» Secret Mystery Shopping
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Secret Mystery Shopping For Better BusinessBy admin on July 21, 2009 | No Comments
Most companies hire people for secret mystery shopping to improve their business prospects. Whether a company is in the production business or service industry it has to take certain measures to increase its profits.
Good Customer Service Is Essential
The most important requirement is that the product or service of the company should be of high standard. However this alone cannot determine the success of any business. It is equally important to provide good customer service to prospective clients so that they become permanent customers.
This implies that every prospective customer must be treated with importance. Customer care employees must promptly enquire how they can help a particular customer.
Whether in giving information, choosing a product or in returning it, the employee must help the customer so that he does not waste time in finding his way around the shop.
By hiring people for secret mystery shopping , a service company can determine how its employees treat its customers. For instance, if a client makes a phone call to a company to clear some doubt, at no cost should his call be left unattended due to which he is made to wait indefinitely.
Every customer wants good value for his time and money. Thus employees must be courteous and prompt in their dealings with clients.
Company managers might choose to carry out an assessment of their employees by themselves. But this will never give the right picture as the judgment will be biased towards the company. Similarly, if an external organization is asked to assess the company performance it can detect that there is a reduction in profits but cannot give the exact reason.
A good method to assess a company is to hire secret mystery shopping experts. They are trained personnel who pose as real shoppers and visit a shop or office to buy a product or inquire about it.
They may even make a phone call to ask about its services. All this is done with the idea of gauging the standard of customer service of the company. For instance, do the employees of the company receive the phone call promptly or keep the caller on hold Also, do they ask a customer visiting a shop how they can help him
Help The Company To Make Suitable Changes
However, quality control shoppers should be well trained in the job so that the employees do not get a hint that they are under check. That will make them cautious and hence the assessment will be incorrect.
The anonymous shoppers will prepare a report regarding the work attitude of the employees and submit it to the company.
The aim of such shoppers is not to find faults with the employees but to understand their problems and help them improve. Experts based on results of secret mystery shopping can also advise the company to make necessary amendments. For instance, there may not be enough manpower to handle the increased work load of the company.Training courses and seminars must be organized to train the employees on how to handle different kinds of customers. There are many quality control companies, so it is essential to search for a reliable and experienced one. The personnel should be well trained to make the right assessment, since an incorrect negative report can be demoralizing for the employees.
Most quality control companies have their own website with contact details where owners can clarify details, such as fees charged and clients they have worked for.
Companies can improve their performance by hiring a reliable agency for secret mystery shopping .
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5 Facts That Make Mystery Shopping NecessaryBy admin on May 5, 2009 | No Comments
Secret Mystery Shopping is a quality assurance technique that allows you to judge the quality of your company customer related services using a hidden observer. The hidden observer is usually a researcher disguised as a customer who is able to experience what a real customer would experience by way of service and give relevant feedback. There are several benefits of this technique which make it a very popular means of evaluating and improving the quality of customer satisfaction scores. Some of the advantages of secret mystery shopping over traditional research are given below
- Accuracy Of Observation – If the CEO or any other senior of the company would walk in, the experience they have is by no means reflective of what a normal customer would experience. Similarly if a quality professional were to walk in announcing who he was, he or she would again experience something different from a regular customer. Only if an unidentified researcher posing as a customer walks in would he be able to experience behavior that approximates real customer situations. Therefore only secret mystery shopping really allows you to find out what is happening in the first place. Is the sales staff helpful were the store displays in order is the communication in line with agreed brand values.
- Comparison Shopping – Quality is relative. The evaluation of a company services and products will change depending on competitive offerings. This service allows you to have disguised customers move around in competitive spaces and give you live feedback as regards areas of improvement. You can find out their weak points and strength areas and use the information to your advantage. Most importantly you find out what is important or not important from the customer point of view.
- Neutral Or Third Party Point Of View – Secret Mystery Shopping also allows a completely unbiased not to mention professional view of customer services. This is important since internal people have a tendency to develop a blind spot however good their intentions or expertise.
- Customer Point Of View – The best part of this technique is that it is customer oriented and therefore more likely to spot errors. It is as one would call it outside in rather that inside out. It works with the customer as the focus point and not the product or service as is usually the case. As a result you are able to spot errors better or make improvements that the customer could encounter or notice.
- Stress Tests – lastly, secret mystery shopping allows you to test the system with extreme kinds of possibilities. You can arrange for an angry irate shopper, rude shopper or even a badly dressed shopper, depending on what you think the weak points of your company staff are. Did the staff also become rude Did the badly dressed customer not get the standard service Did the staff make attempts to calm or understand the customers behavior will be some of the questions you will need to ask at the end of the exercise. Depending on how the customer is handled you can determine your need for retraining or even rehiring.
Interestingly companies have noticed a clear improvement after making the results of such an exercise known. People obviously have a tendency to put up a better show if they think they are being watched. So it is a good idea to let telesales know that some calls are heard or recorded. It is even better to play back some actual interactions to make sure that everybody is on their best behavior when speaking to customers.
Similarly when you employ secret mystery shopping , it may be a good idea to prepare the staff in advance. But in that case you must ensure that you actually do record actual behavior and play it back to them to ensure that there is no credibility loss for the management.
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Overview of Secret Mystery Shopping
Secret Mystery Shopping is perhaps the most popular technique to evaluate the current condition of the service related business. It has become an indispensable way of modern market survey. There is no secret or mystery behind this shopping. It is scientifically very much effective. It is a process where appointed people perform shopping secretly in pre-detected shops.
It is called the secret mystery shopping because the shoppers do not disclose their identity while shopping. This appointed shoppers like an ordinary shopper come to shop in any departmental store and side by side they keep their eyes on how the business is going on. They keep their identity a secret because if they disclose their identity the business persons will try to hide their faults. It is overall a funny thing and not at all strenuous. That is why people from different aspects of life may join in this service if they want.
Secret mystery shopping provides double fun to the people who are engaged in it. This work turns their dream of shopping into reality and when they also earn some money for it the fun doubles. But if you think that there is only fun in the job then you are wrong. Though the work can be done at any time which is most convenient for you, but still there is a deadline for submitting the report and that has to be met. Try to maintain that because there is a great competition in this work and unless you become punctual you cannot survive here. As the work is not at all that strenuous any aged person or other employed persons or mothers of young children who have a bit of time in their hand may utilize it according to their wish.
If you go through the websites you will find that there are lots of companies who provide secret mystery shopping . Before joining try to acquire as much as information about that provider because there are few providers who are cheaters. They lure common people with high promises and high rewards. Try to avoid them. One thing is very much clear that the return in this work is not at all huge. To increase your income, try to work for more than one provider. There is no such rule that you will not be able to engage in more than one company as long as you do your work sincerely.
One question may haunt your mind and that is, why secret mystery shopping ? In this world the competition is at its height and every one is trying to maintain their position. The first place holder tries to keep its position tight and those who are in backward position will try to come forward. So it is clear that every one likes progress and for this reason they should know their negative points so that they can rectify them. For this purpose companies seek help of experienced and specialists. These specialists provide special shopping in return of payment for the market survey. This shopping can be done anywhere, in any retail shops, in any eating house, in casino, in any gas station, in coffee shop, in a pub, self storage or in a small grocery store of your locality. Actually it surveys the interaction between the customer and the business persons. The main aim of this shopping is betterment and quality control with the help of some anonymous people applied to this job.