Measuring Customer Service

It has never been more important to know understand what happening in your outlets. Every business needs to know what the experience is like for their customers. Are they treated in a way that values them, would they always want a repeat visit and do they leave thinking that was fabulous, nothing more could have been done? This is the starting point for a lot of companies who decide mystery shopping is the way to go. The service when the top bosses visit, or even when the manager is there will differ, although it shouldn’t, to what happens on an average day. It is so vital today that customers feel important, they need to feel appreciated. If not, they will go elsewhere and goodness knows, there is a lot of choice around today. Measuring your service with mystery shopping is a key element of your service delivery. This can also be topped with customer satisfaction surveys: with just a few clicks, your customer can tell you instantly what their service was like and how it could be improved. Respond to these surveys to make your customers really feel that you care and you are doing the very best for them.

We have all seen and heard horror stories when shopping that astound us, but these days it goes straight onto social media for the whole world to see. Try not to let that happen in your environment, get ahead and know what your service is like. It’s also a good idea to mix up your assessments – don’t have a set pattern of visits, mix them up so no one knows when the mystery shoppers are out and about. A good mystery shopper will be in and out without anyone in the store having any idea that they have been mystery shopped. A true mystery.

A few more things to remember before you start a programme of mystery visits.

1. Make sure your questions work for you and your staff,
2. Do not include anything that they have not been trained to do
3. Check the weightings of your questions, make sure that the important elements are worth more points, as they are worth more to your customers too
4. Know what you are going to do with the results. Be prepared, have a plan of action ready for when the first mystery visits start arriving on your desk.

One last thing, don’t be in a hurry, it can take time to change the habits of staff. However embarking on a comprehensive mystery shopping and customer satisfaction programme can only lead to one thing – happier customers!