There are many benefits to using mystery shoppers within your business, predominantly revolving around understanding exactly how effective your customer service is and what steps can be taken to improve it. Ultimately, it is nearly impossible to subjectively view your own processes any by using mystery shopper agencies, you can get to see your customer service through the eyes of consumers.
Customer service is one of the most important areas of any business and it can be customer service standards alone that make or break a company. With so many businesses offering such similar services or products at very similar prices, in many instances, standing out is often down to the performance of those in the customer facing roles.
However, knowing how your business is performing in terms of customer service is not the only benefit of using a secret shopper, and in many cases incorporating regular mystery shops can also simply ensure that your staff are alert at all times.
It can be easy for mood to affect the performance of staff and those that are having a bad day or feel tired or stressed may not always feel totally inspired to communicate with customers in the most effective way. However, if they do not know whether or not a customer may report back on their performance, they are far more likely to offer the same high service no matter how they feel.
However, there are steps that a business needs to take to ensure that mystery shopping does not promote ill will amongst staff. Not only will you need to explain fully how the scheme will work to ensure that staff do not feel that you have been monitoring them in an underhand way, but it is also important to explain why such a scheme will be so beneficial to the business as a whole, and even to them as individuals. Furthermore, by offering rewards for excellent customer service, you may well find they actually open such a scheme with open arms.
For more information visit www.douglasstafford.com/customer-research