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Welcome to the secret shopping blog, where we keep a diary of our experience in the world of secret shopping and mystery shopping.

An interesting thing happened the other day when I was making some secret shopping calls. I wanted to try a different angle on a scenario. We will sometimes hear feedback from some of our clients that they think we don’t give the person being shopped “a chance”. We try to insure every angle to make sure that we do sound like any other call that the office might be receiving. Now, we figure that the when we call, that it is up to that person to make their own “chance”, we shouldn’t have to lead them. So with that in mind I went into this set of calls with the idea that while I would not lead the call, I would give that person every opportunity to make the call great. I chose the victim scenario. Low voice, sounding a little upset, quick deadline, not much stuff to store (a car full, or whatever I could carry), were some of the techniques I used.

Well what happened next was the interesting part. Almost every call I made the person that answered went out of their way to help me. I am not implying that normally these people shrug off a potential client in a normal scenario. However this time the help they were offering was heart warming. You could tell that these people were truly concerned with my situation.

We normally shop this round of clients twice each month. And when you look at the scores, 2 out of 8 scored better on my calls than the other shopper that made the other round of calls this month. I think it is noteworthy that because the people I called to secret shop felt an emotional investment. They tried harder than they normally would to get the reservation. And getting the reservation in this case was truly helping a person in need. I even had one person offer to hold a unit till the next morning without a credit card (I had expressed concern about using my credit card because of being able to trace the rental). When I got off the phones that day I really felt cared for.

Did my calls take longer? No. Did the person answering the phone have to put forth more effort than another call? No. Did I give away any information? No.
Did my calls score better? Yes.

The only other common denominator was that maybe these people cared a little more than they would normally. Try caring a little more the next time you take a call; you might just stumble upon something great.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind. Henry James
Thanks,
Natalie

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Welcome to the secret shopping blog, where we keep a diary of our mystery shopping and secret shopping experiences.

Can you be too busy?

Normally, at this time of year we all become giddy knowing that the busiest time of the year is upon us. College students are moving back home, moms are doing their spring cleaning, people are moving across town and everyone needs storage. Our phones ring all day and the occupancy rate goes WAY up. But as wonderful as all this new business can be it means that you will need a way of serving all these new customers. From the business point of view, you can never have too many customers. But from the customer service point of view, if you give poor service you haven’t gained a loyal tenant.

Over the weekend we finished all but 16 of our mystery shops. Today I picked up the stack of remaining secret shops to make and dialed the first number on the list. I was greeted by a cheerful woman who seemed to be ready to help me. When I asked for some rates she explained that she was too busy, and would have to call me back. I could tell she was in a panic by the sound of her voice. This lack of service may come as a surprise to some, but we get these types of calls more often than you would think.

I began talking about this call with my coworker and we realized that the manager at this store was only doing what she thought was best. Perhaps a coworker called in sick today and she was short-handed, or maybe a mob of people suddenly needed to come in on their lunch break and rent storage. In any case, it was clear that she was overwhelmed, but that didn’t make my request for storage any less valid. If I had been a ‘real’ customer I would have went down the list in the phone book and found storage somewhere else. So it is important for a manager to be able to serve each customer.

I wondered whether I should use the call as the mystery shop, or erase it and make another call later. I decided that I should do both. I think it’s important for our clients to know if they are missing out on rentals because they are understaffed. Maybe if they had a part time employee or a call center they could add a few extra tenants each month. And I also decided to redo the call because our job is to test how well they sell their store. Granted, if they push people off the phone without helping, they won’t be able to sell their store. But I want to give the manager a fair chance at selling me her store. So I am going to make another call tomorrow. Hopefully this time she will be able to meet my needs.

So, my observation is this: During the busy season, we see the quality of service go down because many of the managers are overwhelmed with new tenants in the store, customers on the phone, current tenants with billing questions, angry tenants that didn’t pay rent on time, etc… It is important to keep a close eye on what quality of service your staff gives when they are under pressure, it could make or break a few extra rentals.

Ta Ta for Now…
Sarah

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How many different kinds of business can benefit from secret shopping their people? Well all of them of course. Every business has to be sold well. Every business has customers who need to feel well taken care of. Even secret shopping companies need to secret shop their staff. How can you monitor compliance to policy, strategy and tactic if you don’t know who is saying and doing what? How can you move your sales and customer service levels higher if there is no measuring of standards and no way to raise standards? Writing a secret shopping blob or a mystery shopping blog is an interesting way to consider the details and the big issues involved in making a mystery shopping or secret shopping program work. If you are not shopping your employees, you should start finding a way to get it done.

Bye for now, Tron

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