We are preparing to celebrate Confero’s 25th year in business in 2011. Naturally, I have started to look back on our years in business. I’m often asked how we got started in the mystery shopping business. Here’s my favorite “how it all started” story. It’s the story of how our local firm became national, quickly, by doing small things right.
Back in 1986, my company specialized in training and needs assessments, and we did not yet offer mystery shopping services. We were conducting needs assessments to determine training needs. Our clients loved the needs assessments. Realizing the impact that this type of service could have on an organization’s effectiveness at selling more services and retaining more customers, we decided that this mystery shopping “needs assessment” service would be a perfect fit with our mission. By 1988, we were marketing the mystery shopping service very simply – by performing a complimentary mystery shop for a company at one of their locations, recording our observations, and then reporting the results in a complimentary mystery shop report package.
One of the complimentary mystery shop reports resulted in a story that I have long remembered. It shows that one small effort can result in a chain of positive outcomes. It’s the story of how our complimentary mystery shop report for a quick service breakfast chain location lead us to a national automotive service account in just six short months.
I noticed that there was a large, quick serve restaurant located near my office and decided to pay them a visit. I prepared a sample mystery shop survey form with questions relevant to the manager, including friendliness of employees, speed of service and cleanliness of the restaurant. As I ate my breakfast, I noticed as many details as possible. For example, I paid careful attention to how many minutes it took to receive my order, how clean the booth was, whether the manager was visible, the temperature of the food, etc. Later, I made notes on my observations (remember, this was the 80’s, so reports were paper and pencil at that time!), typed up a report using WordPerfect on my DOS based computer, printed the report on the single sheet printer that was so large it took up an entire desk and then I sent the sample report to the headquarters of the chain.
My report explained that an anonymous, objective observer could provide important feedback on employee behaviors. The report detailed how well the service, quality and cleanliness of the location measured up to common industry and customer expectations.
The restaurant chain’s operations manager thanked me for the report . He was impressed by the attention to detail in the report, the impact of the information presented and my willingness to take the time to discuss the results with him.
A week later, an ad agency called me. They had heard from their client, the quick service restaurant chain, that Confero did excellent work. Wow! This agency has just earned a statewide account in the automotive industry. We were asked to conduct mystery shops for that client.
The mystery shopping project went well, and the client and the agency were pleased. Within weeks of our first reports on the automotive mystery shops, our client took his reports to his national convention to share results. The firm was a large, nationwide automotive service company and they began to use our mystery shop services , as one of our early clients with a national footprint. The company now has thousands of locations nationwide, and we still partner with them on their mystery shops today. (Yes, we have kept the client for that long!)
This story always reminds me that small efforts, done with the same amount of enthusiasm and care as the large ones, can pay off big. It also reminds me that you never really know where your brand’s advocates will come from….every message to prospective customers counts!