Mystery shoppers (or shadow shoppers) are used by more businesses every day to provide an independent evaluation of what the business is doing well and what it could be doing better. They are not witch hunts trying to find the underachieving employee who can then be thrown to the wolves. They are mechanisms for giving an honest appraisal of a business.

Companies that offer mystery shopping services can be found in most cities. Often this is a service provided by marketing companies and training organisations. In more recent times, firms that do nothing but offer customer service evaluations, utilising mystery shoppers as one of their key resources, are being set up.

Ideally no one, not even the business owner, will know when a mystery shopper will be dropping by. They will appear just like any other customer and that is the aim. A short while later a report will be issued and the overall performance of the business can be measured. Periodically the mystery shopper evaluation can be repeated to determine if the business has improved or worsened.

Normally the first mystery shopper is the tough one. It highlights the most glaring weaknesses and it can be quite confronting for the business owners and the staff. Often the initial response is to point the finger and blame, which is not the best course of action. What is needed following this first report is a clear and level-headed plan to rectify any problems and to work at improving the business in any of the areas that need improving.

• Mystery shoppers can be used to evaluate the following:
• service and selling skills offered over the telephone
• how easy the business is to find
• how appealing the entrance is
• general layout of the business
• first impressions of staff and the business overall
• overall cleanliness of the business
• overall ambience of the business (smells, sounds etc.)
• appearance of the staff
• selling skills of the staff
• perceived value for money
• general level of customer service
• response time to internet enquiries
• quality of the products or services sold.

There are many other related and specific areas of any business that can be evaluated and the information is usually valuable. While it can be a little confronting the end result is that your business will have the opportunity to rectify problems that can be losing you customers.

It is also interesting to note that if your staff know you are having regular mystery shoppers they tend to try a little harder as they never quite know if the customer standing in front of them is today’s mystery shopper. Because of this, it is important to share any mystery shopper findings, good and bad, with your staff. Show them the information that is collected and that you are doing something with it.

It takes a strong business to use mystery shoppers—but they are a great way to work out the difference between mediocre and extraordinary. There are no businesses that I can think of that wouldn’t benefit from being mystery shopped. 

Got for it. 

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I am a strong believer that we are standing on the precipice of a new age that I like to think of as “The Customer Service Revolution”. It is time where technology is influencing our lives more than at any other period in history, and in all likelihood, these changes have only just begun. The technological advances experienced in the last twenty years are nothing compared to those that will occur in the next twenty years.

Customers literally have a world of choice. I buy products from the other side of the globe on a regular basis. I do work for clients thousands of miles away simply with the click of button. Things happen fast and people expect fast service. Small businesses can look like large corporations with some smart promotional material and a good website.

As business owners and operators we all have access to new and developing markets and new sources of customers. Populations are growing, business opportunities are also growing and in reality, it doesn’t take a lot to start your own business. Pay a few taxes and register a name and bingo – your a business owner and operator. This means that we are all  facing increased competition and I believe that the competition we face today is nothing compared to the competition we will face tomorrow.

There is battle going on for most businesses trying to attract more customers. Market share is a term that has enormous significance, especially for companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi but it is equally important for small businesses. Prices are comparable and becoming closer and closer. Competition has ensured that suppliers have to be highly competitive in their pricing otherwise they will go out of business.

So if there a lots of businesses offering the same products at basically the same prices in the same area  what is left to give one the advantage over the others – the answer is customer service. Those businesses that are smart and sharp enough to make this realisation that the future of their business success lies with increasing levels of customers service, will prosper in coming decades. The revolution has started and see signs of it everyday, in advertising and in the range of customer services being offered by larger organisations.

Consumer backlash to mechanised telephone systems, standing in long queues in banks and other institutions is allowing room for smarter operators to come in and develop their own market share simply by offering better levels of service at the same price. The larger organisations that have forced us to queue in long lines or wait on hold had the right idea – the are trying to get their customers to use the internet or ATM machines, which in reality are much faster and definitely more convenient, but rather than selling the advantages they made it unbearable for us to the do business with them in conventional ways. So we learnt to bank online because we got sick of waiting a line for an hour every other day. We book our fights on the internet because it quicker than being put on hold by the airline for 40 minutes.

The customer of today is time short and demanding. They know that they have choices and they are prepared to take their business elsewhere if the service is sub standard or prices are not competitive.

I believe that more customers are lost from lousy service than poor pricing. People don’t return phone calls, don’t deliver on time, they don’t thank you for your business and so on. And once you lose a customer it is very hard to get them back.

So whilst this is a testing time for many businesses there are enormous upsides. Customer service is one of the easiest areas to improve in any business. Normally it involves changing the way that you do things. If it does involve money it is normally minimal. Improving customer service can begin immediately.

So as the “Customer Service Revolution” continues, your business can either grow stronger and be a leader in your field, or it can be left behind to wallow with the majority of others.

I will be posting a number of blogs with ideas, advice and tips for building extraordinary relationships with our customers over the coming weeks. So stay tuned.

Cheers,

AG

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Treating your customers with respect is a theme that is repeated throughout this book and for very good reason. If you don’t treat your customers with the respect that they deserve they will go elsewhere. From a business owners point of view this can be financially devastating. It is important for staff members to realise the importance of respecting your customers and the ramifications if they don’t (ie they may lose their jobs because the business goes belly up).

I often see businesses that has been fitted out for hundreds of thousands of dollars, situated in prime locations, well stocked and well priced – everything is in their favour when it comes to succeeding, except there is a sales attendant behind the counter who has a bad attitude, preferring to virtually ignore the customers and when they do serve them, they are rude and disrespectful.

This one bad sales attendant can cost a business a fortune in lost sales, both on the spot and with future sales. The entire fit out, prime location and subsequent big rents are a complete waste of time and money if the person on the cash register has little or no respect for their customers.

Bad experiences create far more word of mouth advertising than good experience. It’s unfortunate but a fact of life. As customers we have a very advanced and active underground propaganda network that identifies and singles out businesses that are notorious for providing bad service with a bad attitude.

As a business owner or manager, it is in your benefit to sit your staff down and explain to them the long term affects of poor customer service. They need to be made very aware that their actions can impact on a lot of other people, namely the other staff that can be affected by the business not performing financially, and resulting in lost jobs.

From my own experience when you do sit people down and explain the ramifications of their actions they are often horrified, not realising the impact that they were having. Perhaps they were having a bad day, possibly problems at home, or a myriad of other possibilities. By showing them the long term importance of treating customers with respect most staff members will react positively and a change in attitude will hopefully follow.

Any member of a team with a bad attitude towards customers, who cannot be reasoned with, should have a short and very limited life in any organisation that wants to grow and be profitable.

Remember that every time a customer walks through the door, the first word that should come into everyone’s mind is “respect”.

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There is nothing worse than going into a business that is dirty. Of course it is hard to keep some businesses spotless but there is a difference between being filthy and being messy in the course of doing your work. Whilst it would be nice to walk into a engineering factory where the floor and machines are spotless, but this may not be practical. However if you compare two such factories, odds on that one is much cleaner than the other.

What is worse is going into a business that should be spotless, like a restaurant, pharmacy, supermarket or bakery, only to see cockroaches running around, scraps on the floor, dusty shelves,dirty walls and rats arm wrestling for scraps of food. Toilets are common areas for a lack of cleanliness. If I go to a restaurant and the toilets are filthy I can’t help but wonder what the kitchen is like and in all likelihood I won’t go back.

The same applies to the staff. If the staff look dirty, the business gives the feeling of being dirty. We have done a number of customer satisfaction surveys in recent years for various companies and without exception, cleanliness is considered one of the main prerequisites for most businesses. This cleanliness applies to the actual premises, the staff and the facilities.

Customers expect clean businesses. Meet this expectation and you are well on the way to really satisfying your customers and increasing the chances of them coming back.

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