The Need for Mystery Shopping Programs

Mystery shopping provides a cost-effective and often self-funding assessment and feedback required to maintain high standards of customer service. Good mystery shopping programs use myriad methods to provide businesses with the critical data on customer experiences to accurately measure key benchmarks like customer service, store appearance, product placement, and loss prevention. Mystery shoppers gather this data by peering into the heart of your business through the eyes of the customer, systematically working their way through the business’s front-line operations using pre-set criteria to make meticulous evaluations that assess the overall customer experience.

Education Learns Something New

Retail chains have long been the leaders in utilizing mystery shopping as a means of measuring employee effectiveness and customer satisfaction. Recently, the medical industry has taken note, with some medical systems employing mystery shopping as a way to report on patient care and patient satisfaction.
Now, education is jumping into the mix. As education becomes more customer-oriented, the practice of using mystery shoppers is becoming more common among online and offline colleges who want to measure the quality of the admissions recruiting office. This growing segment of mystery shoppers are paid to "shop" educational institutions, recording their subjective observations about service quality based on a specific set of criteria such as:

• Was the phone answered in three rings?
• Were you asked your name at the start of the conversation?
• Did the representative ask questions to gauge your level of interest?
• Did the representative inquire about your timetable for enrollment?
• How much time elapsed before you received a call back or followup email?
• Were your questions answered sufficiently?
• How friendly and professional were the advisors?

Who’s in the Game?

The demand for mystery shopping is huge. Hotel giants like Marriott, huge retail chains like Target, and even airlines are utilizing Mystery Shopping to realize maximum profits.

Here is a list of just some of the popular companies that, at one time or another, used Mystery Shoppers to improve operations and provide a more excellent customer experience:

• Taco Bell
• Godiva
• Red Lobster
• K-Mart
• Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
• McDonalds
• Hilton Hotels
• Marriott Hotels
• NIKE
• Disney parks
• Target
• Burger King
• Banana Republic

Mystery Shoppers help businesses continuously seek new and creative ways to offer products or services with value, knowledge and heart. Those who can successfully translate their customer’s wants and needs to useable data that improves the corporate bottom line will ultimately turn their customers into their best sales force.

Mirror, Mirror

Erich Joachimsthaler, author of Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Find and Execute Your Company's Next Big Growth Strategy, believes many corporations spend too much time looking in the mirror. He thinks that if companies spent as much time studying the needs and wants of the consumer, rather than holding the mirror up to themselves and their competition, they might be surprised to see they are moving from a merely competitive advantage to an actual customer advantage. And when the customer is happy, the company wins.

Joachimsthaler uses the example four new airlines: Eos, MAXjet, Silverjet and l'Avion. These up-and-comers are changing all the rules, implementing ways of doing things to delight the customer that go beyond far beyond menu changes or better seats. Specifically, they cater to business travelers with a variety of “Why-didn’t-I-think-of-that?” options that include late check-ins, faster ways to navigate the airport, guaranteed and immediate luggage availability, private lounges, and reasonable prices, even for walk-up fares.

These airlines are quickly and efficiently proving that, while peering into the mirror can be beneficial, the really innovative ideas come from looking at how something is being done and simply doing it better. Or perhaps even doing it completely differently.

Measuring The Things That Matter

Numerous studies show CEO'S are insisting on more accountability from their marketing departments. It’s not that things aren’t getting measured; but there’s much room for improving the quality of these measurements. According to VisionEdge Marketing's 6th annual Marketing Performance Survey, of 136 executives and marketing professionals surveyed, only 17% said their CEO would reward marketing with an A.

The question then becomes what to measure and what metrics are best. For most companies, marketing metrics focused around business outcomes seems to make the most sense. So how does this apply to mystery shopping? Mystery shopping uses a specific set of metrics to gather data directly from observation of customers and store personnel and IVR web surveys that zero in on the customer’s needs and wants and identifies where store personnel may be missing the mark or doing very well in meeting company policies and objectives. Compared to many of the largest companies’ convoluted marketing strategies, mystery shopping may seem to some like an oversimplified way to gather and report on important data. Actually, its relative simplicity and the targeted data it can provide is the beauty of the entire program.

How Can Mystery Shopping Strengthen Your Brand?

The strongest brands are those that are instantly recognizable by customers. Kleenex, Band Aids, Coke, Tide, Victoria’s Secret, McDonalds, FedEx, Nike…. all are brands that need no further introduction. Conversely, a brand image that changes too often can lead to oblivion when customers do not recognize who or what the brand is. Brand consistency leads to customer loyalty and referrals. Brand inconsistency leads to confusion and an inability to judge one brand above another.

Amazingly, brand confusion is more common than you might think. The companies who have managed to achieve instant recognition are few and far between. So how can a company develop a lasting brand? And how can mystery shopping play a part in the process?

The most important step in the process is to decide on a brand strategy and follow it without fail. If you have chosen the correct strategy and make use of marketing research for accurate results, you’re on the right track.

Can Training Really Make a Difference?

Today’s retailers are faced with the daunting task of providing an ever-satisfying customer experience. Faster than you can say “Can I help you?” retailers are being bought out or are going under as these demands continue to grow. Many retailers are discovering that the missing piece to their success is employee training, blending tried-and-true formulas with today’s newest technology to create training standards that strike a balance between product knowledge and soft skills training, empowering employees to build relationships and connect with customers. Why is this important?

• Empowered associates can meet the needs of the customers that arise

• Empowered employees do a better job of finding solutions that work

• Empowered employees own their jobs in a way that the average employee does not

Mystery shopping, implemented properly and used over an appropriate period of time, can be the lynchpin of a strong training program.

A TALE OF TWO BURGERS

No doubt you've had the experience of traveling along the highway with a rumbling stomach when, all of a sudden, there's a billboard advertising a juicy, mouthwatering, cheesy hamburger, available within seconds at the fast food joint only one short exit away. Agreeing with your stomach that it sure looks good, you speed up a bit to get there faster, dreaming of splashing it all down with a cold drink.

But as you get ready to devour your meal-in-a-box, reality hits. This burger looks nothing like the picture. In fact, it looks more like a two-year-old slapped it together from pieces of other burgers. You, my friend, have just experienced one of the underlying themes shoppers complain about most often: a disconnect between a brand's image and the actual customer experience.

What's Really Bugging Your Customers

Once upon a time, you could enter a store and expect to be met by a friendly, helpful sales associate. Today, in many cases, you're lucky if you can even find a sales associate to ask a simple question.
In a study conducted by STORES/BIGResearch, 19% of shoppers believe rude employees are at the core of poor customer service. With the next overly-indulged generation of sales associates about to come of age, today's customer service is not likely to improve.

Mystery Shopping Has a Direct Correlation to Sales

ICC/Decision Services has conducted a recent study with a 4 billion dollar supermarket chain that showed a near exact correlation to sales and suggestive selling over a 4 year period.