Business Success Through Service Excellence - Mystery Shopping - Case Study Example

Mystery Shopping and Section # of MYSTERY SHOPPING Mystery shopping started in the 1940s in order to evaluate the quality of service that was being provided by retails service outlets of many companies. It is basically a tool that is being used to gather specific information about the products and the services. Mystery shoppers are basically people hired by firms and asked to act in a certain way such as buying a product, observing the environment and asking questions; sometimes even launching a complaint in order to gauge the customer care services provided by that certain organization; and then they provided detailed feedback to the concerned organization about their experiences. In short, mystery shopping is a tool that helps companies in understanding where their services stand and helps them to rectify the problems their customers face and improve their services. 1 MYSTERY SHOPPING OVER THE YEARS Mystery shopping was basically developed in the 1940s and 1950s in order to expose the deceitful employees that were working for companies. In the early days, much of it was carried out by private investigators and many had no idea about what the term actually meant. With the passage of time, many of the companies realized that the information revealed with the help of mystery shopping services was far more authentic and important in helping to improve their business. Also, the information revealed about customer care service issues, safety and environment were also considered important and service providing companies realized that the information about the operations was far more important than any other data (Ilisha, 2004). The most common places where mystery shopping techniques are applied are the services industry, such as movie theatres, restaurants, banks, fast food chains, health clubs etc where much emphasis is paid on the service quality and their customer base and reputation is dependent on it. Therefore, the management of these companies make sure they have sound methods and techniques to gauge their services in a non-biased way in order to correct any faults.2 HOW IT WORKS A mystery shopper first has to register himself/herself to an organization specialized to conduct mystery shopping. There is a Mystery Shopping Providers Association with which companies are registered and provide mystery shopping services to the people. The mystery shopper once registered, is given an assignment, specific to the area in which he or she is living and a number of topics on which he or she has to undertake the assignment. Most of the dealings between the company and the mystery shopper are done online which reduces the hassle of paper work for the mystery shopper and it is a source of easy money for many. MYSTERY SHOPPING AND MARKET RESEARCH Mystery shopping is considered as a tool of market research as it helps to understand the market a company is catering too. However, it is different from market research on many accounts. Mystery research is more associated to operations research. Mystery research is more of an operational research that provides feedback on quality control, training and inducement purposes. These shoppers are specially recruited in such a way that their demographics and social profile is similar to the target market of the organization. Mystery shoppers also visit certain areas and on certain times, it cannot predict every customer's opinion and experience of the service (Mystery-Shoppers.co.uk, 2008). Also, customer satisfaction cannot be gauged because a mystery shopper is just a job that the shopper is doing and customer satisfaction relates to the subjective idea of a real customer's thinking. Therefore, mystery shopping should just not be used to gauge customer satisfaction. Mystery shopping provides us with a unique feedback of the customer and the people who are the mystery shoppers exactly know what they have to evaluate and the front line workers who are being evaluated have no idea about it. However, ethical concerns by many organizations have been raised, saying it was immoral to put a person through a test without their knowledge. Therefore, ethical guidelines are also being followed by the association in order to remove these concerns (Mark, 2003). BENEFITS There are many benefits that mystery shopping provides the related organization. Firstly, it is gaining valuable information that might help you in improving your services which are usually missed by other surveys.3 It helps to monitor and measure specific service information and the information that is gained helps in the preservation of customer's loyalty and maintaining the customer's goodwill for the company. It also helps to provide feedback about specific aspects of the front line operations which are under direct interaction with the valuable customers. This helps to ensure positive customer relationship with the front line staff. One of the biggest advantages is that it provides valuable information to help in competitive analysis of the operations that are carried out in a certain firm. In the United States of America, mystery shopping techniques are being used to study discrimination in the provision of many of the products and the services. Mystery shopping helps to ensure that the service quality standards that you have devised are being followed effectively in all your outlets and franchises as when there is little differentiation in the product that you are providing when compared to you competitors, the only thing that can help you gain a competitive advantage is customer care and front line services. It is also helpful in measuring the gap that is present between a company's promised set of services and the actual delivered set of promises.4 DISADVANTAGES One of the disadvantages that are associated with employing mystery shopping is that it will not be able to provide representative results; the results might be helpful in understanding the services of single shops or sales people but fails to provide the overall picture. Also, mystery shopper might be visiting the required outlet at a certain time that may not be helpful in gauging the services keeping in mind the 24 hour perspective. Another problem that has been rising over the years is due to increase in fraudulent acts regarding online transactions. There has been a significant increase in frauds over the years where money has been stolen causing significant loss to the company (Chrissy, 2006). HOW THE MYSTERY SHOPPER IS USED According to academic journals and literature, the mystery shopping program is used to evaluate how the business responds to its customers in the proper context. It is a very simple idea. Mystery shoppers are trained on how to evaluate a service that is being provided to them, enter the shops, use the service and after the experience is over, report on what they felt about the service. To ensure that the experience that actually would happen is noted, the employees who are providing the service are not informed about the special role that this customer is playing. It is important to keep in mind that the mystery shopper evaluates the system that is present, rather than the people. After the feedback is gathered, organizations know what changes to implement in the system that is prevalent.5 Implementing the mystery shopper program involves that the companies do effective recruiting, selecting and training of individuals who would be sent as mystery shoppers. Even prior to recruiting, the company should indulge in the planning phase, where it sets it goals of conducting this program, and other minor things like who will generate a report on the findings that will come. Before the training of the mystery shopper starts, it is important to decide on an assessment card, which will be the instrument on which the shopper will note down his experiences. After that the accommodation, disclosure and privacy issues should be addressed. The next step is that of training, after which the shopper is sent for the experience. After that, the step of collecting information from shoppers comes. Then the shoppers need to be reimbursed, after which an ongoing review continues into the mystery shopping program. EXAMPLES OF THE MYSTERY SHOPPER FROM WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY. As far as the international hospitality industry is concerned, there can be found many examples. According to research conducted by the International Mystery Shopping Alliance, American retail workers are offering customers a service with a smile almost around 88% of the time. The major players in this research are workers of Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Target. 6 Another major area which uses mystery shoppers program is that of restaurants. According to the wise marketer website, it has been said that USA restaurants are increasingly using the services of mystery shoppers to gauge the services at the restaurant. Another example is that of the National Shopping Service, which sends mystery shoppers. One of the shops they sent to was Sunrise Mall's Sam Goody Store. The mystery shopper had to check the DVD display, whether he could easily navigate and find the DVD he was looking for. Other examples of industries using this service are the banks, boat dealers, bowling alleys and burger joints. Central Valley Business Times also reports that U.S. businesses are more welcoming and greet customers with a smile than European businesses. AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT Mystery shopping is a great observational research tool used to gauge the effectiveness and quality of service that is being provided. But statistics tell that many mystery shopping programs go bad and fail completely. They are not able to fulfill their objectives and goals. Companies are spending thousands of dollars on an annual basis for the perfect execution of such programs, but at vain. Hardly companies achieve success in this program. Some of the areas for improvement when using this quality control are as follows:7 If we look at the overall industry, it can be said that it is still immature and has a long way to go in growing to its utmost potential. A very big are where improvements can be made is in the selection of the mystery shopper. There should be set some generally accepted procedures that should be said to guide the whole process whereby a mystery shopper is selected, trained to act like one and then officially certified as one. These three steps have to be more properly executed and more effort should be put into getting them standardized so that certain standards are set to measure against. Moreover, standards should also be set for quality control. What should a mystery shopper label as against quality What should he qualify as quality service It is accepted that the quality of data will vary from shop to shop. Every shopper has a different perception about quality. Moreover, another area of improvement can be the development of a channel of communication between the many mystery shoppers that are there. There should be groups formed which represent the vested interests of the mystery shoppers and inculcate within them a discussion which helps them in being better at mystery shopping. Another area of improvement lies within the vendors who supply mystery shoppers. These vendors have the tendency of over-promising to the purchasing companies about their mystery shopper's performance and the results that this research will give to the company. This rises the expectations of the purchasing companies to the type of results they will get and puts a lot of pressure on the mystery shopper. In many instances, the mystery shopper is not able to perform up to that level and therefore, this creates a rift between the vendors and the purchasing companies. Purchasing companies should realize that however good the vendor is, mystery shopping has its own limitations which will always be present.8 Another area for improvement is for the corporate managers who use all the research 9results that come out of using mystery shopping. Some of the guidelines should be followed by them so that the effort of going through the process of mystery shopping is well served. Firstly, managers should define clear objectives and goals using the SMART philosophy of giving specific, measurable, attainable, and time-specific goals. If goals are not well defined, the money is wasted. Secondly, the program should be designed in a very simple manner. The process should not be made complicated such as making complex questionnaires to be filled by the mystery shopper, which does nothing but increase their frustration. Thirdly, careful selection of the vendor should be made. Lastly, there should be before hand planning for any kind of change or adjustments that have been to be made in the course of the program. Works Cited 1. Clark, M.and Baker, S.(2004)Business Success Through Service Excellence. 2. Harrington, D.and Lenehan, T.(1998)Managing Quality in Tourism. 3. Kandampully, D. Mok, C.and Sparks, B.(2001)Service Quality Management in Hospitality,Tourism and Leisure. 4. Olsen, M. Teare, R.and Gummesson, E.(2003)Service Quality in Hospitality Organization. 5. Hoffmann,D.and Bateson,J.(2002)Essentials of Service Marketing. 6. Williams,C.and Buswell,J.(2003)Service Quality in Leisure and Tourism. 7. Gummesson,E(1992)Truths and Myths in Service Quality. International Journal of service industry management. 8. Tschohl,J(1998)Empowerment-the key to service quality. Managing service quality. 9. Frequently asked questions abut mystery shopping. Retrieved May 04, 2008. Web site www.kernscheduling.com 10. When mystery shopping goes bad Ma. Retrieved y 04, 2008. Web site: www.kinesis-cem.com 11. The Difference Between Mystery Shopping and Market Research. Retrieved May 04, 2008. Web site: www.mysteryshop.org 12. Advertising agencies business development secret: Mystery shopping. Retrieved May 04, 2008: Web site : www.mercsystems.com Read More