Expert Advice on Designing Your Mystery Shopping Program

Mystery shopping is an excellent way to uncover whether your efforts at sales training are effective. While finding a quality vendor to implement the right mystery shopping program can be a daunting task, choosing a vendor with specific experience in your industry will likely yield more positive results. If the mystery shopping vendor you’re considering is a member of a marketing research association, they may be the specialists you’re looking for. Certainly, membership in the Mystery Shopping Providers Association is key.

A big mistake some institutions are making is using existing customers to serve as mystery shoppers. The last few years have seen this trend, because it is a less expensive option. But this method has drawbacks. How would a customer evaluate an employee’s sales skills if that customer does not know how the company has trained its employees to sell? If real customers are used to evaluate employee performance, how does the company ensure those customers can make fair comparisons, or even possess the background needed to evaluate employees? How can the company prevent ‘popularity’, or personal likes and dislikes, from coloring the opinions of customers? Overall, the opinions of customers are far too subjective, whereas professional mystery shoppers understand exactly what to look for and how to report on that measurable criteria.

Additionally, a good mystery shopping program should ‘fit’ your corporate culture. The program that might work for a bank would likely fail for a grocery store. Questionnaires used to evaluate employees must reflect the goals and objectives of that culture. Some companies are more concerned with compliance, whereas others are more interested in pure customer service.

Bringing employees in on the process of designing a mystery shopping program is crucial for its success. A training program, wherein employees are briefed on what will take place and receive instructions on how to meet the program’s criteria, is important. Managers must take the program seriously as well if they expect employees to do the same. When employees know rewards and recognition will be available to them for meeting the program’s standards, employee motivation to comply will be high.

Do your homework when choosing your mystery shopping provider to find the best fit. David Rich, President of ICC Decision Services, explains, “ICC/DS offers clients a coordinated single source partnership for all CEM measurement needs. Our comprehensive portfolio of custom designed management tools can measure all aspects of the customer experience from mystery shopping and competitive shops to customer satisfaction surveys, employee surveys, and compliance audits. Our expert professional staff monitors multiple input data streams to help our clients maintain a competitive edge in today's marketplace. And our top management team is fully engaged and meets frequently with clients to provide insight, recommendations and share industry best practices.”