Mystery Shopping
This has been on my mind for the last few months since I was working in McD where mystery shoppers determined how well each restaurants performs.
However I do see some flaws with this.
1. As every mystery shopper has different perception of what is “warm” and what is “friendly”. Different shoppers have different expectations. How can mystery shoppers have a more equalized standard?
2. Can a 1 minute conversation determine how well the entire store is doing? And if 1 person is friendly, is that the representation that everyone else is friendly?
3. Mystery shoppers are scheduled to come at specific times of the day. Are other times of the day “okay” for shops to not provide excellent service?
4. Are Mystery Shoppers screened well?
I believe there is definitely a better way to conduct this. Customer service by any sense should be a holistic approach. It doesn’t just stop at saying “hi” or “thank you”. Furthermore, if mystery shoppers are meant to simulate a normal customer and how well they feel they are received, shouldn’t there be more than 1 review to better provide a general perspective?
I will leave as it is for now… till I think of a better method of doing so.
Hit me up if you think you have a better concept.
Yo,
I was a mystery shopper once for McDelivery. I generally believe that the standards for judging service quality is very subjective to the extent that a customer may think that a particular gesture is very helpful whereas another may think that an omission of a gesture is offensive.
As such, due to the whole range of “different” customers, the mystery shoppers are usually of various backgrounds (age, employment or even different living areas i.e. Yishun versus Bukit Timah) and hence may (and hopefully) provide a good sampling of the service standard of the particular restaurant.
There is also the mentioning that whether a simple “hi-bye” is sufficient to judge the service standards of the restaurant. I guess, it is really what a normal Singaporean customer would expect or usually do when they are either ordering the food over the counter or over the phone. If the mystery shoppers are instructed to “chat-up” the employees, it might not yield the “usual” results. Instead, employees might act different from what they usually do, and hence distort the results.
The specificity of the timing of the day for the mystery shopper to enter the restaurant is actually to make fair comparison between the different restaurants. You can’t really say that Store A has better results than Store B when Store A’s customers are generally afternoon crowd whereas Store B specializes in the night crowd?
However, I do agree that the current system requires some improvements. I do believe that service standards throughout the entire day (for that matter, night also) should be quite similar. And I also doubt that mystery shoppers are screened well.
September 6, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Thanks for the insight Edmund.
I agree as well. Though a mix of shoppers does help, I think restaurants may be unfairly judged as results are not a cumulation of multiple shoppers (consisting of different age groups etc) but just the view of one. Which as mentioned, could be at best, subjective.
Furthermore, with mystery shoppers coming at specific times, what will restaurants naturally do? Place its best staff during that period of time. Resulting in poorer experience for the rest of the day. Is that fair to the rest of the customers?
Hmm.. I guess there’s a lot to be desired over this issue. Do you however have an idea how this could be better improved?
Cumulative results? – More results = more shoppers = more cost
No fixed timings? – Standards across the board are harder for comparisons as you have mentioned.
Better screening? – Thats a bare minimum to be honest. What is the shopper’s intention at the end of the day, free food/products or service improvement?
September 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm