If you’re working to grow your business or add employees ahead of an expansion, you need to be sure that your training is effective. You also want to make sure that your supervisors are supporting your front-line customer service employees effectively. Finally, you need to know that customers are physically comfortable in your store as soon as they come into your facility.
What the Service Provides
Business owners do their best to monitor how employees interact with the public, but an observed employee may behave differently than an unobserved employee. Mystery shoppers can provide you with a more honest perspective. What is mystery shopping? Mystery shoppers visit your facility, either
- in-person
- over the phone
- online
They make an actual purchase and stay only as long as the average shopper would stay. At the end of their experience, they write up a report based on their experience, they are reimbursed for their purchase and paid for their time. Depending on what your business is selling, the shopper may be allowed to keep the product they purchased. The purchased item may also serve as compensation.
In-Person Shoppers
In-person shoppers are an ideal choice for
- restaurants and hotels
- retail and banking facilities
- fitness and healthcare facilities
If you’re a restaurant owner trying to build up your happy hour traffic, you may want to hire a mystery shopper to sit at the bar, have a couple of beverages and enjoy an appetizer. They can provide you with data on
- how welcome they feel entering the facility
- the quality of the food and drink
- the speed of delivery
- the friendliness of the waitstaff and bartender
You can customize their visit; for example, you may require that they spend at least a particular amount, come in with a friend or stay only a short amount of time.
Mystery shoppers can also report on the overall vibe of your facility. For example, an in-person mystery shopper can provide a sense of what the customer sees and feels when they enter your shop. If the customer is assaulted with a lot of data but little organized information when they enter your store, you may need to change your displays or your signage.
Telephone Shoppers
For business owners connected to the travel industry, hiring a telephone mystery shopping service can help you train call center workers and improve the customer experience. Phone work can be extremely stressful for employees. As a general rule, tech-savvy clients will do what they can to solve their problems by searching for information online. By the time they call your customer service team, they may be frustrated and unpleasant.
If your virtual customer service team is losing members, using mystery shoppers can help you find the source of the problem. You may find that you need to offer more training, add supervisory support, or upgrade your equipment to help your customer service team do their jobs with fewer challenges.
Virtual Shoppers
Virtual online shoppers buy things from your website and report on their experience. Again, their compensation may or may not include the item purchased and may include an hourly or per-shopping-trip fee.
Virtual mystery shoppers can actually give you a great deal of information from a wide array of shopper skills. They can let you know
- the user-friendliness of your website
- the quality of your product images compared to the actual item
- the payment experience
Because virtual shoppers use their own equipment and skillset, you can also find out how your website works for all of your customers. While website testers can give you a lot of data, most folks earning money as website testers have fairly strong technical skills. Virtual mystery shoppers can give you information from a less tech-savvy perspective. Depending on the product or service you’re providing, this information can help you build a more senior-friendly website.
Hiring mystery shoppers can provide you with a great deal of data about the best way to support your customer service team, your call center workers, and your front-line employees. You may find that your training or equipment needs to be upgraded. If you need answers to problems between your employees and your customers, a mystery shopping service can help.