Are Your Mystery Shopping Results a Mystery?

In most organizations most of the time the idea of "engineering the customer experience" becomes a "scripting" of the desired behaviours of front-most customer-facing associates. Mystery shopping or customer service auditing therefore becomes an exercise of observing and recording behaviours, based on the premise that if associates "perform" the desired "script" the outcome - a positive experience for customers - will be manifested. It's all very logical. Trouble is … it's bunk!

Reality check: Do your mystery shopping scores correlate with your customer satisfaction scores and your tangible measures of performance? Or are they a mystery. Take a look and decide for yourself. Are your mystery shopping scores up to your objectives consistently in all locations, or is there great variability between locations and within locations over time? Is your mystery shopping "program" a source of celebration and success or ongoing irritation, frustration and pain? And what about for your customer-facing people?

Most mystery shopping more often than not, measures the wrong things. Here's an example of one mystery shopper's final comments:

"I was greeted immediately and was treated professionally and politely throughout the entire encounter. I found the SA (sales associate) to be knowledgeable of the products that he was promoting. He went to task to explain the differences in the air cushion supports and flexing the shoes and pulling out the insoles to show the soft feel and support that the shoe will give me. He was bang on with his request to look at some other garments immediately after we had the shoe selection done.

I came away from the visit feeling as though he had a genuine concern for my satisfaction with the fit and feel of the shoe. He did not maintain the up sell with me as he was starting to look after other customers and left me on my own to find a pair of tracks and go and try them on. He was serving someone else when I came out of the dressing room and asked how they were on my way to the cash desk, to which I said, I just did not like them and was only going to take the shoes.

I found the dressing rooms to be clean and tidy and well lit with lots of room to try things on.

The SA seemed to be very enthusiastic about his function and seemed to enjoy what he was doing.

I would have no problem in recommending this store to my family or friends."

Many of the comments of the mystery shopper were connected to the sales "script" all associates were required to "perform." What score does this service experience deserve? What would this experience "score" in your program?

In this specific business the score was a feeble failing grade, as the incredibly scripted series of behaviours was not performed to perfection.

My take is that we have a front-line associate serving multiple customers and doing quite an excellent job. This is a very positive service experience as described by the shopper. The example cites a prompt greeting, politeness, product knowledge, genuine concern and caring, a clean and well maintained store, the positive "engagement" and enthusiasm of the associate all while serving multiple customers, and the shopper ready to be an advocate of your business.

What score does this service experience deserve if your measurement scale rated the shopper's outcome? At least a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5? What would this experience "score" in your program if the score was based on the outcome, and not the overly scripted behaviours?

What is it that we're after? What do we want our customer-facing associates to achieve? What is the desired outcome? Is it to:
A - perform the script perfectly … or
B - create an extremely satisfied customer.

Sorry to say … A doesn't get you to B.

There is a better way - a much more mysterious way to create extremely satisfied and loyal customers. More next time.