Continuing on our myth buster series, today we speak more about the unconventional implementations of a Mystery Shopping program. Most literature we find on Mystery Shopping concludes its positive impact on customer service, specifically in the offline retail industry. However, the program gives you eyes and ears to find out much more about the real time operations of your business.
Here are a few ways in which you can use a Mystery Shopping program in a manner that is effective as well as time-and cost-efficient:
1) An eye on sales performance
This is especially true in industries that depend strongly on direct sales, such as finance and insurance. A Mystery Shopping program can help gauge the exact conversation your sales team has with customers and how that can impact conversions.
2) Always on the right side of law
Even after demonetization and the government’s strong intent on shutting down parallel economy, franchises such as automotive, hotels, event venues, and jewellery chains are not deterred from offering discount on cash transactions to save tax. The deep-seated roots of this parallel economy will not end overnight. A Mystery Shopping program can uncover these ethical grey areas to ensure that your organization and its partners are always on the right side of law.
3) Brand promise – home delivered
The burgeoning e-commerce space has ensured that now more than ever, customers interact with brands at their own doorstep. Whether it is food delivery or luxury clothes, tying up with logistics partners who uphold your brand promise is essential. A rude deliveryman can get way more retweets than a funny meme. Your customer will not stop to differentiate between a logistics partner and someone from your internal team. You don’t want to be in the bad books of e-commerce enabled, digital native customers.
4) Delighting the social consumer
Most organizations are now social. That means that there is or should be an existing SOP for customer service on social media. While the tweets and comments are out in the open to evaluate, what happens when the engagement moves to a phone call or email? Does the experience remain consistent? Do the solutions sound consistent? Mystery Shopping can help you find out.
In essence, Mystery Shopping remains a brilliant tool to measure customer experience at key touch points. It is up to brands and customer experience partners to evolve quickly to not only deliver a consistent experience across every possible touch point but also be able to measure it efficiently.