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Making it Difficult for Customers to Contact You: Many companies have “contact us” email forms on their websites, and for some, this is the only manner in which customers may easily contact them. Companies frequently desire to measure how easy it for customers to locate contact information on their website. As an example, one of our clients discovered that it was difficult for mystery shoppers to simply search for a company location nearest them. Online mystery assessments uncover areas critical to a customer’s ability to find and contact you.
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Badmouthing the Competition: Belittling the competition can be tempting for many employees. Some employees, in an attempt to win the sale, talk negatively about the competition. Companies that suspect badmouthing execute new training and then measure for improvement with mystery shopping. Mystery shoppers listen for specific types of information, including negative remarks about competition.
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Promising and Not Delivering: Do your employees promise to follow up with customers within a certain time frame and deliver on time? If not, this is a service mistake that may drive customers away. Many companies use mystery shopping to measure follow-up promises. For example, some of our clients measure the amount of time it takes for an employee to email information to a customer or follow up with an appointment time.
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Great Words/Poor Tone: Employees may say all the right words to customers, but without the right tone, they fall flat. For example, in response to a customer’s request, an employee answers, “Sure, I can help you with that.” A bored tone when speaking these words indicates just the opposite. Telephone recorded mystery shops capture employee’s tone, clarity and enthusiasm.
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Not Knowing How to Appease Angry Customers: One of the hardest things for customer service employees to learn is that dissatisfied customers vent their anger at the company and not at them personally. With training on how to work with upset customers, employees can make tough customer situations less stressful. Mystery shopping assesses how well employees perform in typical situations, including stressful ones. The mystery shops measure if employees use company-recommended approaches in certain situations.
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Doing The Bare Minimum: Rather than simply answering a customer’s question, high-performing employees do more. For example, a grocery store employee can lead a customer to the organic section, and tell the customer more about the organic food products. To measure if employees go the extra mile to please customers, implement onsite mystery shopping. Use the information to reward deserving employees.
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Answering Phones Slowly: It’s no secret that if a company does not answer the phone within 2-3 rings, it stands to lose new customers and sales. It’s difficult for firms to assess how well locations are doing in this area, aside from the occasional phone call from one office to another. Mystery shopping can provide consistent measurement. Those companies that don’t measure phone answering stand to lose potential new customers to competitors who do.
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Closing Early/Opening Late: Managers of many locations sometimes have little knowledge about locations’ operating hours until a customer comments online or complains to corporate. For companies with franchise locations where this may be an issue, mystery shops with digital photos can provide much-needed information on store hours.
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Offering Vague Explanations: Organizations that implement fee changes or revised return policies need to prepare employees with solid information. When customers hear vague explanations about changes that impact them, they often feel frustrated and are likely to leave. Using mystery shops to assess how well employees explain a new fee or policy can assure companies that employees are working to retain customers despite the changes.
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Placing Customers on Hold: Customers expect fast service, especially now in an age of instantaneous online interactions. When customers call to complain about a customer service issue, the last thing that they want is a long wait. Companies that establish clear expectations on when and how long to place customers on hold help improve customer experience. On-hold experiences are measured effectively with telephone mystery shopping.
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Transferring to the Wrong Department: Companies avoid this service mistake by training employees on when to forward customers to certain departments. With telephone mystery shopping, organizations gather data on employee behaviors, including call transferring situations. In addition, the mystery shops measure the amount of time employees spend on the call, and more importantly, the amount of time that the customer waits for answers or service.
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Asking Customers to Repeat Themselves: Customers would rather not repeat their customer information basics and request each time they speak to a different employee. Companies with excellent customer service instruct employees to capture customer information during the initial conversation, and enter details into a CRM or other centralized area where all employees can easily access it. Mystery shopping goes beyond simple purchase scenarios to more detailed ones that capture several employee interactions.
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Offering Inconsistent Refund Policies: If a customer visits several store locations and receive various information on returning an item, the company’s overall image is impacted negatively by inconsistency. The same is true for banking. Customers may visit different branches to see if the manager will approve a refunded fee. Once companies train employees on a refund or return policy, they can add a “return scenario” to their mystery shopping program.
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Ignoring Customers: Customers don’t want salespeople to bombard them, but they also don’t like when associates totally ignore them. Do employees walk by a customer without acknowledgement or greeting? Or worse yet, do they see customers looking for something and continue personal conversations among themselves without offering to help? Mystery shops measure employee greetings upon the initial visit and details about which employees greeted them during the entire shopping experience.
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Asking for too Much Information: Whether employees ask customers to apply for a store credit card, or join a rewards program or email list, they need to keep conversations brief, especially when they sense the customer is in a hurry or long lines exist. Suggestive selling is critical, but smart companies train employees on how to ask in a concise way in order to keep customer conversations short. Mystery shopping can address how well employees suggestively sell during both slow and busy times.
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Giving too Much Information: Some employees reveal personal details to customers that go beyond rapport building. When this happens, customers often feel uncomfortable. As mystery shoppers visit locations, they capture information on everything that occurs during the interaction with the employee, including employee personal comments that customers may not want to hear!
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Not treating all Customers the same: Managers may speculate that their associates don’t treat all customers the same. For example, bank executives may wonder if bankers interact in a similar style with customers with differing balances or of certain age groups. Mystery shopping companies provide mystery shoppers who meet specific demographics in order to measure this area.
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Repeating PhrasesOver and Over Again: Many times, customers experience waits at a restaurant or retail store and hear an employee address customers in the same tone with identical words each time. The associate may say phrases such as “Next!” or “Would you like to pay with your XYZ credit card?” and after a while, the customers who are waiting tire of the repetition. To combat this, managers can provide employees with several ways to initiate the customer conversation, and then implement mystery shops to measure performance.
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Acting Disinterested: Retail organizations may have locations where they know or suspect that employee morale is lacking. Mystery shoppers who interact naturally with employees assess when and where these types of employee behaviors occur, providing management with actionable data to launch improvements.
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Not Smiling: A simple behavior, but without it, customers are left feeling less than appreciated. On-site mystery shops measure spoken and unspoken behaviors, and can be combined with on the spot rewards to recognize employees who serve customers well.
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Not Searching for the Right Answer: When employees don’t know the answer to a customer’s question, hopefully they research the question on the spot or promise to deliver a reply by a certain date. In some cases, this does not always happen. Employees may bluff their way through a response or hesitate when they do not know where to turn within the company for an answer. Through telephone and onsite mystery shops, managers collect information on what employees do in these situations. They can use the information to fine tune product knowledge training efforts.
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Saying, “I can’t because company policy…”: It may be true that company policy does not allow returns after a certain time period, but customers don’t enjoy hearing it this way. Training departments coach employees on how to best phrase customer comments and they need to measure the effectiveness of the training. Mystery shopping can accomplish this.
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Not listening: When employees don’t listen to customers either on the phone or face to face, customers respond by going elsewhere. Companies may never know why customers leave. With mystery shopping, managers can assess how well employees listen. Do they make eye contact and not interrupt? Do they repeat the customer’s concern to make sure that they understood? Mystery shoppers report on these behaviors.
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Stretching the Truth: Are employees stating facts about company, products or services that simply aren’t true? From a compliance standpoint, mystery shops provide important information to companies on employee claims about pricing and products.
- Not Standing: In a desk environment, standing to greet customers is professional and welcoming. Mystery shopping measures basic customer service behaviors, from the simple to complex.
Making it Difficult for Customers to Contact You: Many companies have “contact us” email forms on their websites, and for some, this is the only manner in which customers may easily contact them. Companies frequently desire to measure how easy it for customers to locate contact information on their website. As an example, one of our clients discovered that it was difficult for mystery shoppers to simply search for a company location nearest them. Online mystery assessments uncover areas critical to a customer’s ability to find and contact you.