Knowledge

Mystery Shopping Call Scenarios for Banks

by Elaine Buxton

Considering telephone mystery shopping call scenarios for your bank? A good starting point is to think about the client interactions that are most critical to the achievement of your bank’s sales and service goals.

For example, if your goal is to become the bank of choice for those relocating into the area, include a phone shop where the shopper calls a branch, tells the employee that he/she is new to the area and is considering several local banks before making a decision. Then measure the interaction based on the employee’s friendliness, knowledge and willingness to “close” the sale.

If your goal is to capture more business from CD “rate-shoppers”, include a measurement to determine if your employees go a step further when providing the client with basic CD information. For example, shoppers listen to see if the employee simply quotes a CD rate or if the employee asks the client additional clarifying questions before quoting a rate. They also listen to see if the employee invites them to come into the branch to open the CD.

You might also be wondering about how well your front- line employees handle complaints

Mystery Shopping for Revenue Generation: Maximize the ROI of Your Mystery Shopping Program

by Elaine Buxton

Mystery shopping usually means measuring customer experiences as they relate to specific performance expectations for service delivery. This means that mystery shoppers are typically reporting on behaviors and conditions that affect the customer experience.

It’s beneficial to take this thinking further. Setting sales goals for your staff, using mystery shoppers to see that they are working toward them and then rewarding success creates revenue generation opportunities.

What if your mystery shopping program also produced an immediate pop in revenue? For an example of this in action,

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What is Mystery Shopper Interview Bias?

by Elaine Buxton

Businesses considering mystery shopping services sometimes ask us about “interview bias,” or the concern that the mystery shopper will sway the employee to behave in a certain way or that the mystery shopper will bring opinions to the shop visit which might affect the outcome of the research.

Mystery shopping requires human interactions. Perfection is not possible. However, steps can be taken to ensure that interviewer bias is minimized so that mystery shopping value is maximized.

Decide what to test. Mystery shopping is performance research. In order to compare how each location is performing, it is important to decide what that performance should be. It is impossible to ask a mystery shopper to test performance without telling the shopper what the test is. Thus, the all-important first step is to determine what can and should be tested. Without requiring that each shopper approach the shop the same way, the results will be a hodge-podge of random events, reported on a meaningless survey form.
Here are some examples of how random experiences can be categorized into “tests” so that mystery shop results can be reasonably compared:

Banking. Instead of sending in mystery shoppers to inquire about opening “an account”, send in shoppers to ask about opening the same type of account. This allows comparisons of service descriptions when shoppers present the same scenario.
Restaurants. Send mystery shoppers during specific meal time windows. Units are more likely to be staffed similar, selling similar product and enjoying about the same amount of customer traffic.
Retail stores. Send mystery shoppers to look for specific product categories or departments.
Automotive services. Send mystery shoppers for the same type of vehicle service.

Inform mystery shoppers of required observations, not expectations. Mystery shoppers should be given enough information to conduct their visits and gather the appropriate information and observations without biasing them

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Frontline Employees—Advocate or Adversary for your Brand?

by Elaine Buxton

As I unloaded my cart on a recent visit to the grocery store, I heard the cashier tell his fellow employee, “I’m so tired of working this line…I can’t wait to be out of here!” Hearing this, I considered how the store manager would react if he heard this from his employee. To be sure, the manager would consider the comment a poor reflection on his store and on the company brand. Employees who talk about being bored on the job – in front of customers – are adversaries for a brand rather than advocates, a situation every company wants to avoid.

While no company would have turned to economic recession as a strategy, as it turns out, many companies have reaped an unexpected benefit of the recession—their employees’ increased engagement in serving customers. What happened? In an economy riddled with high unemployment, employees translated being grateful to their employers for their jobs to being grateful to customers for providing them. The connection between customer and paycheck became clear and direct.

Many consumer products companies have used that same principle with on-the-spot rewards programs, a strategy to increase

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Customer Wait Times: Ideas to Make the Wait More Pleasant

by Confero Inc.

The Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik (“The Numbers Guy”) talked with our own Rob Barry, along with other experts, about the customer view of time spent waiting in line.

Rob knows a thing or two about wait times. He has worked with our grocery store clients to measure customer experience for the past six (6) years. As Rob stated to Carl, “Grocery stores are focusing more on quickness of checkout probably than ever before. Society has created an environment where everyone is in a hurry.”

In his August 18, 2009 blog The Waiting Game, Bialik digs into the art, science and numbers behind “queuing”, “standing in line” and “standing on line”.

Is customer waiting time about math or perception…or both? Thanks, Carl, for a fascinating look at waiting!

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