About Mystery Shopping

Businesses are increasingly seeing each customer not in terms of the value of a single transaction but in terms of the value of that customer's business over a lifetime. It is also generally recognised that it is far, far cheaper to retain existing customers than to attract new ones.

Many companies use customer feedback forms to keep them in touch with their customers' views but these can be unreliable - as few as one dissatisfied customer in 10 bothers to complain.

The tangible elements of customer service such as delivery-as-promised aren't too difficult to measure. It's the intangible elements which are more tricky - but it's these which are most important to your customers. Elements such as:

• How the service they received compared with the service they expected.
• How much they trust you and your product.
• How your customer service compares with that of your competitors.
• How much loyalty they feel towards you as a result of their last transaction.
• How much they feel you value them as a customer.
• How much they feel they are treated like an individual person.

Meeting your objectives

While most programmes are about measuring customer service, there are a range of other possible objectives including:

• Compliance - are your staff complying with legal requirements?
• Security - are your staff being honest about using the till, giving receipts, not pocketing  cash, etc?
• Standards - are your staff following company laid-down standards and  procedures?
• Incentives - we can help you identify staff who deserve a reward.
• Competitor Monitor - we can benchmark you against competitors - by  service, by price or both (within Market Research Society guidelines)
• Benchmarking - we can benchmark your service against best-of-breed  companies in their  industries.
• Training Needs Analysis - identifying weaknesses in the service chain  which indicate a training  need, and  confirm afterwards how effective  the training has been.
• Continuous Improvement - we have techniques which provide you  with an  ideal basis for helping  every  branch or every staff member to  strive  towards excellence.

Read our detailed Guide to Mystery Shopping here.

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