Mystery shoppers are individuals hired to pose as actual customers. They will experience the company's services or purchase its products discreetly. Afterward, they will provide detailed feedback on service quality, employee attitude, and other related factors. customer experience.
Example: A mystery shopper may visit a fashion store, shop, and observe how staff advise customers, their service attitude, and the store layout. They will then report back on strengths and areas for improvement.
Why do businesses need to deploy mystery shoppers?
Due to increasingly fierce market competition!
According to the RightNow Customer Experience Impact ReportService quality is the primary factor that builds customer trust in a brand, not product quality.
Accenture's Global Consumer Report shows that customers always compare the services of different brands.
Service quality is becoming increasingly important!
Studies conducted in developed countries show that the majority of consumers are dissatisfied with the brands they are using, with the most frequently cited reason being inconsistent service quality, leading to customers who are very satisfied with one use but still easily abandon the brand due to bad experiences in subsequent uses.
For brands that own a chain of business locations, maintaining service quality standards is even more difficult for a number of reasons:
- The chain has many business locations spread across a wide geographical area.
- The QC team is familiar, but the inspection time is inflexible.
- Internal QC does not create situations to test processing capabilities, especially difficult situations.
- Staff at the point of sale are only concerned with sales figures and do not proactively maintain and implement proper business processes and customer interactions.
Therefore, the use of secret customer service will help businesses evaluate from an objective, effective, and comprehensive perspective.
The value of Mystery Shopping for businesses
If done correctly, implementing Mystery Shopping will:
- Provide an objective perspective on the company's services based on customer experiences.
- Quantify improvements or declines in service quality.
- Identify the weaknesses and strengths throughout the entire business process.
- Identify subjective or objective errors/mistakes originating from personnel, technology, or mechanisms that lead to customer dissatisfaction.
- Integrate quality assessment activities with other activities in the company's customer strategy.
Learn about BSV's secret customer solutions →
Confidential customer implementation process
The mystery shopper implementation process consists of four stages, from preparation to completion of the final report:
| Các bước | Thực hiện | Nội dung |
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Step 1. Define criteria and develop an evaluation framework |
Set goals |
Identify the business's assessment needs. Define the items to be assessed. |
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Define the criteria |
Analyze criteria based on the company's business standards to determine the attributes to be recorded in the report. Most consistent with the characteristics and spirit of the Brand/Company. |
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Consult on additional criteria after the survey |
Businesses and KHBM service providers will agree on evaluation forms and reports, as well as storage methods and report submission procedures.
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Plan and agree on the evaluation contexts |
Provide assessment scenarios for business locations such as: a. Customers traveling alone b. Customers traveling as a couple c. Family/group customers d. Customers traveling with children e. Customers intentionally causing trouble These scenarios will be included in a specific service implementation plan along with requirements regarding frequency and time. |
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Step 2. Recruit, select, and train mystery shoppers |
Selection and agreement
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Select and agree on personnel
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Train |
Employees will be trained on: Principles in the service industry, particularly regarding factors affecting customer satisfaction, customer retention, and customer loyalty. Communication principles and soft skills required of service industry employees. Details on the service evaluation process, how to conduct surveys, data entry principles, information storage, and security.
Information presentation skills to ensure reports achieve the highest level of clarity. |
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Step 3: Run |
Deployment |
Conduct real-time or periodic assessments and reporting
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Step 4: Compile and report |
Aggregate raw data |
The data for each Visit report will be stored on the survey information system. |
Mystery Shopper Recruitment Criteria
Procedure for conducting a single mystery shopper visit
The process of conducting a Visit is built based on a complete customer experience journey at the business location, and is therefore divided into different steps:
At each step, based on customer behavior studies in different fields, the provider will present a list of customer experience criteria.
Mystery Shopper Report
The reports are compiled based on the evaluation criteria specified in the plan. Below are some typical mystery shopping report templates.
General Activity Report
Report based on evaluation criteria
Summary report
A summary report will be issued at the end of the survey campaign, including a compilation of reports and assessments from the supplier, followed by recommendations.
Bellsystem24 Vietnam's Secret Customer Service
With its strength as a leading company in the field of customer experience operations and training, Bellsystem24 Vietnam provides mystery shopping services with unique values:
- Evaluate based on customer experience rather than just standard yes/no criteria.
- Professional and competent Mystery shopper team. Members are well trained to ensure the most accurate and subtle understanding and perception of the assessment levels.
- Ability to quickly implement projects nationwide. Flexibility to increase or decrease the number of personnel and evaluation areas at any given time.
- Not only stopping at evaluation reports, but also helping to link quality management activities with other customer activities, helping businesses build a complete customer strategy framework.
