(IF YOU ARE A BUSINESS OWNER, YOU NEED TO READ THIS!)
As an internal control officer of a South-South branch of a Nigerian bank in 2006, I had come to work one morning and to find an email in my box that listed branches nationwide under ‘HALL OF SHAME’ and ‘HALL OF FAME’. I wasn’t alone: all staff members were also in receipt of this mail.
Shame and Fame! This early morning! Ha!
Apparently, Headquarters, on the sly, had engaged mystery shoppers and detailed them to branches nation-wide. To snoop out branches that were not adhering to the customer service and care mantra, the bank was not only mouthing off, but was hell-bent on following through!
Luckily for me, being the branch resident controller (especially for the fact that at the time, the CEO always called for the head of the resident controller on a platter, whenever there were negative mystery shopping reports of any branch), my branch was not on the shame list; it was not on the fame list, either.
Until I left the banking sector, we always received reports on mystery shopping exercises, with a list of thriving/commendable branches and branches that were headed for the gaols, their hapless Heads of Operations (HOPs) in tow. Several HOPs perfected ways of identifying mystery shoppers as soon as they walked into the banking hall. I don’t know how they did it, but somehow they knew, as HQ never let on about weeks designated as MS week or Customer Care week. Some of these HOPs tried to buddy-up with colleagues in Customer Care Department in HQ but CCD was like a cult: they were mega tight-lipped and just asked these HOPs to be on their toes and ensure their branches were in top shape viz-a-viz all measurable parameters.
Which was my sentiment exactly!
Why dissipate energy trying to suck-up to CCD when you could successfully expend that energy on being a model branch, not necessarily because you wanted to make Hall of Fame and not Hall of Shame, but purely for the sake of good customer service and having customers who are satisfied.
Mystery Shopping is a service quality monitoring service. It is used to gauge customer satisfaction and the workability and/or user/customer-friendliness of operational policies and procedures. A mystery shopper checks and measures everything, from the car park, to the security guard, to the rest rooms and to the business manager (s).
Business owners, entrepreneurs, managers, customer service operatives, small business owners and everyone involved in business, one way or the other, must engage and deploy mystery shoppers as a tool to business growth.
So, what is Mystery Shopping all about? How is it done?
It is a service used by businesses to monitor service quality. It is used to gauge customer satisfaction and the workability and/or user/customer-friendliness of operational policies and procedures. A mystery shopper checks and measures everything, from the car park, to the security guard and to the business manager.
A gift and thrift shop owner I know used to be obsessed by what her competition was doing. She always sent us, her sales girls and any willing mystery shopper to go snoop on her competition. Our assignment? To check ambience, check out staff demeanour/conduct and sartorial condition plus pricing. Oh well, this particular competition floored this gift and thrift shop owner in the areas of ambience and staff conduct. But for pricing my friend had an upper hand. We fed her back with our findings; she wasn’t ready for a major ambience overhaul, neither was she prepared for an upward salary review that will spiral into her staff dressing better.
So, what did she do? She promptly reviewed her prices downward. That drew clients to her own part of town!
That is what mystery shopping is about.
A mystery shopper is one who fronts as a client or customer, having been given his brief by the (client) organisation; his job is to go through a customer experience and feed management back with issues thrown up during this experience. The aim is to pinpoint service gaps, product knowledge gaps, and unfriendly-to-customers policies. These exercises and the subsequent feedback/report determines if management will right-size, train staff, change or tweak corporate policies.
It may also occasion, in extreme cases, a/some lay-offs (or sack, if you may); oh yes!
It gauges the operations of businesses to identify areas where there are (customer) service gaps; it uses and rates the applicability of the operation policies. Staff attitude is top on the list of things to measure, especially in customer-centric organisations. The attitude of security personnel is measured, at the car park and the premises’ entrance.
Back in my banking days, the mystery shoppers were also detailed to check out our conveniences and from the mails sent from HQ, the branches in the Hall of Shame had filthy and repulsive rest rooms, without tissue papers and air freshener (they took pictures!)
Any serious-minded entrepreneur MUST mystery shop, be it telephone, onsite or online. You must snoop on your business. Ghost-mode is good for business.
And you know the good thing, you can make money by the side by being a mystery shopper. Hello, OSOI (Other Streams of Income!)
Last word: GHOSTING. IS. NECESSARY. IN. BUSINESS.
Stella is based in the FCT, and is a mystery shopping service provider.
