Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #6

It’s hard to believe, but I just got off the phone with a prospect who is currently working with a mystery shopping company that still asks its shoppers to prepare their reports by hand and fax their completed evaluations to the mystery shopping company for further processing. Whether or not a mystery shopping company makes use of technology is the sixth most important question to ask when seeking a vendor.  We all know that technology makes us more effective and efficient no matter what industry we’re in, but here are some things you should know when it comes to applying technology to your mystery shopping efforts. Using a tech-savvy mystery shopping company can benefit you in the following ways:

- On-line reporting capabilities will allow you and your managers to access your data anytime and anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.

- Data storage in the form of an online database allows you to capture and store your evaluation results over time to track and trend your performance and improvement.

- Report writing capabilities give you the option to create reports that are meaningful to your organization.

- Easy access, accurate and timely results, and streamline reporting all mean a better, faster, more accurate program for you to incorporate into your customer retention strategy.

So let me ask the question, which would you rather have? A company that is setting the pace in the industry to deliver you the best possible service or a comapny that is still writing on stone tablets? Let’s hear your thoughts!

It’s your choice but remember…the customer is always watching!

Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #5

Experience in industry jargon, buzz words, complications, nuances, peculiarities, and models of operation are important when it comes to choosing a vendor. This may be especially important when choosing mystery shopping vendors since they are responsible for helping you design your program from start to finish. Everything from the design of your forms, the types of questions you ask, the frequency of evaluation, and how your final reports are prepared hinge on your industry and it is really helpful if you have a process guide that has experience. So the fifth question we suggest you ask a potential mystery shopping vendor is …”Do you have experience in my industry?” Then listen carefully to their answers.

As a result of all the companies we work with here at Market Viewpoint, we enjoy bringing a variety of creative ideas to each project we launch. We feel that it’s in our clients’ best interest to bring ideas from a cross section of industries. Great customer service ideas that work in banking may also work in real estate, retail, or guest services. You just never know where the next great idea is going to come from.

So as you review your vendor choices, ask about industry experience. It’s a “must have” criteria in our opinion!

Enjoy the process and remember, the customer is always watching!

Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #4

The practice of mystery shopping looks to be very simple on the surface. Closer inspection, however, reveals that it is a very labor intensive and sometimes complicated process that must be closely managed. It really takes a team to plan, coordinate, interpret, design, schedule, distribute, organize, monitor,  reschedule, communicate, analyze and deliver the reports you will receive at the end of each evaluation period. So if I were responsible for choosing a mystery shopping company to evaluate my firm, I would want to know how big the mystery shopping company is and how it is organized. Most of the firms that work with Market Viewpoint have deadlines. They usually need their mystery shopping information for board meetings, monthly/quarterly/annual reports, supervisor meetings, performance reviews, and upper management meetings. With this in mind, deadlines become critical. You want to make sure there is a team that can deliver your results how you want it, when you want it, every single time…so it’s important that the mystery shopping company have tight control over the work flow.

From the team at Market Viewpoint… Angela, Diane, Janet, Boni, Carolyn, Ron, Bruce, Debbie, Todd, Terri, and Robert…we want to say thank you for reading this post and we want to remind you….the customer is always watching!

Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #3

Beyond the relationship a mystery shopping company has with its shoppers and the years of experience backing the firm, what else should you be asking about as you interview mystery shopping companies?

Let us recommend that you ask about the background and work experience of the owner. Ask what qualifies them to conduct service evaluation studies.

Mystery shopping is a serious business and has the potential to affect the lives of people and the success of businesses being evaluated. Mystery shopping is also labor intensive and can be complicated.  When doing your due diligence look for companies that are owned and managed by professionals with backgrounds in the fields of marketing, market research, and customer service.  These are professionals who can guide, recommend, and analyze to your best advantage. Program components such as survey instrument design can be tricky and if not done properly, can lead to inaccurate conclusions so the people you have designing your data collection instruments had better know what they are doing. You also want someone who can partner with you on this journey and offer you the best possible advice when it comes to customer retention – one of the most important factors in your firm’s profitability.

So as you prepare to research mystery companies, do a little background checking to ensure you are getting qualified, capable professionals to handle your program. You’ll be glad you asked this question and surprised at some of the answers you’ll get.

Remember…the customer is always watching!

Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #2

As we unravel the mystery of choosing a great mystery shopping company, we are providing you with the questions it’s important to ask a prospective vendor to help you through this process.

The second question you should be asking is how many years of experience a firm has in the field of mystery shopping. As with most situations in life, experience counts for a lot. This is especially true when establishing a mystery shopping program for your organization. Here is how an experienced firm contributes to the success of your program:

• Guidance- An experienced mystery shopping firm can help you navigate through, what can be, complicated and sensitive issues in the launch of your mystery shopping program. Their recommendations for shopper volumes, frequency, form design, reports, internal administration, and staff notification will be critical as you establish any type of service evaluation endeavor.
• Recommendations- As your mystery shopping program gets underway, an experienced vendor will be able to make recommendations for how to use the information that will be collected in this process.
• Analysis – With experience comes the keen ability to spot market trends and areas of opportunity that you may not be capitalizing on that will add significantly to your bottom line.

On a final note, Market Viewpoint, LLC has been successfully helping clients see their operations through the customers’ eyes for the last 14 years. We’d be delighted to help you too!

Experience counts and remember…the customer is always watching!

Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #1

The secret to choosing a great mystery shopping company lies not only in the questions you ask but in the responses you receive. It’s important to listen carefully to the answers you get because you just may need to ask more questions.

At Market Viewpoint, LLC we happen to think that our shoppers are gold. The people who are evaluating your people and operations and providing you with feedback are critical to the quality of information you receive. You want these people to be the best.  Some of the questions you might want to consider asking a prospective mystery shopping company are contained in the following list:

• Who are your shoppers?
• Where do they come from?
• Can you segment your shopper database?
• Do you train your shoppers?
• Will the shoppers be coached on my project and the things that are important to me?

Now here are some other questions to ask that you may not have thought of and that the prospective mystery shopping company may not have heard before:

• What is the longest someone has shopped for you?
• Do you grade or rate your shoppers?
• What is your policy when there is a conflict of interest for a shopper?
• Will you provide me with some shopper references?
• What’s the worst thing you ever had happen with a mystery shopper and what did you do to resolve it?

The relationship a company has with its mystery shoppers is usually indicative of the relationship they have with their clients so it really pays to explore this area of a mystery company’s operations.

Let us know if you have any other questions you think are important to the selection process. We’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading and remember – the customer is always watching!

Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Mystery Shopping Company

Many companies are in the process of budgeting for their new fiscal year and some are considering adding mystery shopping as an operational line item. Others are making the decision to change mystery shopping companies but whether you are adding or changing, the fact remains the same; this can be a daunting task. Who do you ask? Where do you go to get honest information? Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you tips on things to look for in the company you’ll be entrusting with gathering the data that, in some cases, will guide your strategic and operating decisions over time.

Our postings will address:

1. The shoppers a mystery shopping company uses
2. The years of experience a mystery shopping company has
3. Mystery Shopping company credibility
4. Support Staff
5. Industry Experience
6. Use of Technology
7. The Personal Touch

Know that choosing a capable, honest, and company that is fun to work with does not have to be that difficult. It’s all in knowing what questions to ask and then knowing what to listen for in the responses you’re given. By taking the time to investigate your options carefully, you’ll be saving yourself big headaches over time.

Thanks for being one of our loyal readers and remember – the customer is always watching!

Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience: Service Sampling

A picture is worth a thousand words and for many of us this statement is true. If you are selling a tangible product like ice cream or hamburgers, providing a free sample is fairly easy. But what if you are in the mystery shopping business or any other business that provides a service? You can still offer that free sample but you might have to be a little more creative at coming up with what that free service looks like. Consider some of the approaches taken but our valued clients who have found ways to allow customers to sample their products.

• Testimonials
• References
• Before and After Photos
• Samples of Reports
• Graphs
• Charts
• Guarantees

One of the things we like to suggest is that service companies have a portfolio of testimonial letters, sample reports, before and after photos, and any other visual means of allowing the customer to try them on for size. While it may be a little more difficult, it’s not impossible to demonstrate your services so be creative and enjoy the process of coming up with a variety of ways to win over your prospects.

In the meantime, remember…the customer is always watching!

Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience: Using Products to Add Transactional Value

Consumers love to experience that WOW factor. Mystery shoppers are specifically trained to look for these experiences on their assignments, so it was particularly delightful for me when I experienced this on my way home from a speaking engagement in Virginia. I was several hours into the drive when I began to feel fatigued so I stopped at a popular fast food restaurant, which I’ve never patronized, to stretch and order something to drink. I was tempted by their selection of milkshakes so I ordered one. As I said, I was tired and on auto-pilot so I really wasn’t paying too much attention to the transaction. It occurred without incident and I took my purchase, which the associate placed in a bag, and headed back to my car to continue my journey. So far, this was a common, average, everyday, just ok experience but get ready. I am about to share with you what the associate did to make me a raging fan.

After starting the car, I opened the bag and there, just underneath the clear plastic lid, on top of the milkshake, were dots of chocolate syrup made into the shape of a smiley face! It might be a little corny, but I smiled all the way home. That associate made my day and I’ve been buying my shakes from that fast food retailer all summer.

• So what can you do with your products or product transactions to make them memorable?
• Remember, you may only get one chance to make a good first impression. Make that impression stick!

Use your products to make doing business with you memorable and you just may create customers for life!