Customer service quality can make or break a brand’s reputation and sales prospects. Good customer experience is one of the key ingredients to building a loyal customer base for brands. Loyalty from customers is won by serving beyond their expectations and aligning with the set standards. That leads to higher conversion and retention from walk-ins inside the store. Thus every business aims to serve customers well and maintain a steady customer service experience across stores.
But, how to measure customer service quality remains a vital question for brands. Another difficulty in measuring the CX is frequent changes in the preferences and expectations of customers. Fortunately, the mystery shopping program addresses these issues business operators face in monitoring multi-location stores. Anonymous shoppers visit stores to gather competent data on customer service quality, product layout, and cleanliness, to name a few of them.
Results from mystery shopping bring the voices of customers and their perceptions toward your brand. Evaluate the customer experience and interpret the results to identify potential issues in stores. The tailored mystery shopping program helps meet your end goals, such as achieving operational efficiency and improving financial performance, which is critical to your brand’s success.
How does secret shopping work?
When executed properly, a mystery shopping program brings several benefits to businesses. Companies often want to know: how does secret shopping work? Here are some details about how covert shopping works:
Companies hire anonymous shoppers: Companies hire secret shoppers to evaluate their customer service, operations, and customer experience at various touchpoints. The secret shopping program is suitable for companies that operate in retail, hospitality, and healthcare, where customer service quality is critical to their business.
Instruction to secret shoppers: Secret shoppers may be instructed to audit and evaluate various aspects of the company. It starts from the assessment of employee behavior to auditing compliance with the brand-set standards of operations. Specific instructions are given to covert shoppers on what to look for or what questions to ask employees inside the store. The idea is to gather particular information as per the requirement of companies.
Secret shoppers visit the store: Posing as regular customers, secret shoppers visit the store or service center. Shoppers will interact with the employee and assess their responses. Moreover, they will evaluate the quality of customer service, cleanliness, product layout, and other aspects that might impact customer experience.
Shoppers submit a report: Mystery shoppers prepare and submit a complete report based on their observations and experience inside the store. The report gives unbiased feedback and suggestions for improvement. Further, they mention identified issues and concerns in the audit to take suitable action later.
Uses of the feedback: Businesses can use the competitive intelligence shared by covert shoppers in the report to improve their operations and customer service. Mystery shopping research helps to identify issues, top-performing teams, and other insights. Companies can utilize actionable insights in ongoing customer service improvements.
Mystery shopping is an essential research tool utilized by companies to evaluate customer service experience in their stores. But, it is necessary to partner with a professional secret service provider to achieve the end goals. The service has several benefits for business when executed properly.