» Secret Shopping

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The other day Natalie, Tron and I had a meeting with a prospective client. We went to a fairly new restaurant in town. It was a nice, dining restaurant. They brought us freshly baked bread and olive oil. The three of us arrived shortly before our client, so we had some time to chat and talk about some of the new projects coming up. When our client arrived we all introduced ourselves and began chatting. (In order to keep some anonymity, but allow you to feel familiar I’ll tell you that our client’s first name was Bob.)

When you meet Bob, you know from the start that he is a seasoned sales man. Not the cheesy, pushy kind that we stereotype as a used car sales man. Bob is the witty, quick on his toes type that could sell an Eskimo ice cubes. It was fun to listen to him and hear some of his catch phrases.

I think we all walked away from the meeting with a better understanding of each other’s business, and what our goals were in working together. We set up a future meeting, that is coming up pretty quickly, with Bob and his peers to give them a short presentation of what training and other services we are offering them.

Bob suggested that we use one of his locations as a prototype, in order to determine effectiveness, and work out any of the kinks. This is always a great approach to trying something new. It allows a business man to dangle his feet in the water before he jumps in head first. And it allows us to dazzle him with our services. We can build some wonderful loyalty this way and help him increase his profits, which would build loyalty with anyone.

I look forward to meeting with Bob again and working out a deal with him. He seems to be the kind of man who has a vision and knows how he’s going to accomplish it. He really makes it enjoyable to work with him because he gives us feedback as to what he likes and doesn’t. If we can change something to make life easier for any of our clients we are glad to do so; all they have to do is ask. It’s surprising how often a person wants something but never gets it only because they didn’t ask.

I feel it is important for not only the boss, but every level of employee to have a vision or goal of where they want to be in the future in their personal life, and within their company. And when you reach your goal you will feel a great sense of achievement, and be motivated to make a new goal. Before you know it you’ll be farther than you imagined.

Ta ta for now…
Sarah

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We needed a couple of things from the neighborhood office super store so we decided to take along our newly developed ‘in person mystery form’. We decided to make the form fairly general but with the basics of great customer service. After looking at our form and some brainstorming, we came up with a one page form that we think will encompass the idea of the mystery shop.

Total points available 100. We asked the questions in a manner that will let the shopper give points based on how the questions were executed. We went through a few rough drafts and finally came to a decision on the final form. So off to the store we went, excited with our new toy. We entered the store and the person standing near the door was speaking with someone and did not acknowledge us. There was another employee standing nearby that smiled but that was the extent of it. We grabbed a buggy (that’s a shopping cart anywhere but Florida) and started through the store. First, we went over to the technical department to pick up an item and then we wandered over to the pen section.

We were in the aisle and there was an employee there with one of those big stair things to stock the shelves up high. I accidentally ran my buggy in to the stair thing and said “sorry,” the employee grabbed the stair thing and attempted to move it out of my way but never said anything. Ok, we found the highlighters we wanted and the man with the stairs was gone. Then before we can leave the aisle another employee walks up and asks if we needed any help. We inquire about an item that we would like to buy and the associate tells us that it is only available online and that there is a computer over there by which we can order the item on.

On to the checkout lanes. The one lane they had open had one person waiting with a cart that was overflowing, looking to save a little time I ask the young lady at the service desk if we can check out there. She doesn’t seem to hear me (she has her back turned talking to the young man co-worker) so I ask again. She turns and says yah and starts to ring up the few items. She asks if we have one of their cards for “special” customers, we say no and she keeps on doing her thing at the register. We ask if they offer a credit card for corporate purchases and she says they are at the other register, the young man goes and gets it. We finish paying and on our way out the man at the door helps with the buggy and thanks us for coming in.

Overall experience 36/100. They had the capability but it didn’t show on this shop.

I felt a little guilty about maybe being too picky, but my colleague assured me that we weren’t being picky, just observant. The form served its purpose and we look forward to using the form again soon.

Natalie Thomas

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Welcome to the secret shopping blog, PhoneSmart’s diary of the secret shopping business.

I wish I had the secret shop files on this story…

One of the StorageMart managers faxed me over the notes on the reservation form from a rental he just wrote. Sometimes we assume that if people don’t rent from us right away, we will lose them. I always tell people you have to stay on top of leads like white on rice until they either rent from you or tell you they don’t need storage. Of course it needs to be done in a caring, respectful and professional manner.

The reservation was made on June 19th without any particular clues as to the customer’s needs or priorities. Just a name and a phone number. The first note from the manager on the sheet said “Called 6-20 11:00 am. Got Nextel customer unavailable message”. The next note was from 3:08 on the same day. Same result. Customer unavailable.

The next note was from 6-22. It said, “Customer called to cancel. Her military unit will not be transferred. No longer needs storage.”

The next note was from 6-24. It reads, “She called back and just got orders to deploy and WILL need the unit.”

The last note was from 6-25 and showed “Rented” and the lease number.

Yes fate stepped in and caused this person to need the unit after all. But she could have rented anywhere. But I bet she rented here, because she liked the people she talked to on the phone the first time she called, she appreciated that the store showed up on her caller ID, trying to follow-up, and she liked the way the store manager treated her on the phone when she talked to him in person.

I know this theory is correct, because we secret shop this particular store and we know that this manager is friendly and knowledgable and helpful…and wants people to rent with him. You can’t ask for a better combination, can you?

However, without all the pieces of this puzzle, she may have rented somewhere else. Make sure your rental efforts keep tabs on prospects until they rent from you. And make sure your people make your calelrs want to do business with you.

bye for now,
Tron

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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 experience in the workd of secret shopping and mystery shopping.

My experience as a Secret Shopper has made me become much more aware of the service I get from any business. This is my “reticular activator” at work. “A reticular what” you say? Roy H. Williams defines it in the Wizard Tower Chronicles this way:

“The reticular activator is a mental trigger in your unconscious that directs your attention and causes you to notice and remember things you never intentionally committed to memory.”

Do you every notice that when you buy a car, the minute you drive it off the lot you see 5 more cars just like it? That’s your reticular activator. When I started secret shopping almost 2 years ago, I knew what I expected. But I did not know how to objectively determine the good and the bad. Now when I go to the grocery store, a restaurant or call my cellular customer service line, in the back of my mind, I’m secret shopping them.
When I leave a business where the service left a lot to be desired, I’m usually thinking how we can approach them with our secret shopping service. I’ll mention my experience at work the next day to my fellow shoppers and between us we’ll come up with a better way that the situation might have been handled.
In a case where the business representative has done an outstanding job with assistance, I have gone out on a limb and told them what I do for a living and what I thought of their service. In most cases, it surprises the person but they’ll usually smile at the compliment.
Then there have been times where I’ve been asked what I do for a living. When I tell them I’m a Secret Shopper, I’ve gotten some very different reactions. Some people think it’s great and they ask me how I got so lucky to do something like this. They usually assume that I do the kind of secret shopping where I get to go shopping at my favorite stores all day and spend someone else’s money. I’ll usually explain the different kind of shops that we handle for property management and they’re sometimes surprised that this industry needs something like secret shopping. It doesn’t diminish their enthusiasm for my job however. There are others who immediately say, “Are you secret shopping me right now?!” Their face has a very worried expression as if I might cause them to lose their job. That of course makes me wonder if I should be paying closer attention to them and there goes my reticular activator again.
Working as a Secret Shopper has opened my eyes wide to the world of customer service and sales. I’m always looking and listening for different ways to help the customer and pass the secret on to the clients we shop.

Laura

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Welcome to the secret shopping blog, where we look at issues impacting your customer service and sales training programs.

It is important to create a team atmosphere, where your employees are rewarded for their good work. One of the great things about secret shopping is that our shops give you the perfect opportunity to create an incentive program.

We’d like to share some of what our clients are doing to motivate their teams:

• Of course, in the back of everyone’s mind there’s always money. One client offers a tiered payment scale based on the evaluation score.
• Some other ideas are gift certificates for a favorite restaurant or retail store.
• Divide employees into teams and reward the winning team with a B-BQ, served by the losing team.
• Make a big deal about a great score on a low budget by posting certificates, putting the employee’s name in a newsletter, or nominating an employee of the week.
• Having cookies, flowers, or candy delivered to an outstanding employee can give them an extra boost.
• A day off with pay can boost your employee’s morale.
• Having the owner or boss detail the car of the employee with the highest scoring evaluation.
• Take the employee out to lunch.

Some other great ways to put PhoneSmart secret shops into action are:

• Have the top scoring employees role play or assist in training coworkers.
• Post all the scores of the employees so that each employee is accountable.
• Set individual employee, and store goals.
• Focus on a certain area until it is improved.
• Purchase the PhoneSmart training program, or implement a consistent training program.

It’s also important to keep things interesting and fun at work. Occasionally we at PhoneSmart play a little game… Poker. You can adapt this game to your business in a few ways. Here is one suggestion:
Make a list of actions you would like to see such as: rental, hot lead, getting name and phone number, setting appointments, and getting a delinquent customer to pay their bill . For each positive action, determine how many cards the employee may draw. Once the deck is gone, the employee with the best hand wins!!! (see above for some fun prize ideas)

Our point is, spice up the atmosphere around the office. It’s summer and we all wish we were out on the white sand beach with a pina colada in our hand. (Now that’s a good incentive!!!) If work is toiling and stressful, your employees will reflect that, and if it is fun and encouraging your employees will reflect that. And as always, your sales will reflect it too! We urge you to take one or more of these ideas and have fun with it.

Natalie, Sarah, and Laura

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Welcome to the secret shopping blog.

If you will be in sunny southern California in md July, come ahve lunch with me.

Here is the scoop…

Have Lunch and Boost your Profits.

Rent more space without increasing your expenses

Find the internal upside in your property…it’s in your phone calls!

Join PhoneSmart director Tron Jordheim for lunch at
The Balboa Bay Club’s First Cabin Restaurant
In Newport Beach, CA. Tuesday July 12 at 11:30 am.

There is no cost to you. All you will spend is your time.

Seating is very limited. RSVP by July 1, 2005.

Current and future clients are all welcome.

For more information on the Balboa Bay Club www.balboabayclub.com

For more information on PhoneSmart www.phone-smart.info

PhoneSmart
Your Profit Partner
Call center
Secret Shopping
Sales Training

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Welcome to the secret shopping blog. We are a diary of the mystery shopping and secret shopping business.

We have a great many culture and language groups in our great nation. We will see more arriving. And the ones that are here will continue to develop. Unlike in past waves of migration, today’s immigrants are far more likely to want to keep their homeland’s language culture and traditions. With all the cool technologies, it is easier than ever to keep up with what is going on “Back home”. This means consumers are going to want you to treat them how they like to be treated. The new imiigrants are not going to be bashful or insecure and do what you tell them, nor will they put up with intended or unintended disrespect.

So your job in the secret shop is to also be on the lookout for intended and unintended disrespect. These must be squashed. We also need to understand how other cultures work, so we do not misunderstand people we are dealing with.

The perceived “Rudeness” of native New Yorkers or Northeasterners is often very misunderstood by people who ilve in parts of the country that are less hectic and less dangerous. I tell our inbound phone reps at PhoneSmart that when a New Yorker gives you a “hard time”, it is because they like you and they are trying to see if you care about them enough to put up with their attitude and help them get what they need.

This is a survial response from being exposed to so many petty criminals and so many rip-offs. If you hang in there and don’t become intimidated or insulted that the New Yorker is being gruff…and you give them a good solution to their situation, they will say, “Thanks a lot, you’ve been great” and buy from you. If you become offended that and think the New Yorkers are being rude, you blow the sale and confuse the New Yorkers. They wonder why you got mad at them when they were just getting to like you. If you are attempting a transaction with a New Yorker and he or she does not give you a “hard time”, your likelihood of success is greatly diminished.

Every group has its own quirks. You need to learn them and love them.

However, no matter who you are dealing with, everyone likes to be handled in a friendly and gracious manner by patient and helpful people. So if you concentrate on getting friendly, gracious, helpful and patient staff, you can’t go wrong.
bye for now,
Tron

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Thanks for surfing over to the secret shopping blog, where we deal with mystery shopping and secret shopping issues.

I am at a marketing conference for people in the apartment industry, given by the Multi Fmaily Pro magazine. Several of the people in the sessions I attended expressed their frustrations about training and policy issues. Many felt that they can give a good training session and create great training materials, but they all felt like they lose something after the training. Many of the proceedures and initiatives don’t get implemented, or only get half implemented.

One of the first ideas people had at the session was to secret shop their staff after an initiative or a training topic was introduced in order to make sure that people understood the topic, knew what was expected of them and followed through.

This is of course great news for me, but you do have to be careful how you create a secret shopping expedition in order to ensure you are testing for and evaluating the exact things you need to see. Be clear in the behaviors or sales talk that you want your staff to practice. Then decide if you are going to use the initial secret shops as a test of how well you designed the training…did it stick? …or if you are going to test how well the staff is doing the follow-up they knew they were expected to do.

Sometimes you think you covered a topic well and you didn’t. Sometimes you covered the topic well, were clear in your expectations and your staff just didn’t feel like following through. Be careful you don’t spank your staff if you were at fault. And be careful your staff doesn’t ignore your initiatives and try to make you feel like it was your fault. It can get a little tricky. Good luck with your efforts.

bye for now,
Tron

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