Mystery shopping is a hugely versatile tool. Not only is it an objective way of measuring business performance against competitors, but it also drives positive behaviours amongst teams to instil a culture of delivering excellent customer service.
Ongoing programmes ensure these standards remain high at all times as teams will always be on the lookout for the next mystery shopper.
‘The devil is in the detail’
We believe that the design phase is the foundation of a successful mystery shopping programme. During this phase, we will want to truly understand a typical customer’s journey to ensure we capture insight on all of the necessary touchpoints. We will also want to understand the KPI improvements desired, so that we can incorporate measurable objectives into the programme that will in turn drive the positive behaviours needed to improve these areas.
Our expert teams work closely with each and every business to deliver a bespoke programme to meet your objectives. How do we do this? By designing an assessment form which allows our mystery shoppers to provide objective qualitative and quantitative feedback so you can find out exactly what happened during their interaction, and measure it against your company standards.
Each question on the assessment form is reviewed to not only ensure that a) the question is going to collect useful insight for the business, but also that b) the feedback from the question will be engaging and useful for the team members being mystery shopped.
Ensuring you hit your KPIs
If your KPI is revenue growth, you can use mystery shopping to drive areas including:
- Sales techniques to ensure upselling and cross selling takes place
- Response times
- Sales process management
- Follow up
Process compliance KPI target? Use mystery shopping to:
- Drive compliance to company procedures
- Embed new industry specific training
- Knowledge check key compliance FAQs
Customer Service KPI target? Use mystery shopping to drive:
- Building rapport
- Understanding customer needs
- Listening and enquiry resolution
By mystery shopping all the above areas and feeding the results back to teams, the teams will have a greater understanding of what is expected of them and a clear standard to aim for.
Day to day, we all do great things at work that go unnoticed; mystery shopping ensures that these instances are picked up, shared around and celebrated!
Who are our mystery shoppers?
We have a network of almost 350,000 mystery shoppers who can assess experiences using:
VIDEO & AUDIO: Shoppers use specialist covert recording equipment to capture their experience to provide further insights into the experience received – great for sharing best practice across teams!
CALLING: Mystery shoppers ring your business and record the call, so you can hear the interaction whilst reading the mystery shopper’s assessment for further context.
ONLINE: Shoppers can test websites, apps, assess social media pages (and response times), make email enquiries or use messaging services. They can assess product/service listings (e.g. to check for consistent pricing), measure the accessibility, check branding or customer service levels.
VISITS: Mystery shoppers visit your sites and make enquiries to obtain insights into staff knowledge, consistency and follow-up techniques.
We use realistic customer scenarios in the visits to assess a range of KPIs including staff knowledge.
For example, our clients have previously…
> Checked whether staff members were easily identifiable e.g. wearing uniform, or names tags to help customers know where to go for help.
> Checking whether staff members were taking down customer’s contact details so that they could contact them to follow up after a visit.
> Checking whether security protocols were being followed, e.g. were bags checked on entry.
What next?
After their assignment, shoppers complete an assessment form and attach any supporting materials to it (recordings, brochures that they’ve been given etc). We’ll check it through and publish it on a secure online reporting portal, which includes downloadable reports and dashboards. We can also design bespoke summary reporting so that you don’t have to spend time interpreting the results yourself. This can all be created within a format that matches your company branding, providing an excellent platform to present your insights at key stakeholder meetings.
What’s more, we can follow on to help you implement changes within your business.
In our experience, mystery shopping programmes work best when your teams are on board and involved in the process. Our teams often know a lot more about our customers than we do!
It’s important to let them know that the mystery shopping programme is there to ensure the customer experiences remain the best amongst your competitors and that whilst it’s there to help set a standard across the business, you predominantly want to use it to celebrate the successes of each of them!
With a strong list of KPIs as a foundation, the right programme and an expert team to support you, mystery shopping can be your greatest springboard to growth.
To find out more on how we can help your business, contact our client team on 01409 255025,
enquiries@mystery-passengers.com.