-profit organisations (eg Housing Associations).

Methodology

When a client company comes on board with a company providing Mystery Shopping services, a survey model will be drawn up and agreed to which defines what information and improvement factors the client company wishes to measure as part of the mystery shopping process. These are then drawn up into survey instruments and assignments that are allocated to shoppers registered with the mystery shopping company in question.

Some of the common details and information points shoppers will be looking for include:

Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue (known as scenarios). For instance, a mystery shopper at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping services. Not all Mystery Shopping scenarios include a purchase.

From there, the shopper will then submit the data collected to the Mystery Shopping company in question. The data is then reviewed and analyzed before quantitative and qualitative statistical [analysis] reports on the data are then returned to the client company that enables measurement against the previously defined criteria.

Statistics

The Mystery shopping industry had an estimated value of nearly $600 million in the United States in 2004, according to a 2005 report commissioned by the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA). Companies that participated in the report experienced an average growth of 11.1 percent from 2003 to 2004, compared to an average growth of 12.2 percent. The report estimates more than 8.1 million mystery shops were conducted in 2004. The Report represents the first industry association attempt to quantify the size of the mystery shopping industry.Similar surveys are available for European regions where mystery shopping is becoming more embedded into company procedures.