Client service and client pleasure are the buzzwords in the service and retail industries nowadays. This trade cannot ignore these two things so as to go on in the spirited environment. With the current depression, it has happens to more main for organizations to improve their client pleasure levels to enlarge their sales. Secret shopping or mystery shopping is one of the means used by the organizations to improve the quality of their services. A secret shopper is one who poses as a usual client but is in truth on a duty to check and evaluate the services of the organization and the efficiency of its staff.

How Secret Shoppers Help The Organizations To Improve Their Quality? Gives belief from a different viewpoint Mystery shoppers help organizations to see their client service from the perspective of the client. These shoppers verify the services of the organizations and then present information to them.

Identify client complaints. All organizations have client service subject which are not simple for the management to identify. Mystery shoppers aid the organization in pin-pointing the client service problems. for example a secret shopper employed to verify the services of the hotel would verify how the client service desk responds to the queries of the client, how welcoming they are and how much time they take to respond to these queries.

They also verify- the hygiene of rooms, speed and excellence of the hotel room services, the service of the restaurant, the different services provided to the guests and so on. In a word, the mystery shopper checks the usefulness and client reaction of the employees and the quality and type of the services provided by the hotel. This opinion helps the hotel management to identify their deficiency and plan to improve their services.

* Enhance their quality The mystery shoppers help the organizations to identify their weak and strong points. The organizations then work to find the basis grounds of the problems. All the staff works together as a team to beat the deficiency through correct development and implementation. Thus mystery shoppers help the organizations to enhance the quality of their services.

* Raise sales and profits When client are happy and satisfied, the organizations get more business. With the increase in business, the profit of the organizations also increases. Therefore, it not directly increases the output of the organizations. In other words, mystery shopping is one of the methods for quality assurance. Organizations should not survive their quality to cut costs. If cost benefit analysis is finished, it is found that the rate of reduced quality is much more than the rate of excellent quality.

However, to gather all these gains through mystery shopping, the group should hire organization or mystery shoppers that are experienced and know the task well. The awareness, approach, observation and communication skills of the mystery shopper establish how effectively he/she will be able to give an exact feedback to the group.

As a specialist Mystery shopper business since 1996, we can help you mystery shop your staff with the help of our mystery shoppers.

If you're looking for an unconventional job, then mystery shopping might be for you. The concept of mystery shopping or secret shopping is simple. You get assignments to visit a business place, make a purchase and then fill out a form to evaluate the customer service, quality of your purchase and other things about your experience.

Secret shopping is done by ordinary people who provide a company with feedback about their service. Companies hire mystery shopping for a wide variety of reasons. Some want to investigate the quality of their team. Others may want to find out how their locations do with stocking items. There are many different reasons that a company looks to hire mystery shoppers.

Although companies can hire mystery shoppers directly, most of your mystery shopping jobs will come through a secret shopping company. As a mystery shopper, you'll be asked to visit a wide variety of stores and businesses in your area. Sometimes you'll be assigned to purchase clothing from a store in your local mall. Other times you'll have to visit a coffee shop and rate the friendliness of the wait staff. After you gain experience with mystery shopping, you can receive assignments to eat at restaurants and stay at hotels.

As a secret shopper, you will not only get the chance to try out products and services for free, but you�ll also get paid. You can get paid in several different ways depending on the mystery shopping company. You can get paid at flat fee for completing the job, or sometimes you are just paid with the free product or service. Obviously the jobs that are paid a flat fee are more desirable. But when you are first starting out, you may need to take some of the other type of job just for experience.

Most mystery shopping companies pay by paypal on a monthly basis. You'll get paid for a shopping assignment when you complete the necessary paperwork on your shopping experience. Your paperwork can normally be filed electronically, although some companies require you to mail in your reviews. This can make the payment process slower.

When you start doing assignments, you�ill be asked to pay for the services or products that you�ll be trying. Although this may sound like a bad deal, the mystery shopping company will reimburse you for your purchase. The reason they require you to pay upfront for your purchase is because the mystery shopping company doesn't want to take the chance of your getting a product for free and then not turning in a review.

Here at mystery customer evaluations, we have over 10k mystery shoppers all over Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. Email us now to find out how we can help grow your business.

Mystery shopping is a great way to make part-time, even full-time income, and to get many free perks as well. Mystery shopping is becoming increasingly popular and is now available in over 80 countries.

Despite the terms used, there really is no "mystery" to being a secret shopper. Restaurants, retail outlets, shopping malls, super markets and tour agencies all want to improve customer service. They need an unbiased look at how their business is run.

One of the best ways for companies to learn how their customer really feels about their service is to employ secret shoppers, or mystery shoppers, to evaluate customer experience without any employees being in the know. When an "undercover" shopper enters the establishment they may then evaluate the service received without getting any special treatment, as would be the case if employees knew they were being evaluated.

It is easy to learn how to become a mystery shopper. In most cases no special qualifications are required. The secret shopper just needs to act like any regular customer during an assignment. Once it is completed he or she will then fill out a simple questionnaire provided by the mystery shopping company and return it to them.

You can apply to become a mystery shopper online. Just do an internet search for terms like "mystery shopper," mystery shopper jobs," or "mystery shopping." From the results you should build an employment list and submit your application to each company that appeals to you.

Once accepted into the program the mystery shopping companies will give you assignments with specific instructions on what you need to do. You'll get paid for each assignment, and some will even let you keep whatever it is you have purchased. This might be dinner for two, merchandise from a shopping mall, or even a free tour!

Mystery customer evaluations are a specialist Mystery shopping agency, contact us now for all your mystery shopping needs.

Secret shopping is just so mysterious! One of the major reasons is the wrong notion people harbour about this job. Usually, people mistake this job to be a fun stroll in various stores and malls, or maybe lavish dining in different restaurants. Alas, this is not the case! People who take this job only for the fine food and the nice items that they can buy from the stores may get disappointed.

Guys, you're here to keep an eye on the people working in the store. Your job is to scrutinize everything that's happening in the stores, spas, hotels, restaurants, or whatever place you're sent to. However, you're not here as a detective. You're a customer, but with prying eyes! And this, you must never reveal on the job. Well, this is what secret shopping is actually about.

Yet another wrong notion about mystery shopping is that you can earn a livelihood through this job. Relax! Do not take this job so seriously that you decide to make it your career! This job is best if you are looking to work part-time.

You must do it along with your regular job. Only then can you enjoy the task. Or else you'd always be worried about paying your bills, as you don't always get lucrative assignments in this field. And wipe off the thought that you'd earn millions by becoming a secret shopper mystery shopper. Remember, you take this job as a passion to fill up your extra time. You not only learn new tricks on the job, but also get to have fine items from the store. But, this is only a perk that comes with the job.

In secret shopping, you get assignments online. Businesses who give assignments contact your employer, who, in turn, assigns you the task. You hardly get a chance to talk to the businesses directly. You know only your employer. Nowadays, covert shoppers are in high demand. Businesses want to know how their stores are doing, what people think about their customer service, and where they are lacking. Thanks to the fierce competition in the business world, every business person wants to fare well.

The places where you'll find hidden shoppers include retail stores, spas, salons, banks, bars, educational places, restaurants, and hotels. When you step inside a store, you'd never know that another customer standing beside you is a covert shopper!

If you're attracted by this kind of job or you love to observe things or you love to investigate; or if you can keep secrets - secret shopping is for you. You needn't be Sherlock Holmes to be a good mystery shopper.

You just need to have a nose for sniffing out anything fishy going on at the business place. Besides, you need to be a good report writer. This includes elaborating each detail and writing a comprehensive account of what you saw and did during your assignment.

Were looking for mystery shopper England, if you think you�ve got what it takes to be a mystery customer evaluator, then email mystery customer evaluations now.

Have you stood in a queue that never seems to move? Perhaps desperately looked around a department store for an assistant, or rolled your eyes and muttered about poor service in a restaurant? If so there may be the perfect job for you. Why not apply for a position as a mystery shopper?

Like many good business ideas the shopaholic�s dream job started off in America. The chairman of a household name car manufacturer was losing customers to rivals. He couldn�t figure out the reason why. He ruled out superior car quality for his own company�s cars were as good as his competitors�. There had to be another reason. Could it be poor service?

Wasting no time in putting his theory to the test and quickly pulled together a team of what we now know as mystery shoppers. The only skill required was to pretend to be genuine buyers and report back on the service received.

Salesmen and Starving Children.
His intuition proved right. Mystery shoppers, pretending to be genuine buyers, visited the company�s showrooms where they were often met by sales staff totally lacking in people skills let alone selling skills. No wonder customers were going to the outlets of other manufacturers where the staff did cartwheels to ensure the customer was king.

As a mystery shopper I visited four main dealer car showrooms. If I was expecting the hard sell I was soon proved wrong. The first was near perfect. He knew his job and listened to my needs. Taking his time he pointed out features of the car that fitted my requirements perfectly.

The second and third could not have sold sweets to a starving child. Indifferent? They invented the word. By the time a �salesmen� condescended to approach and ask if he could be of assistance, without showing much enthusiasm, I had already decided not to buy. The feeling was mutual as he clearly didn�t want to sell. One informed me they didn�t have the model I required in stock and turned on his heel. Hey! We are talking a deal the size of many a worker�s annual salary.

Salesman of the Year
Visiting the fourth dealership I at last found the world�s best salesman. I did the talking, he did the listening. I knew just what I wanted; so it seemed did he. He had the perfect model to show me; my preferred colour no problem. He would even introduce me to a client who had already bought the same model.

He introduced me to his personal secretary who would always be there whether I phoned or called in. I was courteously shown the service bays and introduced to the team manager who would be responsible for maintaining my car. In the meantime a cup of tea was offered, on a saucer and with the biscuits too. I just didn�t want to leave this showroom. A hotel could have learned from it. There wasn�t a girlie calendar in sight. By the time we went for our test drive we were all friends, and yes, it was genuine.

What followed was the most delightful drive through the surrounding countryside imaginable as we talked through the car�s qualities. By the time we returned I was delighted with the car not to mention the superb service. In a lifetime of sales I had never been so impressed by a guy who was undoubtedly a contender for �Salesman of the Year.�

Were looking for mystery shoppers uk to visit car showroom and other service led businesses. Join us now via the shopper recruitment link.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

The primary motive of every business is to make profits. A lack of proper understanding of customer and market requirements can work against this goal. A market research agency can help you understand your customers, cater to their needs and multiply your profits. Additionally, a market research agency can help you save thousands of dollars in wasteful marketing that yields no results.

How does a market research agency work?
The aim of market research is to identify the purchasing and consumption habits of consumers. Your business will attract consumers only if you satisfy their requirements better than others do. A market research agency helps you to expand your client base by providing you information that gives you a better insight into demand patterns of consumers and their behaviour.

These agencies collect detailed data about potential customers through different sources, interpret it and provide you with detailed analysis that you can use in decision-making. Agencies employ several market research techniques such as public polling, concept testing, and mystery shopping to collect data.

What are the benefits of Market Research?
Marketing research provides several benefits to your business:

* It provides a thorough understanding of market constraints and consumer needs. * It helps to identify new business opportunities. * It provides you with a deeper understanding of your competition. * It facilitates better decision-making that allows you to save valuable time and money. * It can assist in product innovation and improvisation. * The final analysis provides you with a clear measure of your success.

What are the different types of Marketing Research?

There are two types of market research:
* Primary Market Research: Data is obtained directly from target audiences. It is more expensive than secondary research but provides more accurate information and analysis. * Secondary Market Research: Data is obtained from already published sources. Though cost-effective, secondary research can sometimes provide redundant data.

What is Public Polling?
Public polling is a type of survey that aims to collect and understand the opinions of a selected audience, generally through a series of questions. Audience opinions can be obtained through personal interviews, email, telephone, phone or snail mail.

Public polling is a four step process which involves:
1. Identification of target audience 2. Preparation of survey questions 3. Conducting the survey 4. Interpretation of collected data

Important Considerations regarding Public Polling:

Selection of sample: It is crucial in public polling to pick the right target audience or else the entire exercise will go waste.

Scope for Error: While conducting a public poll, it is important to be flexible and keep scope for error. Survey takers may not answer all the questions. Additionally, ethical and personal reasons may prevent people from giving truthful answers. Incorrect or incomplete understanding of questions may also result in wrong answers.

In-house versus outsourcing: Public polling can be undertaken in-house or outsourced to a market research company. A professional market research agency will provide you greater accuracy but can also cost more in some cases. Carefully examine your cost and accuracy needs before selecting either option.

Importance of good market research and public polling cannot be overemphasized. It helps you get into your customers head and develop products and services that are successful in the marketplace. Picking the right market research firm is important. Ask your business associates, and friends for recommendations. Also, get price quotes from multiple market research and public polling vendors at a B2B marketplace.

Any good Mystery customer agencies will help you get the most from your results. Mystery customer evaluations have undertaken this type of work since 1996; rest assured our team of over 10k mystery shoppers will get the most out of your business.

Agents from mystery shopping companies are being hired by a lot of firms from different industries today. The firms belonging to the travel, retail and industries that carry out work from home, hire the services of these agents. These agents are also hired by the internet and telephone based call centres to know the grievances of their clients.

A firm might hire the agents to visit their retail outlets which may be a store, a fast food joint, client services wing of a bank, vehicle maintenance and repair centre or any other place specified by the firm. These agents pose as clients to get the real picture of the performance of the sales and public relations staff out there. The mystery shopping companies convey instructions to the agents regarding the factors on which they have to evaluate the performance of the staff and the executives.

The agents might actually have to purchase goods if required to show that they are genuine buyers. The agents have to conceal their identities because if the staff and the executives at the outlet come to know that they representatives of their firm and have come to evaluate and report their performances they might start showering unnatural attention on them which will not give the agent the true picture. They might also take memberships of clubs to assess the quality of facilities given and the member satisfaction felt.

The agents from the mystery shopping companies are hired by the travel industry to assess the client satisfaction being given by their staff. The agents travel on the flights, trains, ships and buses and assess the quality of hospitality meted out by the crew. They report their experiences to the firms that own or run these modes of transportation. The client response that is meted out by the ground staff at airports, at the railway and roadway reservation counters are all observed and assessed by the agents and reported to the firms that hire them.

The agents might also be hired by firms that primarily run the home delivery business to assess the efficiency of the staff responsible for the delivery. The agents sent by the mystery shopping companies order products for home delivery and then estimate the time taken for the delivery, if all the ordered goods are correctly delivered and the condition in which the products were delivered.

When it comes to assessing client satisfaction over the telephone and internet the agents call the public relationship executives of the firms posing as clients. They report to the firm about how the executives presented themselves and whether what they conveyed was useful, accurate, reliable and easily understood by the clients. They also study e-mail responses given by the public relations staff. Sometimes the agents pose as client relations executives and handle their grievances. The mystery shopping companies also appoint personnel to see how the staff responsible for handling internet queries from clients performs. They pose as dummy clients and evaluate the responses given over the online medium.

The agents also directly interview the clients and ask them how they feel about the client satisfaction that they are getting from the client relations staff of a given firm. They either interview the clients over the telephone or face to face. This gives the impression of the client about the firm and what needs to be done to improve the present situation.

If you love to shop, you might find mystery shopper jobs to be a very tempting offer. Who wouldn't want to work by purchasing an item at a pricey store, eating at a nice restaurant, or checking into a fancy hotel?

If you�re looking online for mystery shopping jobs, it's important to do your research. There's no reason that you should ever have to pay a registration fee to get on a mystery shopping list.

These are legitimate positions that, at best, offer part time work. However, if you're a stay at home mum or someone short on income finding mystery shopper jobs offered within your region could be a win-win situation for both parties.

Here's how it works. Big companies (many of them Fortune 500 corporations like Hilton or Burger King) hire marketing research companies to evaluate the service of their company. In turn, these marketers hire "mystery shoppers" to go make an assigned purchase. After they review the experience, they get reimbursed and get to keep the product.

Basically, a mystery shopper job, or secret shopper, checks the performance and service of retail businesses. In turn, they are reimbursed for meals, products, or services.

Mystery shopper jobs go hand in hand with paid online surveys, forums, phone surveys, and affiliate marketing programs. All of these options are viable sources of income; but, if someone presents it to you as if you will make millions of dollars, you'll know to start looking somewhere else.

All you need is internet access and an e-mail with a PayPal account. Then get on the road and enjoy a free night out on the town shopping, eating, or going to the movies.

Interested, why not join our mystery shopping team now.

Few business can truly operate without quality mystery shopping. Indeed, in order to make sure that all of your employees are living up to your professional expectations, you are going to have to find an accurate, reasonable means of holding them accountable for their performances. Of course, you may be burdened by your own responsibilities, unable to monitor your own employees with the level of scrutiny that you are going to need. This, of course, is precisely where mystery shopping can step in and save the day.

With quality mystery shopping, you are not going to have to worry about wasting any of your own time. Indeed, quality mystery shopping is going to take care of all of your chores. For a moment, then, allow yourself to think about how you, your company, and your employees stand to benefit from these services.

When you contract your mystery shopping, you are, of course, going to be able to provide them with a very particular rubric and set of criteria. By creating your own, unique set of expectations, you guarantee that the scores that you are going to receive from your evaluators are going to be relevant. If, for example, you do not care about the particular contents of the greeting that your employees perform when they answer the phone, you can omit this category from your rubric entirely. If, on the other hand, you care a great deal about how your employees answer the phone, you can construct a rubric in such a way that the greeting carries a great deal of weight.

Mystery shopping is often going to provide you with a perfect means of retraining your employees. Indeed, many of these companies are going to offer instant feedback services, whereby your employees receive their evaluations immediately after they are conducted. This kind of setup, of course, guarantees that your employees are going to have a fresh recollection of how they performed. As such, they are going to be able to understand their score better. Likewise, they are going to be able to set about making all of the necessary changes with all due haste.

Of course, quality mystery shopping is always going to have its own internal expectations. These companies, on the whole, are going to make sure that each and every employee understands how to score your rubric. They are going to make sure that they have met with you several times, discussed your priorities, and set conducting all of the training programs that they are going to need internally. You should never have to worry about quality mystery shopping misunderstanding your priorities, as teams are going to make concerted efforts to prevent this from happening.

At the end of the day, you are going to realize that you only stand to benefit from quality mystery shopping. If you have not already done so, allow yourself to search around for the mystery shopping in your area. Once you hire a great company, you and your employees are going to be able to live up to all of your professional standards.

Mystery customer evaluations.

Get paid to shop and you get to keep what you�ve bought!

OK, perhaps not every woman, nor indeed every man, but it is undoubted that such a prospect would appeal to a great number of people, and, it has to be said, the majority will be women.

In many parts of the developed world, especially places like US, Canada, UK, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, market research companies, working on behalf of their clients, recruit people who want to earn some extra money. They will pay them to shop at department stores, at grocery stores, at certain Malls, at certain markets. They'll also pay them to dine out at particular restaurants.

Just imagine: you've shopped until you're ready to drop, it has not cost you a single penny, and now you can go and have a free dinner too, in a really nice restaurant. Too good to be true? Nope, not at all.

A good question to ask is of course, why would companies pay you to shop or dine? The answer is very simple. It is the best way for them to get independent opinions on a range of matters that will always concern the enlightened retailer or indeed any service provider:

* The overall quality of their customer service
* Friendliness and efficiency of the staff
* Products and procedures knowledge of the staff
* Procedures for handling complaints
* Store or restaurant layout
* Cleanliness, including of rest rooms
* Value for money

There are a number of ways in which you can join one of these market research teams as a mystery shopper.

* By going direct to the market research company, many of whom advertise on the Net or might be listed by the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, a globally respected professional body.

* By visiting the web site of a members only service provider, one that maintains directories of the market research companies and will provide the directories to you after payment of a one-off fee with a money back guarantee.

* By going to the website of one of the service providers who claim to provide directories to you for free. Take great care before using this route, as many of the scammers come under this heading, as although you get the directories free, you often have to pay multiple times to actually get selected by one of these (usually unregistered) mystery shopping companies.

Mystery shoppers are required not just at retail stores, but also restaurants, fast food outlets, golf courses, bars, movie houses, and a lot, lot more. Naturally, arising from this huge demand, many companies are prepared to pay pretty well for people to visit the establishments of those who are paying them to carry out the mystery shopping.

At the very top end you could be paid as much as �60 per shop, although for some simple shops it may be only �510. It stands to reason that payment will be lower when the work required is less. Typically though, you would be offered between �10 to �20 per hour.

I am firmly of the opinion that there are many genuine mystery shopping opportunities available, where you ought to be able to recoup your outlay, and be in profit, within two shops at most. Good luck and if you really are the "worlds greatest shopper" according to your best friend, you are going to be successful, you will get paid and you will thoroughly enjoy yourself in the process.

Would you like to become a mystery diner with a reputable mystery shopping company. Join our team now.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.

Mystery shopping is the practice of employing trained mystery shoppers to secretly evaluate customer service, employee integrity, operations, merchandising and product quality. Companies can use the feedback from mystery shoppers to learn about problems in their firms and rectify them.

Mystery shopper websites are becoming extremely popular as more and more companies tend to use mystery shoppers. Mystery shopper websites provide information on facts related to mystery shopping, including the nature of the job, ways to get e-books or guides on mystery shopping, using such guides effectively and so on.

Mystery shopper websites list plenty of job opportunities in this area. Companies are becoming more and more conscious of the importance of customer feedback. Many agencies have sprung up, requiring researchers to check out offices, shops or any place where their staff have to interact with customers. Various companies carry out services on corporate websites also. Mystery shopper websites gives details about such services. These sites also tell us how to use market researchers to establish awareness among the public about a company, product or service.

Mystery shopper websites supply information on mystery shopping resources. One can find featured articles on mystery shopping websites. They report events such as workshops and conferences and publish press releases on mystery shopping. Such websites focus on what is new in mystery shopping, the mystery shopping providers association and mystery shopper blogs.

Mystery shopper websites are thus a source of information on the kind of companies or organizations that use mystery shoppers, various ways to become a successful mystery shopper, payments of mystery shopping and methods to increase your payment. A list of opportunities for mystery shoppers can also be found on mystery shopper websites. FAQs on related topics find a place in such websites. Mystery shopper websites also have features on mystery shopping written by experts.

To use an experienced mystery guest in your business then call us on 0131 624 1348.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Who are the most important people in your organisation? It may come as a surprise to learn that the most important people are your employees - not your customers. Customers come second.

Without qualified and well-trained employees committed to strong customer service all of your efforts to please customers will be fruitless.

Customer service training has become a popular way for service organizations to provide employees with the information they need to meet customer needs.

It should not, however, be considered a one-time or annual event. Customer service training is an ongoing process that needs to be incorporated into the organization's culture and way of doing business.

Good customer service training will be based on the needs of your organization as well as the skill level of your employees. Following are some key elements in ensuring that your customer service training efforts get results.

1) Start with the end in mind. What do you want to accomplish with your customer service training efforts? Your answer will be unique to your business, the product or service you provide and the type of customer you serve. For example, if you run a dry cleaning business, your expectation may be that customers are greeted promptly when they come into your store, that clothing is cleaned to their specifications and that any problems or issues are resolved according to prescribed policies/practices that have been clearly communicated to customers.

2) Define success. Employees need to have clear expectations; they want to succeed, but they need to know what success "looks like" and how you will be judging their efforts. Based on the objectives you identified, quantify as best you can measures of customer service success. Provide these measures to employees as the goals they will be charged with obtaining.

3) Communicate your expectations. Be specific. Don't assume that employees know what you expect in terms of service. Be specific and make sure you "catch them early." A new employee's orientation is the time to let them know what your service expectations are.

4) Provide the tools that employees need to serve your customers. Employees need tools, and need to know how to use those tools, to serve customers effectively. For example, if employees don't have access to e-mail they may be hampered in communicating effectively with their customers. Or, if a graphic designer doesn't have the latest software and appropriate hardware, he or she may not be able to provide high quality or timely turnaround to clients. A cell phone may be a critical tool for a sales person who is frequently away from his or her desk.

5) Let employees know their limits. Your employees need to know your policies and practices with regard to satisfying customers and responding to complaints. The more flexibility you're able to offer and the more clearly you communicate these guidelines, the better able employees will be to meet customer needs. Customers benefit, too, when employees are able to resolve situations "on the spot" instead of having to "talk to my manager."

6) Gather common situations and scenarios to use as examples. Your customer service training should be "real." Examples gathered from the real life experience if your employees can help to highlight bad/good/better/best examples of working with clients and customers. Involve employees in providing training. Enlist the aid of your most service-successful employees in training and coaching others.

7) Role play common challenging situations. Provide employees with an opportunity to "practice" their responses. Then, when a "real situation" occurs they will have a higher comfort level about their ability to respond effectively.

8) Encourage employees to talk to their "worst nightmare" customers. Customers who are most demanding, who complain the loudest or who are hardest to please can be a rich source of information in your customer service improvement efforts. After all, if you can please these "tough customers" you should be able to consistently delight your average customers.

Behind the complaints and the demands you'll often find very valid points and issues that you can use to improve service. Resist the urge to "ignore" the tough customers; consider them your best resource for good information on service improvement.

9) Share failures - celebrate successes. Don't just focus on successes. Don't just point out failures. You need a good balance of both failure and success stories to build a strong service culture. Staff can learn from their own failures as well as the failures of others. Treat each failure not as an opportunity to "punish" staff, but as an opportunity to learn. Why did the failure occur? What could be done differently next time to avoid such a failure? What lessons might other staff learn to avoid these issues?

Similarly, take time to celebrate your successes and to share these success examples with all employees. Sometimes the best "customer service training" for staff can be a good debriefing of either a positive or negative customer situation. These debriefings can also be good opportunities for role playing.

10) The most effective training? The example you set. Your staff will watch not only how you interact with customers, but what you say about your customers. If your attitude toward customers is disparaging, this sends a very strong, negative, message to employees. Make sure you're being a strong role model - both in word and deed.

Out mystery customer team can evaluate whether or not your team need training. Contact us now for a chat about the best training needs analysis programme to suit your business needs.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Mystery Shopping is becoming a rewarding business in America, Canada and the UK. It is very popular among the clothing, jewellery and a couple of retail companies. Even some large corporate businesses use it.

Mystery shopping is a very, very important to business owners. Customers get the give their opinion and it lets people know if they are keeping up with their regular standards. Mystery shopping is a great resource to use to evaluate your business and your employees. Meeting your company standards is very important.

That's if you want your company to stay in business. The bigger reason a lot of bigger companies use mystery shoppers is to make sure everyone is on the same page. There might be some people who are meeting the standard, and their might be some people or areas that are slacking. This gives the company a chance to zero in on the problem and fix it. Before it causes too much damage or costs the company a lot of money.

Mystery shopping is a great way to make some extra money on the side to help you with bills or just some extra spending money. You get paid to eat at restaurants and some times companies will give you freebies. As a mystery shopper it is your job to grade the company or business and give the facts about your experience shopping there. When you are a mystery shopper no one can know that your a mystery shopper.

You will look like the average shopper. By you given your honest opinion you will be helping out these companies. You will be the person that tells them what they need to work on. To make the company run better. Now don't be intimidated, you are just giving your honest opinion. You will be giving an assignment sheet. That lists what your job will be. It can be anything from checking to see if the bathrooms are clean to checking to see how some employees handle problems. To seeing if the store in kept up.

Once you�re finished with your assignment you will be paid its just that simple. But there is a small catch each assignment has a deadline. If you decide to take an assignment from a company make sure you do it in time. Because, if you don't finish on time the company will not send you anymore assignments. Also there are a couple of assignments that record you shopping experience on video. Just for safety purposes. This is also a great way to find out what their competitors are selling and doing. This gives the company a better chance to level the playing field. The truth about becoming a mystery shopper in the U.K.

If you�d like to become a mystery shopper with mystery customer evaluations then visit out home page and click on the �apply here� link.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

The next time you�re standing at a supermarket counter, and you see a teenage girl behind you in the line, you could be looking at a mystery shopper. Imagine being able to shop till you drop - and get paid for it! Sounds great, doesn't it?

So what is this mystery shopper? A secret shopper is a freelance, professional shopper hired by retail stores, restaurants, malls, banks and movie theatres in order to make sure that customer service is excellent, stores are clean and food quality is up to the mark. There is one catch. You can't disclose your identity.

For instance, suppose "X" company has a franchise or chain of stores. To know the stores performance and its capability, the franchisee asks a mystery shopper to visit that store and do the performance appraisal. These mystery shoppers then give feedback. This concept is used by food chains like McDonalds, KFC and Subway to keep an eye on all their chains and have a centralised food quality check. "You, the undercover customer, get a free meal or reimbursement on your purchase while the company gets to see if the employees are following the correct protocol when dealing with customers," says the branch manager of Bare Associations.

While you don't need to be an expert shopper to make it in this field, the job requires the same skills essential to any support position, namely patience and a perceptive nature. Good writing skills for submitting reports, keen observation skills, are other qualities that will put you on the right track of this amazing career. "It is not that easy being a mystery shopper. Excellent vocabulary and good computer skills are important," he says, before going on to add that, "Time management is essential. If you miss visiting the shop at particular time as instructed you delay your rating points."

So how much one can expect to earn in this field is the million-dollar question. "It depends on the number of trips you make. The more assignments you take, the more you can earn. In the UK, this concept is not very prevalent and so the earnings are not that attractive. But once it catches on, this career will be more rewarding,". "Also, the perks are unlimited. It's just one of the reasons that people find it as a hot career," where else includes free dining, all expense paid vacations, free car rentals, staying free of cost in a hotel, etc.

Video mystery shopper companies can be fun. However, before you shop, you must sign a confidentiality agreement swearing that you won't tell anyone details of the shop, or the company can sue you for leaking their secrets.

Sometimes you also have to perform an undercover sting operation by using the video technology including mobile cameras and spy cameras. Video recording taping of shops saves the report work and you have a video shot as proof of what you have seen. You have to fill online forms and give a report about the place before the given due date. One then gets the cheque at their doorstep and voila they are a part of this mysterious career!

Would your business benefit from Video mystery shopper companies reports. Contact us now for a free evaluation.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Doctors and Dentists are challenged with the changing economic climate, shrinking reimbursements and increasing costs of doing business. Practice growth is becoming more challenging as patients have many options for their health.

Can a successful, growing practice be achieved in the competitive medical field? The good news is yes! Successful practices realise that they must differentiate themselves from their competition to continue to attract the patients they need experience growth. This differentiation means what makes your practice and the services you provide clearly better than the practice down the road?

What advantage or inherent quality do you have that others lack?
There are simple, yet effective strategies you can implement to set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd. Here are a few suggestions to ponder:

1. You must provide excellent customer service. Generally any doctor or dentist worth his/her salt will be able to adequately take care of patients health needs, but that�s not enough for differentiation. You need to provide that care in a better way and with more value added. Patient satisfaction is no longer enough to set yourself apart and grow your practice.

A practice must strive for outstanding patient service and it starts with the phone call to the office through the follow-up after a patients appointment.

2. You need to make sure you are exceeding patients expected quality. Quality is a difficult thing to grasp. You may be able to measure your quality against the national average or local average but how does it match up with the patients perceived quality?.

No matter what your numbers� are or what your research has shown you, if your patients are giving you low quality marks then something has to change. So you must know what your patients expect and then you must exceed those expectations.

3. You need to make sure you can provide this better service and quality of care across the board. If you as a physician or practice manager are providing superior service but the person answering the phones is horrible, or the person checking in patients is gruff then those things completely overshadow and negate the superior service. You must ensure practice wide compliance with quality objectives and goals.

4. If you are providing care in a better way or giving care with additional value added, how will potential patients know this? How will they take this into account when choosing their doctor? Medical practices must provide this information in a carefully designed way to reach their targeted patient population.

To convey the experiences you provide to your patients, you must carefully craft your marketing message and then broadcast that message to your potential patients. This same message can be conveyed through word-of-mouth marketing from your current patients and result in increased referrals for your practice.

How does a mystery shopping programme help a practice differentiate themselves from their competitors? A custom designed medical mystery shopping programme allows trained secret patients to visit the practice and interact with the staff, providing the practice with their valuable feedback on areas of excellence and areas that need improvement.

This feedback is provided from the patients perspective, which is very important when identifying areas of opportunity for differentiation from the competition. With this feedback, you�re able to make improvements to the experience you are providing your patients that will set you apart and foster growth in patient volume.

Our experienced team of mystery shoppers can mystery shop your surgery or practice to determine whether standards are being adhered to. Contact us now for an instant quote.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Mystery shopping is a method used by companies to analyse the levels of customer service delivered by their staff. The company outsourcers people to act like regular customers and these mystery shoppers then compile a report based on the service they receive. These mystery shoppers are carefully instructed to perform specific tasks that have been decided by the management that want to analyse performance.

They might ask for a specific type of drink in a bar or purchase a particular item of clothing in a shop. The shopper then delivers a report that answers questions that are specific to their experience. This means the company conducting the report can get information that is useful to them. It is also a great way of getting reliable and impartial information about the levels of customer service that a company offers.

A mystery shopper will usually operate on behalf of and be employed by an agency. These agencies are approached by businesses to provide reports on the levels of customer service that they offer. It is often the case that the business or company that want a mystery shopper request people with a strong preference for their age, sex and socio economic status.

This means that the company can pick people that are likely to represent their target audience. So if a company was looking to analyse the performance of their high end hotel then they would appreciate the feedback of middle aged wealthy people as opposed to a young individual. This also means that the mystery shopper is less noticeable. There are a few different types of mystery shopper that perform different roles. Some of these are as follows:

Covert Video Shoppers
The covert video shopper is trained to film the interaction that they have with the staff members in the place which they are performing a report on. They are equipped with a video camera which is hidden on them and films everything that happens during the visit shop. These types of mystery shoppers are used for a number of different scenarios and are excellent for providing an accurate indication of the level of service that the company offers.

This type of technology has been widely used by TV programmes that want to reveal poor levels of customer service. These are very popular for car showrooms, banks, high street shops, offices and for reviewing public services. The mystery shopper supplies the company with footage of their visit to the chosen workplace and they also fill out a questionnaire so that the staff that need the analysis get a full report on the state of their customer service levels.

Email Mystery Shoppers
There is an increasing demand for email mystery shopper. These types of mystery shopper delivers reports about the level of customer service that they receive through email correspondence with a company. This is an increasingly important issue that is faced by businesses these days.

As a result there are more and more people being employed to replicate real customers in order to analyse the level of customer service. It is important that companies take time to train their staff to ensure that they get a high level of service regularly. The mystery shopper will perform a task and write a report which notes their findings.

Would you like us to mystery shop your business or agency, contact us now for an instance mystery shopping quote.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Consider this fact, 69% of customers discontinue their patronage of an establishment due to poor customer service. That's far and away the number one reason! Add to this the fact that unhappy customers tell 10 other people about their poor experience (who in turn pass the word along as well). This can spell disaster for an already struggling business.

Given that it costs 5-10 times more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one, it's surprising that more companies don't pull out all the stops to make sure that they're meeting and exceeding customer expectations. To ensure this, it's important to use all the tools you can to uncover poor service before it becomes a problem. This includes the use of mystery shopping in addition to other customer feedback tools.

Why mystery shopping? Here's what we think. A highly satisfied customer is much more likely to buy again than one who is merely satisfied. (Harvard Business Review "Why Satisfied Customers Defect"). However, over 75% of customers that switch to another company had previously rated themselves as satisfied or very satisfied. ("The Myth of the Satisfied Customer", Ron Zemke and Chip Bell, CRM Magazine - August 2002) What this suggests is that traditional customer satisfaction measurements alone don't tell the whole story.

Mystery shops can fill in the gaps and look at your operation from a different perspective. Mystery shops can assess areas and procedures that may go unnoticed by customers or guests on a regular basis. Mystery shops are more targeted, objective, and quantifiable.

According to Tom Peters in his book In Search of Excellence, "What gets measured, gets done." This likely demonstrates the impact of the Hawthorne effect where people work differently (better) when they know they are being monitored. With an ongoing mystery shopping program, sales associates and employees know that any customer (coming through the door, on the phone, or over the Internet) could be a secret shopper, so their performance level remains elevated.

Why consider mystery shopping? Quite simply, it works. Our client partners continue to report success stories based on the impact of the mystery shopping programs we're conducting with them, including Telephone Mystery Shopping.

Why not invest in a pilot test of a mystery shopping programme to see what it can do for your business? You'll see, like others have, that the investment more than pays for itself. The only reason not to try it out is if you have more business than you can handle. Is anyone ever in that situation? Go ahead. Give it a try.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Mystery shopping is a marketing tool used by many established agencies to obtain comprehensive and detailed data on the quality of their products and services as perceived by their customers.

To test your company's front-line operations, professional evaluators pose as buyers to assess factors such as accessibility of products, quality of services, customer care, employee management and more. Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction a typical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue (known as scenarios ). For instance, mystery shoppers at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gifts.

Companies having a way to take feedback relating to products sold and/or customer services find this to be the ideal way of making necessary change. This means that specific areas within the business needing improvement can be identified, rather than using a hit or miss system.

Mystery shoppers are "undercover customers" who gather information about service, quality, cleanliness and other issues on behalf of business owners. You go into stores, restaurants, banks, apartment complexes, and all kinds of businesses posing as customers.

As an under cover customer you ask questions, make purchases, return merchandise and other things that regular customers do, but with a twist. You are also making observations about cleanliness, service and other issues.

Would your business like to see and hear what you staff say and do when youre not there? Contact our mystery shopper team to find out more.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Customer service has become a valuable aspect in business as it allows a company to maintain its competitive advantage. With a wide range of choices available to the modern consumers, ensuring satisfaction in every shopping experience is crucial to success.

This is an business organizational need that mystery shopping addresses. As a marketing research tool, mystery shopping enables your company to test the effectiveness of your customer service initiatives and maximize your company's potential.

Mystery shoppers are hired, posing as your ordinary customers to test how adept your employees are at providing customer satisfaction. Some will note how friendly and helpful the employees are, how long it takes to make a purchase or receive service; and if employees are able to answer questions regarding particular product or service.

Some mystery shoppers will present certain scenarios for employees to deal with and report how well they handled the situation. This data is then compiled and analyzed to create a report that will allow you to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your operations and identify which areas need improved.

Mystery shopping offers a snap-shot experience of the frontline customer service a business provides. It's a first hand account from the people that matter the most to your business, your customers.


The Benefits of Mystery Shopping Services
Mystery shopping is not just about checking your employees if they are doing their jobs but more on how you can polish and refine your operations to provide customer satisfaction and establish loyal clients to keep your business thriving.

Mystery shopping services provide you with direct, impartial information that all senior managers should know; to help them improve the way their business works and identify opportunities to increase sales. Increasingly the only things that differentiate companies are the front line, retail level customer experiences. This is why experiential marketing has become so popular in recent times.

It takes care and expertise to develop a meaningful and ongoing relationship with your customers. Mystery shopping is a first hand evaluation of customer service, your customer and their interaction with your business. If you don't know your customers � you�re less likely to succeed in the current global business operating environment.

Curious to find out more, contact our mystery customer evaluations team now to discuss how our mystery shopping agency can help your business.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Mystery shopping is a unique way for consumer-minded companies to receive feedback on products, services, and other aspects related to shopping from the perspective of an end customer.

Companies use mystery shoppers to remain in touch with their key shopping demographics, and as a way to evaluate/determine the things that work and those that need improvement.

Through a variety of different options, companies can largely achieve the benefits of having mystery shoppers work for them at a negligible cost to their bottom line. That is, compared to the cost of hiring full-time, in-house staff to perform mystery shopping duties or having other employees spend part their time carrying out that task.

Most mystery shoppers are targeted by companies as individuals in key demographic areas - for instance, cosmetic providers might request females aged 18-30 for mystery shopping opportunities in various department stores with a large cosmetics section.

Depending on the data being observed and captured by companies, mystery shoppers could be trained to focus on identifying ways to improve customer service, examine product quality, or evaluate marketing efforts.

Above all else, though, mystery shoppers are valuable because of the 'real consumer' aspect they bring, therefore training is generally as easy as a simple conversation detailing the things to notice while shopping.

Contact mystery customer evaluations, a one stop mystery shopper company that will professionally undertake all your mystery shopping needs.

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Poor service in restaurants. Appalling manners everywhere you go. A plague of chewing gum spots all over the pavements. You can never find a policeperson when you need one. And don�t get us started on global warming. If you�re as grumpy as us (and more and more of you are) you�ll nod like Churchill (the parcel shelf dog, not the politician) as you read this. Oh, yus.

You�d be surprised what our UK team of mystery shoppers discover when they�re out mystery shopping companies. Not fully convinced that mystery shopping is for you and your business; stop dallying and visit our site.

Straight talking results are what we give you. If not, we�ll give you a 100% money back guarantee. Just like Match.com but without the dating. Go on, visit now www.mysterycustomerevaluations.com

Mystery customer evaluation team.

Mystery shopper evaluations started as Market Research but has evolved to cover so much more since it�s inception back in the USA.

Becoming a Mystery Shopper is now a great way to earn some extra money. It enables our team to Work from home and is ideally suited for Student jobs as it enables them to visits bars while being paid.

New evaluators tend to find us through search engines, the most popular searches are Mystery shopper vacancies. Become a mystery shopper and Mystery shopper jobs.

The lure of some additional cash while Mystery shopping hotels or Mystery shopping restaurants as a Mystery guest sounds too good to be true. This has something to do with our huge database of shoppers from all over Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

Not yet convinced that becoming a Mystery shopper for Mystery Customer Evaluations is right for you. Drop us an email, we�ll send you some amazing testimonials

MCE Team.

Even in a recession, when businesses are closing and people are being laid off, customer service is still terrible!

How can this be? This should be a top priority all the time, but especially in tough times. Here are some tips to improve your customer service - and make this a great year for your customers!

1.) Be friendly. What happens to customers when they enter your business? Is there a gate keeper or a host? Gate keepers keep people out, hosts make people feel welcome. Your host should be smiling and should greet people when they come in. Bonus tips for restaurants - "How many?" is not a greeting. Try something crazy like, "Hello!" This goes for the phone too - do callers hear warmth or annoyance?

2.) Stop assuming. I hate to say it, but too many managers are delusional. They think they can pay their front line people peanuts, treat them poorly, give them little to no training or feedback, and have them radiating joy and happiness all day. Get real managers. Have you ever rewarded good service?.

3.) Be responsive. I know we can't all be perfect, but people want you to respond quickly. After all, they are trying to give you money. Seat them quickly, get them through check-out lines quickly, don't keep them on hold. If people have to wait, at least train your employees to communicate! Too many times I see employees talking to each other rather than helping customers. Hello? There's a recession, people! You cannot afford to ignore your customers! But see number 2 - do your employees really have any incentive to help customers? And where are you when this is happening? In your office answering e-mail?

4.) Provide information. All people are not technology experts - they need help and information. They don't know how to find all the things in your store or understand all the services you offer. The worst thing is, most of your employees don't seem to have this information either. Train them! Or make the information accessible. Listen to what questions customers ask - do they want nutrition information on the menu? Is your return policy confusing? If more than three people have a problem or ask a question - address it! Don't blame the customer for not reading your small print or your lame sign. They are in a hurry - train your people to be proactive and explain problem areas.

5.) Have a great attitude. Customers will put up with a lot if the person trying to help them has a great attitude. Things are going to happen no matter how hard we try. Mistakes will be made. If you can keep smiling and the customer knows you are really trying, they will cut you a break. It's when you lose it or come across as rude, that they get angry. If you are a front line customer service person, your job will be a thousand times easier if you can remain friendly. You will also have job security - your boss won't want to lose you and all the customers you impress will want to hire you. And you will have so much more fun. We attract the energy we give out - give out happiness and good will - and it will return to you tenfold. Be rude - and you will suffer.

5a.) Supervisors - this attitude thing goes for you too. Your people are often mirrors of you. Are you always angry and stressed? Well - there you go! Expect your people to be angry and stressed as well. I believe leaders get the followers they deserve. What kind of followers do you have?

Companies talk a lot about customer service but at the end of the day, their actions speak louder than their words. They don't take care of their customer service people, yet they expect them to carry the company. But front line people have to carry part of the burden as well - are you really friendly? I've seen heavy sighs and eye rolls way too may times when I simply wanted to pay for a purchase.

I've tried to find items in poorly organized stores and been ignored by employees who could have helped me. You wonder why sales are down? Because you treat your customers like garbage. You are mad when they want to return things or ask questions or need help. You make jokes about how stupid they are. Welcome to 2010, the Year of the Customer. Next time you treat a customer badly, you just might be out of a job. But be a superstar in all you do and who knows to what levels you might rise.

Would you like our mystery shoppers to ascertain whether or not your team are doing what it takes to beat this recession. Our trained mystery customers can visit your business and do all this for the price or a good meal. Contacts us and introduce mystery shopping into your business.

Mystery customer evaluation Team.

A governing success factor of your project depends on the quality of coaching you provide your team.

We�ve developed a proven frontline coaching method that simply works. Introduce these 5 strategies and you�ll start to see an immediate improvement.

Coaching strategies.

1. Allow the team member to initially review the evaluation report alone.
Benefit: This enables them to processes the information reported by the evaluator. It also avoids the perception that the manager is "talking at" them.

2. After a few minutes, return and ask them, "So what did you notice?".
Benefit: Questioning forces them to assess their own effectiveness and deficiencies. It empowers them to actively look at their own improvement process.

3. Modify the coaching session based on the scores:

A. IF SCORING SUGGESTS IMPROVEMENT IS NEEDED: Discuss the results and ways they could do better next time. Have them select 3 standards to focus on. Say something like, "Jo, designate 3 areas you�ll actively work on during the next month. I look forward to seeing these new habits in action."

B. IF SCORING SUGGESTS EXCELLENCE: Recognize their achievements. Read aloud the complimentary remarks the evaluator made about them. Ask them employee how they feel about the results. If they routinely get exemplary results, leverage this habit into a recognition session i.e. ask them to help you mentor others.

The team member usually feels trapped by his performance results. Stop the session momentarily and tell them the coaching session is valuable for both of you.

Benefit: Explain that they don�t have to agree with everything the evaluator said, you expect them to take a good faith look at the development points. Ask them to take 5 more minutes to review the results with a new frame of mind.

4. Return and ask, "Okay, so now that you�ve reviewed the results again, what have you noticed that you can do to improve?".

5. If you have a difficult or aggressive team member, don't retaliate but listen. They could provide you with valuable information about the climate of your team. They may be feeling one or more of the following ways:

�Overwhelmed or overworked.
�Unappreciated or unsupported.
�Standards are too high and can�t be met.
�Some receive more recognition than others for the same work.


Benefit: Listening can solve a lot, don�t fight back; just ask additional questions. You�re there to work together to improve standards; the coaching session is a learning tool for you both.

Tell the employee that as the manager, you are charged with creating the best customer experience possible; and you need and expect their sincere cooperation in this process.

That's it, 5 clear-cut steps to effectively coach your frontline team. Try it and see the results.

Mystery customer evaluations can introduce coaching evaluations based on the mystery shopper reports. Contact us now for more details.

MCE Team.

If you want to be able to stand out from the crowd and offer truly great customer service instead of just empty promises, here are ten great tips that will help.

There are two ways to fix every problem. The immediate solution is to take care of the customer, leave him or her happy, and go on with your day.

However, there's a reason this problem happened. You need to consider how to prevent it from happening again. Your business will be more efficient and you'll have happier customers overall.

Treat your customers like human beings. That means treating them with dignity and not being annoyed at them for interrupting your day. This also means expecting them to act like responsible adults. Too many businesses believe that good customer service means bowing to the whims of every customer with a complaint. That solves the immediate problem of an angry customer, but sometimes it's not for the best. Know when there's a real problem that needs fixing and fix it well, but don't let people walk all over you.

Go beyond the minimum to make your customers love you. If there's a real problem, and you can do just a little more to make a customer's day, he or she is going to remember it. You'll get a lot more repeat business and word of mouth advertising if you over deliver.

Don't make excuses. If it's your fault, say so. Don't try to blame it on the customer, the circumstances, another vendor, or the position of the moon in the sky. It's amazing what a difference it can make if you just say "An error has been made, but I will make it right". Your customer will see you a lot differently if you don't make excuses.

Don't take it personally! This one's easy to forget because the customer is directing their frustration at you. However, the customer is angry about the situation, not angry at you, specifically. Taking things personally just introduces anger into the situation and makes it harder
to fix the problem.

Listen to your customers. Don't assume you know what they want. They may have some good things to say, even if they're not experts.

Think about what you're promising. It's easy to get carried away and offer more than you can easily deliver. If your business is racing from one project to the next, you can't offer true quality of service. Don't let this happen. Always pay close attention to what you're promising, and don't let a customer talk you into the impossible.

Allow the customer to feel like a priority. Don't answer the phone while filling out a spreadsheet - you'll sound distracted. Spend the few minutes it takes to really pay attention. Your customers will know the difference and the results will be worth it.

Get to problems right away. No one wants to deal with something unpleasant, but if you let a complaint sit, it's not going to get any better on its own. Follow up! Call after a problem's been dealt with, or after a customer has received a particularly big order, to find out how things went. Don't try to sell anything during this call or email. Just find out what you need to know and wish your customer a good day.

Our team of mystery shoppers throughout the UK can find this out for you. Try mystery shopping in your company absolutely free, we�re sure to find some areas that need improvement and can lead to Outstanding Customer Service.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.

Like most retailers, the Postal Service uses mystery shoppers - customers unknown to the retail staff who fill out evaluations on their shopping experience - to determine how well retail units are performing. Not every postal retail unit is visited by mystery shoppers. Only units with a certain amount of revenue are included in the mystery shopper programme.

Mystery shoppers record how long they spent in line, how the retail unit looked, how courteous the retail associates were, and other details about their visit. For example, team member are supposed to ask whether a package contains anything liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous. Mystery shoppers are asked to note down whether anyone asked them this about their package.

Pushing the Envelope dealt with the topic of "up-selling." Some of the questions on the mystery shopper evaluation relate to which products sales associates promote to their customers. Given the variety of customers and types of transactions, the need for a uniform approach to customers is important. Is it appropriate, however, to include items generally viewed as �up-selling� in the mystery shopper programme?

Can you be certain that your team members are Up-selling. Why not use one of our trained team from our UK wide mystery shopper database. We�ll determine whether or not staff are doing through our mystery shopping programme.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team

These Guidelines interpret the MRS Code of Conduct (revised 2005) and provide additional best practice guidance. Unless otherwise stated, Guidelines are not binding.

Research is founded upon the willing co-operation of the public and of business organisations. It relies on the confidence of those involved that it is conducted honestly, objectively, without unwelcome intrusion and without harm to respondents. Its purpose is to collect and analyse information and not to create sales or to influence the opinions of anyone participating.
The general public and other interested parties are entitled to complete assurance that every research project is carried out in accordance with the Code of Conduct and that their rights and privacy are respected.

Rules from the Code of Conduct applicable in each section of this document are stated in the shaded boxes. These rules are binding on MRS members and MRS Company Partners and breaches may result in disciplinary action. The guidance that follows the rules provides interpretation and additional best practice. Members and Company Partners are reminded that this document is designed to compliment the MRS Code of Conduct and should not be consulted in isolation.

As specified in the Code, it is the responsibility of the researcher to keep abreast of any legislation which could affect research with employees and to ensure that all those involved in a project are aware of and agree to abide by the MRS Code of Conduct.
This material is provided for information only. It is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. Specific legal advice should be taken in relation to specific issues.

Definition of Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping can be defined as the use of individuals trained to experience and measure any customer service process, by acting as potential customers and in some way reporting back on their experiences in a detailed and objective way. It differs from other research techniques in that the evaluator does not declare his/her presence and the respondent is unaware at the time of the interaction that it is in any way different from a normal customer contact. Ideally results from this technique should be used more for directing training and for rewards schemes rather than for disciplinary purposes.


Respondents in mystery shopping
Under the MRS Code of Conduct a Respondent is any individual or organisation from or about whom data is collected or is approached for interview. In mystery shopping, information may be collected about individual employees, subject to the restrictions laid down in the Code and in the Data Protection Act 1998. They should therefore be considered to be Respondents when interpreting the rules of the Code.
Interpreting the Code in mystery shopping
Special care should be taken in interpreting the code in the context of mystery shopping as an interaction will not usually mirror a traditional research interview. Where it is necessary to inform respondents of collection of personal data for example this will have to be done well in advance of the mystery shopping exercise, as opposed to the beginning of the interaction. Please refer to the guidelines that follow for further information
When researchers use the mystery shopping technique for non-research activities (e.g. investigatory journalism) researchers should also refer to the separate binding regulations Using Research Techniques for Non-Research Purposes.
1: Planning the mystery shopping exercise
When planning a mystery shopping exercise, researchers should be aware of the ethical, technical and legal problems that may arise.
The Rules
A1 Research must conform to the national and international legislation relevant to a given project including in particular the Data Protection Act 1998 or other comparable legislation applicable outside the UK.
A3 Members must act honestly in dealings with Respondents, Clients (actual or potential), employers, employees, sub-contractors and the general public.
A10 Members must take all reasonable precautions to ensure that Respondents are not harmed or adversely affected as a result of participating in a research project.
B4 Members must take reasonable steps to design research which meets the quality standards agreed with the Client.
B8 The anonymity of Respondent s must be preserved unless they have given their informed consent for their details to be revealed or for attributable comments to be passed on.

Guidance
To be ethical, and to accord with rule B8, informed consent means that the client�s own staff must have been advised that their service delivery may be checked from time to time through mystery shopping. Where regulatory bodies or sub-contractors intend to use such projects to examine service levels provided, they must ensure that the contracted party understands that this method of appraisal will be used, and advise its staff accordingly. This could be in the form of a newsletter or on the company website. With competitor organisations such information cannot be conveyed and so personal information about employees cannot be collected. Additionally, the competitor staff or organisation must not suffer any detrimental effect as a result of a mystery shopping exercise.

To be relevant, the scenario must be designed to test the specific sales or service behaviour that is the topic of study. Think of the training or instruction that staff have been given on how to deal with a situation and come up with a scenario that, when delivered credibly, should result in staff delivering those desired actions. The study can then test the extent to which this is the case.

To be credible, the scenario should be realistic, in that it mimics natural consumer behaviour in the market concerned and can be enacted convincingly by the mystery shopper. While mystery shoppers must be thoroughly briefed, they must not appear too slick or over-rehearsed. Overly sophisticated scenarios can result in the staff guessing that the mystery shopper is not a real customer, compromising the value of the study. As a general rule, the scenario itself should be straightforward, so the mystery shopper can easily grasp it, with the detailed briefing focusing on how to handle follow-up questions, so providing convincing �depth� to the role. In addition, mystery shoppers should fit the profile of appropriate customers, and have a level of familiarity with the product field that is appropriate to the role they are playing.

It is important to ensure that visits and/or telephone calls are made at an appropriate spread of different times and locations, or that visits and/or telephone calls are made at the same time if the project methodology so requires (such as for bench marking). It could be expected that the time taken to speak to a member of staff, and possibly the service received, might be affected by the time of day, week or season when the research scenario takes place.

To be practical from the evaluation viewpoint, simplicity, brevity, and keeping the assignment appropriate ensures experiences are correctly reported. It should be borne in mind that mystery shoppers may have to remember their answers until they are out of sight of staff, and the research should therefore be limited in length and complexity to allow for this fact.

Whatever scenarios are used for mystery shopping, they must be safe in that the mystery shoppers are not asked to do anything illegal or that puts them under any physical risk or threatens their personal safety e.g. locality, disability, gender, ethnicity. Care must be taken to protect mystery shoppers from any adverse implications of carrying out an evaluation e.g. personal safety, effect on credit references.

The questionnaire that the mystery shopper completes should be objective, with the majority of questions focusing on factual information. The primary aim is to document precisely what happened at the point of contact, rather than how the mystery shopper feels. Objectivity will also help ensure consistency across all of the evaluations conducted. However, some
subjective ratings, such as the perceived confidence of staff and the mystery shoppers overall satisfaction with the way their enquiry was handled, may be useful when interpreting the results.

2: Types of Mystery Shopping
A: Own Organisation 6
The Rules
B15 If there is to be any recording, monitoring or observation during an interview, Respondents must be informed about this both at recruitment and at the beginning of the interview.
B16 Members must not knowingly make use of personal data collected illegally.
Comment: The objective of a mystery customer research project is to provide management information on processes and/or quality of service, in order to aid training and retraining plans, improvements in service and hence increase customer satisfaction etc.
For mystery shopping exercises the �Respondent� will be a staff member who is subject to the mystery shop and as such there are different levels of allowable disclosure and data usage.
B43 For mystery shopping of a Client�s own organisation, Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that:
�
the Client�s employees have been advised by their employer that their service delivery may be checked through mystery shopping; and
�
the objectives and intended uses of the results have been made clear by the employer to staff (including the level of reporting if at branch/store or individual level); and
�
if mystery shopping is to be used in relation to any employment terms and conditions, that this has been made clear by the employer.
B45 Where there is mystery shopping of Client�s agents or authorised distributors (as well as any organisations which are responsible to a compliance authority), Members must ensure that:
�
the employees to be mystery shopped have been advised by their employer and/or/regulator that their service delivery and/or regulatory compliance may be checked by mystery shopping; and
�
the objectives and intended uses of the results have been made clear by the employer and/or regulator (including the level of reporting if at branch/store or individual level); and
�
if mystery shopping is to be used in relation to an employment/contractual/regulatory terms and conditions this has been made clear by the employer and/or regulator.
Guidance
1.
B15 means, in relation to mystery shopping, employees can be notified of mystery shopping exercises in advance in employee contracts, staff handbooks bespoke communications, circulars or newsletters. Details need not be given on when exactly the review will take place, exact details of aspects to be covered, or the types of mystery shoppers to be used. In accordance with B15, employees must be informed at this time if any form of recording will be used.
2.
Employees should be informed of the types of elements to be covered, reporting formats and channels of communication, and basis of mystery shopper recruitment and training.
3.
Names of staff members or identities through visual or sound recordings etc can be revealed as long as appropriate communication as to this effect has been given (see above). Clearance from unions or staff organisation representatives should be sought in such cases.
4.
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, where visual or sound recordings of individuals are held, as much information as possible about the future use of the data must be given, in particular:
�
When they are to be used
To whom they are likely to be shown
For what purposes they are likely to be used
To protect the individuals, and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, restrictions on the future use of the data must be included in either the terms and conditions, or the contract between the researcher and the client.
Procedures may need to be put in place to ensure that mystery shoppers are not harassed.
The organisation should show employees the benefits of the technique and how to use the results to encourage acceptance of, and engagement with, the process.
When evaluating staff whose income is commission based (automotive, financial services, etc); consideration should be given to the length of time the mystery shopper will spend with the member of staff or provision of compensation for potential loss of commission.

B: Competitor Organisations
The Rules. Since competitors� employees cannot be advised that they may be mystery shopped, Members must ensure that their identities are not revealed. Members must ensure that employees are not recorded (e.g. by using audio, photographic or video equipment). This applies in all instances where employees cannot or have not been advised that they could be mystery shopped.

Guidelines
The length of time spent with a staff member should reflect the market and the type of enquiry. The time should be kept as short as possible and should not be seen to waste the competitor�s resources in any way other than a normal customer enquiry might do.

The frequency of assessment of any one outlet/centre should be considered in relation to the whole organisation and particular individuals must not be targeted such that it disrupts or slows normal business.

Data must be reported at an aggregated level and not at individual contact level.

The preparation of any follow-up paperwork by the competitor organisation should be kept to a minimum and reflect a normal transaction.

The evaluation should not specifically require a follow-up call to the mystery shopper.

Time spent other than with a staff member e.g. observing or auditing does not fall into this time limit. However this activity should not unduly disrupt the customer flow or staff member activities in any way.

Ideally the mystery shopper should make a purchase that reflects the type of business of any given outlet e.g. petrol from a petrol station rather than a key ring.

Regulatory and Other Bodies
Since competitors� employees cannot be advised that they may be mystery shopped, Members must ensure that their identities are not revealed. Members must ensure that employees are not recorded (e.g. by using audio, photographic or video equipment). This applies in all instances where employees cannot or have not been advised that they could be mystery shopped.
B45 Where there is mystery shopping of Client�s agents or authorised distributors (as well as any organisations which are responsible to a compliance authority), Members must ensure that:

The employees to be mystery shopped have been advised by their employer and/or/regulator that their service delivery and/or regulatory compliance may be checked by mystery shopping; and the objectives and intended uses of the results have been made clear by the employer and/or regulator (including the level of reporting if at branch/store or individual level); and if mystery shopping is to be used in relation to any employment/contractual/regulatory terms and conditions this has been made clear by the employer and/or regulator.

Guidance
Where regulatory bodies or sub-contractors intend to use such projects to examine service levels, they must ensure that the contracted party understands that this method of appraisal will be used, and inform staff that they might be identified during the course of the exercise. If these actions have not been undertaken the study must be conducted as if on a Competitor Organisation i.e. information about identifiable individuals must not be collected or processed in any way.

If the contract between the 2 parties states that mystery shopping will be used by way of evaluation, staff within the organisation must be informed of this fact. Where this has happened, any project can be conducted as if on one�s own organisation.

Quality Control
Members must not make false claims about their skills and experience or those of their organisation.
Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that others do not breach or cause a breach of this Code.
This includes:
Members taking reasonable steps to ensure that the people with whom they work (including other Members, non-member research practitioners, colleagues, Clients, consultants, sub-contractors) are sufficiently familiar with this Code that they are unlikely to breach or cause it to be breached unknowingly or unintentionally, and
Members with responsibility for implementing processes, procedures and contracts, taking reasonable steps to ensure that they are such that this Code is unlikely to be breached or caused to be breached by others unknowingly or unintentionally.
Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of themselves and Clients are governed by a written contract and/or internal commissioning contract.

Guidance
Mystery shoppers should be given the amount of training and briefing required by each project.
The client and agency should agree the following:-
Profile of mystery shopper team
Training and briefing requirements
Field monitoring processes

Quality control
MRQSA/IQCS include elements relating to mystery shopping. These include the validation of data by means of computer and logic checks plus collection of any documentation confirming the contact.

Agency Responsibilities to �shoppers�
Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that mystery shoppers are fully informed of the implications and protected from any adverse implications of conducting a mystery shopping exercise.
For example, they must be made aware by the Member that their identity may be revealed to the organisation/individual being mystery shopped if they use personal cards to make purchases, loan arrangements etc. and credit ratings may be affected.

Guidance
It is the responsibility of the agency to ensure that mystery shoppers are aware that they may be identified during the project, For example
�
Mystery shoppers should be made aware that their identification could be revealed if the telephone receiver has caller identification technology.
�
Mystery shoppers should be made aware that their identity may be revealed if personal credit or debit cards are used to make online purchases.
�
Mystery shoppers making multiple visits to a website should ensure that they delete any cookies before connecting to the website. This will reduce the likelihood of identification of the mystery shoppers.
.
It is the responsibility of the agency to ensure that a mystery shopper is paid promptly for all purchases made for any project.

Spy Chief Sizes Up Staff Service

UNDERCOVER consumer spies are accepting missions to target UK companies and assess the customer service they offer.

Rising expectations are placing an ever-greater pressure on businesses to supply first-class service but the curse of an unfriendly, unhelpful or rude staff member can tarnish the memory of a customer to the extent that they will not return.

So companies across the varied sectors of business have taken to hiring covert agents in the form of mystery shoppers. These shop-floor spies are becoming the main means by which a firm measures its staff strengths and weaknesses. The results can also be used to assess existing training techniques and develop new ideas.

Mark Logan, Director of Edinburgh based Mystery Customer Evaluations, offers business owners the opportunity to control their companies without having to be on site every day of the week. Mr Logan, thinks the presence of objective monitors working from a customer's point of view is something UK companies sorely need. And he says the idea is gradually catching on.

"In the UK, the standard of service in hotels, restaurants and public houses is quite lax," he says. "Come summer, the tourists over here are complaining that the service they are receiving is shoddy and poor. Yet anybody who has ever gone to America will have experienced good service, where there is a friendly, 'how-can-I-help-you' attitude.

"I think only now have people who own service-based businesses in the UK Scotland cottoned on to the fact that in order to receive repeat business, you are going to have to deliver a consistently high standard of service across the board."

And he adds: "These guys are now saying: 'Right, we need to monitor and maintain service', but they don't know how to go about this. This is where Mystery Shopping Companies can help."

MCE was set up in spring 1998 by Mr Logan after he graduated from Jewel and Esk Valley College in Edinburgh. Although he still has only one office in Edinbugrh, his business has expanded to include over 2 thousand mystery shoppers throughout the UK.

The company had to find ways of building a client-base in a crowded market and initial contracts were created by Mr Logan approaching companies and selling his services. But after establishing MCE as a leader in the Scottish customer service analysis sector, he is now able to rely on testimonials and word-of-mouth for new customers all over the UK.

"Businesses in the UK now know about my work. I am very keen to help Scottish companies as previously they would have to employ companies from England. It is very handy that we are on the Capital's doorstep and can provide personal advice face-to-face," he says.

Mr Logan's clients include nationwide supermarket chains, Scottish pub and hotel chains, leisure and retail companies, heritage bodies, restaurants and cinemas.

The pool of mystery shoppers act on MCE's behalf to carry out ongoing and consistent monitoring of client companies, which is relayed back to them in the form of percentage-scored reports. Such an approach, Mr Logan says, gives clients a fresh perspective on what is happening on a day-to-day basis.

"The benefits are that they get clear actionable results and performance-monitored service improvements, which is valuable information straight from the horse�s mouth," he says. "What we are delivering to them is a snapshot of their business or practice from the customer�s viewpoint.

"It's like acting as the company�s eyes and ears when they are not there. Quite often, we get asked to go in when they know the manager is not going to be there. What people do when the manager is there, and when they are not there, can be a totally different kettle of fish."

Mr Logan is adamant that ongoing monitoring is designed for staff improvement, rather than anything more sinister.

"Staff are made aware that we will be monitoring performance, and some will complain they are being spied on, or that the process isn�t fair," he says. "But what we say is that it's just to maintain standards. If anything, we are there to catch them doing the job right, rather than otherwise," he explains.

Mr Logan admits that initial visits by his staff tend to reflect problems rather than positives: "The majority of times, when we start with a new client, we tend to catch staff doing their jobs incorrectly. Then we bring them up to the set standard and we just have to go about that task consistently and methodically."

Depending on the company's requirements, the regularity of visits can vary between weekly and quarterly. It costs around �49 for a single visit and different contracts are created depending on the size of the company. Mr Logan says he deals with clients who own from as little as 2 premises up to 2 hundred.

MCE sells itself to businesses by offering additional service like web cam sound bites, satisfaction calls and video mystery shopping. The company also provides staff workshops and training, as well as personal development coaching.

Mr Logan says: "What we say to [companies] is: 'We cannot guarantee you are going to increase profit by 100 per cent, but if you are losing customers through poor staff customer skills, we will try to show you how to retain or improve this situation'. It is about protecting the customer base."

The natural progression for any company working with MCE is to create the solutions to problems they discover, something Mr Logan says is a concern for them.

"We are now beginning to move into staff training, coaching and mentoring," he says. "It works on a one-to-one basis with a client, where we will come and tell the company what the staff are not doing and then what they should be doing. We help them to brush up by delivering a course that brings them up to the right standard." Having expanded operations in MCE's offices in Musselburgh Business Park, the company is increasing its profit by 25 per cent on average year on year.

Mr Logan says the company has come a long way from when he first developed it in his mind while at college. "Things have certainly moved at a fast pace and we are continuing to expand. It has turned out to be a very profitable business.�

Can be viewed online:
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/retail/Spy-chief-sizes-up-staff.2547990.jp

We all think we are doing well with our own customer service. With so much information available on customer service, why is service still one of the biggest complaints by customers? What is the reality? Do customers expect more than is realistic? Is it simply that good service is taken for granted, but one incident of poor service is blown out of proportion?

Perhaps we are blind to our own mistakes. Are we failing to look at our establishments from the customers' perspective? Are we satisfied with service that is just 'good enough' because we have so many other concerns to attend to?

To gain insight into some of these questions, I decided to go mystery shopping. I resolved to visit a variety of different retailers in Edinburgh to get a sense of the level of service customers receive. In a couple of hours I managed to visit several retailers on Princess Street.

In general staff were occupied with re-stocking and tidying chores. My impression was that none of the shops I visited would be considered to have 'bad' service, but in general the sales staff were indifferent. They were visible, available to assist when necessary, and were competent when helping customers. Something was missing...

Most of the staff I saw lacked energy. They were quite willing to help anyone that looked like they were going to buy. They were not unfriendly, but no one appeared to be interested in actively selling, or providing more information than was specifically requested. In no case was I greeted within the first minute of entering a store.

With so many retailers providing similar products, stores need to differentiate themselves with customer service. Here are three ways you can make your establishments stand out from the competition:

1. Be energetic
Our stores need to exude energy to attract customers. When traffic is slow we tend to slow down in our stores as well. There is less of a sense of urgency in our tasks, and the atmosphere seems a little laid back. This can be perceived by our customers as being less interested,. Rather than fall into this trap, we need to keep our energy level high. Customers will be more attracted to shop in a store where the atmosphere is dynamic and positive, than one that is dull and lifeless.

2. Be selling
Our sales staff need to be actively selling - not just processing transactions. We can't just depend on the merchandise to sell itself. Train & re-train your staff in the basics of selling: greeting, asking questions, offering product knowledge & benefits, making suggestions, closing the sale and thanking the customer. Practice turning those 'browsers' into 'buyers' now, and your staff will be well-prepared for the busy times.

3. Be personal
If we want to stay ahead of the game, we need to be actively interested in our customers. Encourage your staff to get to know customers personally by name, and to engage in friendly conversation. Developing genuine relationships with our customers will do more to encourage repeat business and loyalty than any advertising campaign or loyalty card.

Think about the level of service in your own establishments. Instead of asking yourself if your business offers 'good' or 'bad' service - no one wants to admit to providing 'bad' service - ask yourself if you could do more to use customer service as a tool to increase sales. Just one more sale each day can add up to great sales for within a month!

MCE Team.

There�s much written and spoken about customer care, customer service, even customer delight, but what does it all mean? Here are seven tips to help you look at your business and identify where you can "revolutionize" your customer service.

Step 1.
Ask yourself �How easy are we to buy from and deal with?� So many businesses don�t even get the basics right: telephones that aren�t answered properly (some not even answered!), sales people not trained (or even interested!), people and systems that stop customers getting what they want. We call them �Sales Prevention Officers�... they lurk throughout the business � who, what and where are yours?

Step 2.
Eliminate your Sales Prevention Officers: No, don�t fire your receptionist! Too often they are the very ones dealing with the consequences of your real Sales Prevention Officers. Investigate and find out what�s preventing your customers from getting what they want. Ask your frontline people, �What causes Sales Prevention Officers in our business? Look in the mirror; too � have you ever refused a call with �tell them I�m not in�?

Step 3.
Get feedback from your customers: Ask them �What lets us down?� �How could we improve?� �What irritates or annoys you about us?� �How can we exceed your expectations?� Email them, call them, and visit them. Find out what they really think about you.

Step 4.
Act on the feedback! (No explanation needed here!)

Step 5..
Identify ways to �delight� your customers: Not �Have a nice day� or �Missing you already� but surprising customers with the level of service you provide (in a positive way, please!) Customer Delight has a personal touch, it appears spontaneous, and makes customers feel good. Think about �thank you for your order� notes, �Welcome� signs in reception, send them articles of interest (why not refer them to this one?!), anticipate their needs and solve their problems.

Step 6.
Reward customer delight: Encourage your people to �go that extra mile�, to generate �delight� ideas and to create �raving fans�. What�s the reward in your business for �delighting a customer�? What�s the consequence for not?

Step 7.
Ring up your business as a mystery shopper and ask for yourself! This can be a real eye opener. It�s sometimes quite scary! In reality it means standing in your own queues, visiting your own website, sitting in your own reception, and listening to your own switchboard. Find out what it�s like to be a customer, and identify areas for improvement.

The pursuit of customer delight is a constant process...it never ends. After Step 7 go back to Step 1 and start again

Using a mystery shopper is the most effective way to monitor whether or not your team are doing what they�re supposed to be.

MCE Team.

Regardless of what business you�re in - you�re really in the business of satisfying customers. The degree of customer satisfaction you deliver determines the level of long-term success you�ll achieve.

Make Customer Satisfaction Your Top Priority.
Don't just make sales. Create customers - satisfied customers. In addition to the immediate profit they provide on the first sale, satisfied customers help you build your business in two other important ways:

1. They become a reservoir of repeat buyers. For some businesses that means repeat buyers for more of the same product or service. For every business, it means buyers for additional products and services.

2. They automatically refer more business to you from their friends and business contacts. This is highly profitable business for you because it doesn't cost you any time or money to get it.

Always give customers more than they expect.
"Over deliver" on quality and service. Always exceed your customers' expectations. You will win their long term loyalty. It also makes it difficult for competitors to steal customers from you - even if they have lower prices. Customers will not risk an uncertain experience with a competitor when they know they will get more than they expect from you.

Tip: Surprise your customers with unexpected value. If you sell products, include an "unadvertised bonus" with every order. If you sell services, get into the habit of doing something extra for every customer or client without charging for it.

Let customers know how much you value them.
Let your customers know you are always thinking about them. Communicate with them regularly. For example, create some special deals just for your existing customers. And announce new products or services to them before you announce them to the general market.

Tip: Convert your customers into publicity agents. Develop an incentive for them to tell associates and friends about the value of your products or services. An endorsement from them is more effective than any amount of advertising - and it is much cheaper.

When not arrange for a mystery shopper to visit one of your units, they can check whether or not your team are simply meeting customer expectations, or exceeding them.

MCE Team.

What customers really - really � want, and what will make them loyal to your business and say wonderful things about you to other people are:

1. Warm and friendly responses - When customers make contact with you face to face or over the telephone, they want a warm response. It can still be businesslike but you need to look and sound - friendly and likeable.

(This may all sound like common sense to you but think about these factors the next time you're a customer and ask yourself if they're happening to you. Then ask yourself if your customers or clients are experiencing this from you and your staff).

2. They want to feel important - They know you have lots of other customers / clients but they just love it when you make them feel special.

3. They want to be listened to - Customers often get the impression that the person dealing with them is not really listening. You must keep working on your listening skills. Keep good eye contact with people and concentrate on what they're saying. Keep an open mind and resist the temptation to jump in with an answer.

4. Someone to know their name - A persons name is one of the sweetest sounds they'll ever hear. If you use a customer's name when you talk to them, it indicates that you recognise them as an individual. Don't use it too often as it can become irritating, but definitely at the start and the end of a conversation.

5. Flexibility - Customers hate to hear the word "No" or "it can't be done." It's not always possible to say, "Yes" to a customer or do exactly what they want; however, it is important to be as flexible as you can. Tell customers what you can do - not what you can't.

6. Recovery - When things go wrong, customers want you to solve their problems quickly. They don't want to hear excuses or who's to blame or why it happened, they just want it fixed fast.

Customers will often judge the quality of your service by the way you recover. They will even forgive your mistakes if you recover well. Don't be afraid when something does go wrong; it's often a great opportunity to show customers just how great your service really is.

Overall, customers just want to feel good. They want to feel better after they've dealt with you or anyone in your business, than they did before. If you can create that feeling, then you're well on the way to giving customers what they really really want.

When not arrange for one of our mystery shoppers to call or visit one of your units, they can check whether or not your team are simply going through motions, or trying their best.

MCE Team.

Better service means you have a genuine customer-friendly attitude. You view your customers as the most important part of your job, and you sincerely respect them and appreciate their choosing to do business with you.

A customer-friendly attitude means that communicating and establishing customer relationships are really the essence of your job. You can make a customer a friend or an enemy for life in just a few seconds.

One of the most important parts of customer service is your telephone response and personal contact. When a customer calls you on the phone and it rings ten times before someone picks it up, your company has already made a bad impression before any business was transacted.

These contacts are simple, quick, and they are moments of truth for the customer. Customer contacts are opportunities to create positive impressions and they include the following:

Answer the phone with a greeting before identifying yourself or your company.
Start the contact the right way and create a good first impression.

Be aware of your facial expression when a customer approaches you.
Always smile to give customers the impression that you are delighted to see and to help them when they approach you.

Never take a customer complaint personally.
Rather, think of a complaint as an opportunity to get valuable feedback from your customers and improve your relationship with them.

Always offer options if you cannot give customers exactly what they want.
Customers can accept a �no� if it is softened by alternative recommendations.

Never transfer a customer to another extension until you are sure that the other person is available and will give full assistance to the customer.
Always stay on the line until you are certain that the customer�s needs are being handled and questions are being answered.

Customers love companies that treat them the way they like to be treated every time they have contact with them. Customers will choose these companies over competitors even if they have to pay more to obtain their products or services.

Be sure that every employee that has customer contact is well-trained in the best ways to provide excellent customer service. The team at Mystery Customer Evaluations can assist in this process via our huge bank of mystery shoppers all over the UK.

MCE Team.

If your company is really about customer service, you don�t want to stop providing service to customers just because they decide not to do business with you.

Remember, many people visit more than once before they actually make a purchase. Also, you will impress them by providing good service to them as they are leaving your business, and they are more likely to return and refer you to others.

1. Be sure you have given them plenty of time to look around, If they decide not to buy, thank them for visiting your business and invite them to return. This is just simple courtesy, but it a good reminder.

2. Ask them if you can put them on your mailing or email list for future sales and discounts. If you ask their permission to stay in touch, they will appreciate the courtesy and the respect you show them. Also, you know that they are interested in what you have, because they came to your business. It just makes sense to find a way to follow up with them.

3. It is always a good idea to tell them you would appreciate knowing why they are leaving and whether their experience with your business was good or not. After they tell you the answer, ask them to tell you why it was good or bad and how it could be improved. You are showing them that their opinion and their satisfaction are important to you, even though they are not making a purchase. No matter whether their response is positive or negative, always sincerely thank them for their answer and time.

4. If you have any upcoming sales or promotion events, be sure to offer them a handout describing the event. A handout with a discount coupon is extremely effective and more likely to bring them back. If they are leaving because you don�t have the item they are looking for, suggest some other places where that item may be available. Only suggest places that you know provide a good product and good service.

Part of good customer service is treating everyone who comes to your business with courtesy and respect. Show them that you appreciate the visit and they are important to you, even though they did not make a purchase.

Be sure that every customers that deals with your business receives this, if you would like to monitor whether or not this happens, then contact us for a trial using our Mystery Shoppers.

MCE Team.

Handling customer complaints doesn't always have to be a battle, with the right tools and responses you can use complaints to your advantage. Start today by using. B.L.A.S.T:

Believe
Listen
Apologise
Satisfy
Thank

How does your company deal with customer complaints? The easiest way to find out is to pick up the phone and play the role of the complaining customer. What happened? If you were an irritated customer, would you return? Using the B.L.A.S.T guidelines, allows you to create a standardised method for dealing with your complainers and turning them into loyal customers.

Believe.
This is the cornerstone of handling a customer complaint. Yes, the customer may be lying and be incorrect about their situation. It is important to understand that your customer believes that your establishment has wronged them.

Listen.
Stop and listen to you�re their complaint. I'm not certain whether it's natural instinct or just plain stubbornness. As soon as a customer starts to complain, we start to think of how we will respond to the accusation before we are done listening, and too often the case, already have the response ready to fight back. Take a second, relax, and listen. On occasions a complaining customer will be rude, angry, and use vulgar language, stay the course and remain calm and level headed.

When the customer is done venting; in a calm, non-judgmental tone, repeat their problem back i.e. For a mis-packed KFC order:

"What I hear you saying is that, you came in ordered and paid for 10 Pieces of chicken and when you got home, you only received 8, is that correct?"

By repeating the problem at hand, you've demonstrated your ability to the customer that you heard and understood their problem.

Listen and clarify. Never defend or justify. The customer doesn't care if you were shorthanded or if you're having a bad day, they only care that they get taken care of. No excuses, just solutions.

Apologise.
Always apologise even if you did nothing wrong. From your customers' perspective, they have a legitimate complaint, and they expect an apology. It could be as simple as "I'm sorry we've inconvenienced you." or "I know how frustrating it is to buy dinner for my family, only not to have everything there when I get home" A sincere apology will usually diffuse a lot of frustration that the customer has. There is an exception to this rule though, if a customer calls with a critical complaint, such as food poisoning, don't apologise, it may be construed as an acceptance of guilt, instead refer to your company's procedures for such events.

Satisfy.
Make it right. Ask the customer "What can I do to make this right for you"? Be the judge of what is fair of course, but allow them the opportunity to feel empowered over the situation. Many times they may ask for the problem be taken care of on their next visit or maybe that you talk to the person who made the mistake and correct them.

Thank.
At the beginning, at the end, in the middle; it doesn't matter, thank the customer for calling and complaining. Why? With the simple act of complaining, your customer is telling you "I care about your business and your success". They are giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and invite them back so they can give you more of their money. Puts a different spin on it doesn't it? Thank them for giving you that second chance, for letting you know that something in your restaurant didn't work like it normally does, for giving you the chance to make it right, and for the opportunity not to damage your reputation.

Adding B.L.A.S.T to your expanding toolbox of customer service tools will help you in dealing with customer complaints and turn them around so they can tell their friends what great service you have.

Part of good customer service is treating everyone who comes to your business with courtesy and respect. Show them that you appreciate the visit and they are important to you, even though they did not make a purchase.

Be sure that every customer complaint in your business receives a BLAST, if you would like to monitor whether or not this happens, then contact us for a trial using our Mystery Shoppers.

MCE Team.

Every so often, I am hired by a company to develop a marketing plan for its business. Yet after conducting my initial assessment, I discover that the company�s lack of a marketing plan isn�t the problem.
The real problem is the company�s poor service. For these companies, spending any money at all on marketing is like pouring wine down a sinkhole; a complete waste. If your company�s service stinks, fix that first. Then, worry about promoting your company.

The Top 7 Customer Service Mistakes.

Before learning how a company can offer world class service, it might be helpful to point out the most common service problems in business today. Fix these and your company�s reputation may well be the only marketing programme you need:

7. Not adequately training your staff.
Financial services call centres in the UK that enjoy the highest customer satisfaction levels, routinely invest 180 hours of initial training and seven hours of ongoing training every year into each agent. Does your company take its service training this serious?

6. Trying to win an argument with a customer.
Arguing with a customer is bad business. You may win the argument, but you�ll probably lose the customer. Instead, show empathy. Tell the buyer you understand how they feel and that together you�re going to find a solution to their problem.

5. Over relying on voicemail.
Customers who take the time to contact your company want to know there�s a face behind it. Work hard to get customers talking to your company�s humans, not its technology.

4. Spending too much time with chronic complainers.
Some people will never be happy with your service. If you�ve received at least three complaints from the same customer, it�s time to get rid of them, and focus on those you can help.

3. Taking criticism personally.
Most callers don�t want to attack you personally. Although they may be lashing out at you, they�re really most frustrated by the problem they face. Take their attention off you and place it squarely back on the problem.

2. Not acting like you care.
68 percent of buyer defections take place because customers feel they�ve been treated poorly. Most customers don�t expect an immediate resolution to their problem, but they do expect your concern. Routinely use terms like �sorry to keep you waiting� and �thanks for contacting us today.�

Not delivering what you promise.
Because some buyers are continually misled by companies, they�re understandably distrustful. For world class service, deliver exactly what you promise. If it�s �I�ll call you by tomorrow with the answer� or �I�ll put that in the post today,� then do it.

Be sure that your team handles every customer complaint or promise correctly, to establish whether or not this is the case, then why not use our mystery shoppers to see for yourself.

MCE Team.

I was recently reading a Harvard Business School case study on Starbucks, it talked about many facets of the Starbucks success. The part that interested me most was the difference between satisfied customers and highly satisfied customers.

For years, many businesses have aimed for customer satisfaction. However, the pot-of-gold is in the highly satisfied category�getting each and every customer to not only be loyal, but also recommend your brand.

As you wrestle with the payoff of enhancing your customer service training investment, consider these findings in the study:

The satisfied customer visits 4.3 times per month, spends �8.12 and is a customer for 4.4 years.
The highly satisfied customer visits 7.2 times per month, spends �14.84 and is a customer for 8.3 years.

Doing the maths, the satisfied customer spends �97.44 per year and is worth �428.74 over the span of their 4.4 year customer life. The highly satisfied customer spends �178.08 per year�an increase of �178.08 or 82 percent more per year�and is worth �1,478.06 over the span of their 8.3 year customer life.

As you see the most powerful force here is compound interest. In our case, the most powerful force is getting customers to be highly satisfied � an 82 percent sales increase if you can move each customer from satisfied to highly satisfied. Show me another inexpensive (if not free) way to increase your sales 82 percent!

Since many of your customers are already in the highly satisfied category, you won�t see an 82 percent increase. However, reallocate your efforts (and pounds)�stop trying to attract new customers or get the unsatisfied ones to satisfied. The big lever is moving the customers up to highly satisfied and your sales will follow.

Would you like to see whether or not your team are trying to convert the satisfied to highly satisfied? Why not use our team of mystery shoppers from any part of the UK.

MCE Team.

When was the last time you had really great customer service? Perhaps it was when you bought something in a store, checked in at a hotel or the airport; or even made an enquiry over the phone.
When I ask clients this question, they tend to respond with all sorts of great customer service stories.

They say things like - "The lady I dealt with was really warm and friendly" or "The guy in the store made me feel really important" or "They always remember my name when I go back to that shop." What al these comments have in common is that - they're all Human Level responses.

We tend to base our judgement of great customer service on how we're treated as humans. Very rarely do I hear - "The goods were delivered on time" or "They replaced my faulty items without a quibble." We tend take these Business Level responses as a given. It's the Human Level responses that influence us in terms of whether we'll use the service again and/or recommend it to others.

When dealing with other people be they Internal or External customers, it's important to open the conversation on a Human Level before doing the business; then say something during the interaction that is not about the business at hand. Then, when the business is complete, close the conversation on a Human Level. This is even more important when dealing with a customer who is upset.

People nowadays will tell you that there's no time for Human Level responses and customers, both Internal and External, want you to cut straight to the business. However a short Human Level response can speed up the business and make your life so much easier.

So there you have it; human beings have a massive need for acknowledgement. We want to know that other people care about us, that we're important and we're accepted. If we satisfy that need in others by communicating on a Human Level as well as a Business Level, then all our interactions will be much more productive.

Our team of experienced mystery shoppers can check whether or not your staff are connecting at a Human Level. Contact us now to see how easy it is.

MCE Team.

We all think we are doing well with our own customer service. With so much information available on customer service, why is service still one of the biggest complaints by customers? What is the reality? Do customers expect more than is realistic? Is it simply that good service is taken for granted, but one incident of poor service is blown out of proportion?

Perhaps we are blind to our own mistakes. Are we failing to look at our establishments from the customers' perspective? Are we satisfied with service that is just 'good enough' because we have so many other concerns to attend to?

To gain insight into some of these questions, I decided to go shopping. I resolved to visit a variety of different retailers in Edinburgh to get a sense of the level of service customers receive. In a couple of hours I managed to visit several retailers at a local shopping centre.

In general staff were occupied with re-stocking and tidying chores. My impression was that none of the shops I visited would be considered to have 'bad' service, but in general the sales staff were indifferent. They were visible, available to assist when necessary, and were competent when helping customers. Something was missing...

Most of the staff I saw lacked energy. They were quite willing to help anyone that looked like they were going to buy. They were not unfriendly, but no one appeared to be interested in actively selling, or providing more information than was specifically requested. In no case was I greeted within the first minute of entering a store.

With so many retailers providing similar products, stores need to differentiate themselves with customer service. Here are three ways you can make your establishments stand out from the competition:

1. Be energetic.
Our stores need to exude energy to attract customers. When traffic is slow we tend to slow down in our stores as well. There is less of a sense of urgency in our tasks, and the atmosphere seems a little laid back. This can be perceived by our customers as being less interested. Rather than fall into this trap, we need to keep our energy level high. Customers will be more attracted to shop in a store where the atmosphere is dynamic and positive, than one that is dull and lifeless.

2. Be selling.
Our sales staff need to be actively selling - not just processing transactions. We can't just depend on the merchandise to sell itself. Train and re-train your staff in the basics of selling: greeting, asking questions, offering product knowledge & benefits, making suggestions, closing the sale and thanking the customer. Practice turning those 'browsers' into 'buyers' now, and your staff will be well-prepared for the busy times.

3. Be personal.
If we want to stay ahead of the game, we need to be actively interested in our customers. Encourage your staff to get to know customers personally by name, and to engage in friendly conversation. Developing genuine relationships with our customers will do more to encourage repeat business and loyalty than any advertising campaign or loyalty card.

Think about the level of service in your own establishments. Instead of asking yourself if your business offers 'good' or 'bad' service - no one wants to admit to providing 'bad' service - ask yourself if you could do more to use customer service as a tool to increase sales. Just one more sale each day can add up to great sales within a month!

Would you like to see if your staff are simply going through the motions without any real energy? Why not use our team of mystery shoppers to ascertain to find out for yourself.

MCE Team.

Every customer looks for three unique benefits when they do business with you. They may not specifically ask for these benefits. But you're losing sales if you don't automatically provide all three of them.

1. Fast Results.
Prospective customers may take a long time deciding whether or not they will buy from you. But once they do decide, they expect instant results. When people buy a car they want to drive it home that day. When they sign up with a health club they expect to look and feel better by the end of the week.

Look for ways you can reduce the time your customers have to wait after a transaction before they can start enjoying the results of their buying decision. Try to deliver your product at the point of sale. When that's not possible, look for creative ways to provide a benefit your customer can start enjoying immediately.

2. Easy Procedures.
Customers want products that are easy to use, and services that produce results without disturbing their daily routine. You can increase your sales by stressing the "easy to use� characteristics of your product or service in all your promotions. Convenience and ease of use are often more important to customers than price.

Simplify your buying procedure too. Make it easier for customers to buy from you and you will get more sales.

3. Personal Attention.
Every prospect and customer wants personal attention. One way you can provide it is by giving them an opportunity to ask questions.

Only interested prospects will take the time to ask questions. Many will buy from you if they get valuable information from your answer. You can often include a promotion for your product or service as part of your answer.

Answering questions is not time consuming. The same questions will be repeated over and over again. But you only have to answer each question once if you save your answer to a permanent file. Copy it into your reply whenever you get that same question again ...and revise it slightly to personalise your response. You can answer questions quickly and your prospects will appreciate your personal attention.

Every customer wants fast results, easy procedures and personal attention. Most won't ask for these benefits. But they won't buy from you unless they get them. Make sure you provide all three of these special benefits ...and look for ways to improve the quality of each. Then watch how quickly your sales increase.

Mystery Customer Evaluations can monitor whether or not your team and following these easy processes. Why not start using a mystery shopping company today?

MCE Team.

As technology advancements in e-commerce, automated telephone menus, e-mails, instant messaging and mobile phones have made us more �reachable�; then how have we still lost touch with our customers.

Service Oriented businesses have gotten lazy! Today a few lucky people still have relationships with their bank manager, financial advisor, and other service organisations they interact with. The majority have a relationship with their bank machine or an on-line web form.

This lack of supporting the customer makes your customers fickle. If they can get it cheaper, faster, and easier somewhere else they will jump ship. Why? Why not? Your customers are just a number in your organisation, there are little to no relationships built, so why would they want to be loyal to your business?

So let�s throw technology out the door, hire loads of people, and drive up operational costs! Nope, that�s not what I�m saying. As we go more and more hi-tech we need to remain hi-touch.

As part of your organisations culture teach your staff:
1. How to answer a phone
2. How to shake hands
3. That everyone is a potential customer
4. That selling is not calling someone out of the blue
5. That relationships are key in an ever impersonal world

Five simple steps that will bring you some great results in your business. If youd like our team of mystery shoppers to see if this happens, then contact us now for a free same day estimate.

MCE Team.

Most towns have at least one �flashpoint� business a place that�s famous for its turbo-charged workers and cues of eager customers. These are the local hot spots that are always jumping, places in which employee motivation and customer satisfaction fuel each other.

But flashpoint businesses don�t just happen by accident. They have to be made to happen. If there aren�t many such businesses, it can only be because so few owners and managers understand the simple 4 step process for creating a flashpoint culture in their own workplaces.

Not convinced such a process could be that simple? Not sure any such process could ever work in your own business setting? Here�s a quick and easy way to find out.

Step 1: Invite your employees to come up with some ideas for improving the customer experience. For this process to work, the ideas for changes in behaviour or procedure need to come from the staff themselves. The old way is to dictate in memos or training programmes the kinds of behaviours management wants employees to adopt, and then try to legislate these new behaviours into the workplace. Employees will only get behind a change if it�s one they believe in. And employees are always more likely to believe in a change if the idea for it comes from themselves, instead of their bosses.

Step 2: Choose one employee idea, and help the employee implement it successfully. The objective is to make the worker who came up with the idea look like heroes in the customers eyes. If there are costs associated with the idea, helping with implementation will mean providing funding for it. (Think of this cost as an investment in positive word-of-mouth, the most effective form of advertising on the planet). If the idea requires changing a policy or procedure, do everything possible to make the change. Eliminate all obstacles to successful implementation of the employees� initiative.

Step 3: Make it easy for customers to give positive feedback about the new initiative. It�s always good business practice to hear what your customers have to say�but few businesses make it convenient and easy for customers to give feedback on a regular basis. To test this process, make a point of soliciting feedback that relates specifically to the idea the employees implemented. Use various methods to collect feedback, especially that most powerful method of all: simple face-to-face conversation with the customers themselves.

Step 4: Let the employee bask in the motivational effect of the positive feedback. This is where the magic begins. Let�s say an employee came up with the idea of installing a bench so senior citizens would no longer have to stand while waiting in line. When delighted seniors begin to rave about the convenience of the bench, tell them, "This bench was actually Terry�s idea. In fact, Terry, could you come over here for a moment�these folks would like to tell you something about your bench"

And now watch the effect this feedback has on Terry. You�re watching the first spark of the flashpoint effect: customer satisfaction driving up employee motivation, and employee motivation driving up customer satisfaction.

Once you�ve seen how well the process works, apply it again. And again. Keep the ball rolling by holding regular employee brainstorming sessions to come up with a rich supply of new ways to delight customers. Not every idea will be implemented, of course, but make sure enough are implemented to keep the positive customer feedback flowing in. And give your workers opportunities to hear this feedback directly from their customers. Immediate positive feedback from delighted customers is the primary motivational fuel all flashpoint businesses use to keep the fires of employee enthusiasm burning bright.

Four simple steps that will amaze you and your staff. If you would like assistance with implementing this concept, then e-mail us now, we can set up a mystery shopper inititive that can assist you with these flash points.

MCE Team.

We all think we are doing well with our own customer service. With so much information available on customer service, why is service still one of the biggest complaints by customers? What is the reality? Do customers expect more than is realistic? Is it simply that good service is taken for granted, but one incident of poor service is blown out of proportion?

Perhaps we are blind to our own mistakes. Are we failing to look at our establishments from the customers' perspective? Are we satisfied with service that is just 'good enough' because we have so many other concerns to attend to?

To gain insight into some of these questions, I decided to go shopping. I resolved to visit a variety of different retailers in London to get a sense of the level of service customers receive. In a couple of hours I managed to visit several retailers on Oxford Street.

In general staff were occupied with re-stocking and tidying chores. My impression was that none of the shops I visited would be considered to have 'bad' service, but in general the sales staff were indifferent. They were visible, available to assist when necessary, and were competent when helping customers. Something was missing...

Most of the staff I saw lacked energy. They were quite willing to help anyone that looked like they were going to buy. They were not unfriendly, but no one appeared to be interested in actively selling, or providing more information than was specifically requested. In no case was I greeted within the first minute of entering a store.

With so many retailers providing similar products, stores need to differentiate themselves with customer service. Here are three ways you can make your establishments stand out from the competition:

1. Be energetic.
Our stores need to exude energy to attract customers. When traffic is slow we tend to slow down in our stores as well. There is less of a sense of urgency in our tasks, and the atmosphere seems a little laid back. This can be perceived by customers as being less interested. Rather than fall into this trap, we need to keep our energy level high. Customers will be more attracted to shop in a store where the atmosphere is dynamic and positive, than one that is dull and lifeless.

2. Be selling.
Our sales staff need to be actively selling - not just processing transactions. We can't just depend on the merchandise to sell itself. Train and re-train your staff in the basics of selling: greeting, asking questions, offering product knowledge and benefits, making suggestions, closing the sale and thanking the customer. Practice turning those 'browsers' into 'buyers' now, and your staff will be well-prepared for the busy times.

3. Be personal.
If we want to stay ahead of the game, we need to be actively interested in our customers. Encourage your staff to get to know customers personally by name, and to engage in friendly conversation. Developing genuine relationships with our customers will do more to encourage repeat business and loyalty than any advertising campaign or loyalty card.

Think about the level of service in your own establishments. Instead of asking yourself if your business offers 'good' or 'bad' service - no one wants to admit to providing 'bad' service - ask yourself if you could do more to use customer service as a tool to increase sales. Just one more sale each day can add up to great sales for within a month!


To find out if your company is delivering the basics or exceeding customers expectations, then why not start a mystery shopper programme. Our team of mystery shoppers can check this and more for a small investment per unit.

MCE Team.

Discover the benefits of customer focus and the link with customer loyalty and profitability.
Has this ever happened to you? You're in a hurry. You want to complete your business and the person serving you is preoccupied with something other than serving you. Then when you are served, you might get an insincere apology for the delay followed by the completion of your transaction. If asked to describe this experience you would likely respond "That's typical" or "It's nothing more and probably a little less than I expected."

Welcome to the world of the average consumer.
Most people will probably tell you that good service is just common sense. They would also invariably say "For something so common, it sure is hard to find!". Research from a litany of reliable sources tells us that the primary reason that customers switch their loyalty from one company to another, in the range of 40% to 68%, is because of a perceived attitude of indifference on the part of the service provider. Sure, some leave because of price, or product quality, or other personal reasons; but the vast majority leave because of Poor Service.

These days, customers are really in the driver�s seat. The options and choices of similar products at similar prices at similar quality levels are greater than ever.

Advances in technology, reductions in production time and access to global distribution mean that products and services can be duplicated and customized faster than ever before. And your customers know this.

Consumers have more choices than ever before. This creates an interesting challenge. How do you create value when customers today are not seeing much difference in the choices they are offered

Customers tend to look at value from four perspectives:
Price of the product or service
Quality of the product or service,
Innovation offered by the product
Service provided to customers.

The quality of products continues to improve universally and competitors have developed the ability to duplicate even the most complex of those products. Innovation attracts younger consumers but no sooner do we see one innovation, than someone else comes along and clones it plus adds a few more bells and whistles.

Consider the evolution of the flat screen LCD TV. A couple of years ago, few could afford such a luxury item. Now there are LCD TVs to fit a wide range of budgets. And in addition to the traditional manufacturers of televisions, it seems that any one who manufactures computers also has their own LCD TV.

Developing a competitive advantage based solely on product quality and/or innovation is very difficult. And sustaining it is very expensive. You will also find that there is more price parity today than ever before. Very few companies can compete for long using price as a differentiating factor. By shifting your emphasis to service quality, you will find the greatest room for differentiation.

For most companies, customer loyalty is the key to future profitability and growth. Corporate newsletters, national periodicals, and most executive speeches are peppered with a litany of examples demonstrating the relationship between customer loyalty and profitability. In almost every market we've learned that retained customers:

Are less expensive to serve because they know their role in the process.
Tend to lower marketing costs.
Often purchase more over time.
Are open to purchasing new and different products as they are offered.

Clearly, customers value service and whether they get good service or not, they expect it. If they don�t receive service at a level that meets their expectations, they will go elsewhere until they find it. Whether the economy is on the down swing or the upswing, no one can afford to lose customers. One way to monitor this is through Mystery Shopping your units.

MCE Team.

Trust is not earned easily and when it comes to gaining the trust of your clients, there are some important steps to be followed..

"You don't have to like your banker, you just have to trust him". I read this quote of Honore Balzac in an article on the web recently. Even today. Balzac, a French writer, who was born in 1799. Some things don't change!

Watching Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Citibank and Bank of America, it�s hard to trust banks and the financial industry as a whole today. And that feeling of distrust pervades the business environment today and affects the relationships you are trying to build when you network.

The dictionary defines trust as "assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something". In his book, "Endless Referrals", Bob Berg says that people do business with people they "know, like and trust."

So if the people you network with are not sure about trusting you, what can you do to earn their trust?

Establishing trust is at the heart of relationship building and that is what networking is all about. Here are three important steps to help you build trusting relationships.

The first step in building the relationship is to listen to the other person. It is imperative that you clearly understanding their needs. As simple as this sounds, it is often difficult for people to be quiet long enough for the other person to say what he/she has to say.

The second step in building a positive relationship with someone is to adjust your communication style to that person's style. People tend to trust people who are more like themselves so it is important to adapt your style to theirs.

If you are speaking with someone who is very goal oriented and competitive the person won't waste time with small talk. They�ll want to get straight to business. People with this style are in a hurry and won't like it if you slow them down. Networking with them will be very different than
networking with someone who is a people person and loves to talk.

Finally it is most important that you deliver on your promises. Once you are clear on the person's needs and make a promise to deliver something, be sure to fulfil that commitment on time every time. Follow the lead of Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks who says in his book "Pour Your Heart Into It": "Every step of the way, I made a point to under promise and over deliver. In the long run, that's the only way to ensure security in any job."

In the current environment gaining the trust of people can be more difficult. In spite of the current cynicism you can still build your network through steady consistent networking and adhering to these three steps: listen carefully, notice and adjust to the other person's communication style and
deliver on your promises.

Mystery shopping is a great way to establish whether there�s any elements of trust in your business. A mystery shopper programme can determine whether or not the �Promise of satisfaction guarantee� offered by you, is actually delivered.

Contact us now for a free Mystery Customer Evaluation.

By Julian Knight Consumer affairs reporter, BBC News

Mystery shopping has a long history in the UK.
The first mystery shoppers were employed 60 years ago to check financial advisers were doing an honest job. The Financial Services Authority still uses shoppers in this role from time to time.

Over the past decade mystery shoppers have been increasingly used by retailers, utilities and even the public sector.

"Mystery shopping offers a great deal to businesses. Crucially it gives managers a means to test their staff training...it also allows them check on the general ambience, store layout, stock handling and health and safety issues," says Dale Atkinson, spokesman for the British Retail Consortium. "It (mystery shopping) should be an ongoing thing, firms checking that the service they offer is most competitive. Anything to give you an advantage on the High Street" Mr. Atkinson added.

Why not increase your competitive advantage by utilising our mystery shopping skills to increase sales, and ultimately profit.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.

By Steve Ranger

UK online retailers are still letting down web shoppers where it comes to customer service.

In a mystery-shopper exercise conducted by customer service software maker Talisma, 45 per cent of retailers failed to reply to customer emails - and only 47 per cent of those who did provided accurate and complete information in their response.

The company contacted 62 UK online retailers via email and asked them to provide details of their shipment charges, and to find out which credit and debit cards could be used to make payments on their sites.

While all 62 retailers encouraged internet users to contact them via email, 45 per cent failed to respond to these enquiries at all.

According to the survey, health and beauty retailers provided the best customer experience, with all emails and phone calls answered promptly and accurate information given in all cases. UK supermarket chains and toy retailers also fared better than average.

But Talisma said the clothing and accessories retailers contacted provided "a pitiful level of service", with only 23 per cent of emails responded to - and only 31 per cent of retailers providing accurate information via email.

The most successful online retailers will be the ones that respond to enquiries immediately with accurate information, treat every potential customer as an individual and interact with them through the channel of their choice, said Talisma.

Why not let our team of online mystery shoppers evaluate the customer service skills of your team. Contact us now for an instant same day quote.

Mystery Customer Evaluations Team.

Brian Wisdom, chief executive of People 1st, thinks about the impact good customer service can have on business.

The National Skills Academy of Hospitality�s recent Mystery Shopper campaign got me thinking about what excellent customer service actually looks and feels like. And how can you differentiate excellent service from very good service when people will have very different views?

I�d be interested to hear about how others make that distinction. For me, excellent service must have the X-factor. It�s not about the culmination of boxes ticked but about how the service made me feel and whether the person providing that service was clearly motivated in their work and enjoying engaging with me.

So, I was heartened to read the story about the family who traveled over 20 miles, several times a week, just for a taste of a restaurant�s strawberry tart and own blend of coffee. Obviously the restaurant was doing something right and had that elusive X-factor.

But providing good customer service shouldn�t be a mystery. It should be common sense - efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of the service, providing a memorable experience with warmth and sincerity, and actually enjoying the job. And everyone within an organisation should be collectively responsible. So often the managers and supervisors set the tone.

The Academy has taken the opportunity to launch a positive campaign that aims to identify excellence in customer service and showcase the best within the industry rather than yet another �name and shame� list.

As a nation, the Brits aren�t generally very good at celebrating success. But as the Academy�s Mystery Shopper findings highlight, there are some very good and strong examples around. Forty-nine businesses surveyed scored well over 90 per cent in the satisfaction stakes while most scored an average of 72 per cent.

Yet, we shouldn�t be too complacent. Britain�s biggest �staycation� this summer will be a good test of whether we�re up to delivering world class customer service as we edge towards the 2012 London Olympic Games. I�d like to think we can as it�s a great opportunity for the UK to shine on the global stage.

We have ambitious targets to meet and People 1st has recently launched two new customer service qualifications to galvanise frontline hospitality and travel staff into delivering the ultimate customer experience. The qualifications last one day and come in two levels: Level 2 for frontline staff focuses on excellent customer service procedures and behaviours and Level 3, a qualification for managerial and supervisory staff which includes modules on coaching and facilitating skills, return on coaching investment and the challenges of managing teams. We believe they should make a significant difference to the quality of service delivered to customers.

Now my challenge to you is to think what you can do to make your customers� day more satisfying when you wake up and enjoy the positive impact it�s had. You could try our Mystery Customer Evaluation programe through our national database of mystery shoppers.

MCE Team.

We now suffer more stress and related health problems from the cumulative effects of bad customer service than from other common stresses such as work, family, debt or technology, according to a new report from First Direct.

A massive 87% of respondents say they often feel stress when faced with poor customer service, according to 'From retail therapy to stress therapy', a report examining customer service stress by stress expert, Dr Roger Henderson, consultant adviser.

The result is potentially serious physical and psychological symptoms - such as high blood pressure, palpitations, headaches, nausea, mood swings and anxiety - with a consequent impact on our relationships with friends and family.

The report identified that customers are suffering from "time-sapping". This is when ineffective companies force us to spend our valuable time dealing with mundane service issues, causing feelings of powerlessness and lack of control.

First Direct has identified five customer types and their reactions to dealing with stressful customer service:

The Ostrich: The thought of dealing with bad customer service can be enough to dissuade the Ostrich from tackling it, resulting in a greater amount of stress in the long run. They should do one thing to sort out the problem as soon as it arises.

The Bull: The Bull charges into any conflict situation with energy and self confidence and will not rest until a customer service problem is sorted. However, Bulls should try to keep a perspective when they have been let down by a service provider.

The Dove: The Dove is likely to float above the situation, not avoiding the issues at hand, but not allowing themselves to be affected. But they may be bottling up their emotion, and the lack of urgency may mean some situations are not sorted out as quickly as they could be. An occasional rant will lead to a better result for the Dove.

The Parrott: This personality rants and raves about their bad customer service situations. Having released all their anger to anyone who will listen, they rarely have enough energy left to sort out the problem. Parrotts should channel their energies, working out the practical things they need to do to make the situation work for them.

The Mouse: The mouse rarely complains, however badly they are treated, and on the rare occasion they do, they often end up apologising. But these people may be seething with rage on the inside. A mouse should practice a few phrases to press a service provider to come up with a solution.

One in ten of us (10%) suffer sleepless nights, a similar number (9%) end up in tears, (6%) resort to physical aggression and one in twenty (4%) experience chests pains as a result of poor customer service. Four Fifths (81%) experience frustration and (50%) anger.

Dr Henderson said : "paradoxically, 'retail therapy' is so called due to its potential to promote well being, with the average shopper seeking relief from everyday pressures while enjoying the purchase of new goods or services. But appalling service experiences are adding to the stress levels and making the nation ill"

Why not check your symptom by having mystery customer evaluations undertake covert mystery shops in your units to see what the results are.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team

Mystery shopping or Mystery Consumer is a tool used by market research companies to measure quality of retail service or gather specific information about products and services. Mystery shoppers posing as normal customers perform specific tasks�such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way � and then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experiences.

Mystery shopping began in the 1940s as a way to measure employee integrity. Tools used for mystery shopping assessments range from simple questionnaires to complete audio and video recordings. Many mystery shopping companies are completely administered through the Internet, allowing potential mystery shoppers to use the Internet to register for participation, find mystery shopping jobs and receive payment.

The most common venues where mystery shopping is used are retail stores, movie theaters, restaurants, fast food chains, banks, gas stations, car dealerships, apartments and health clubs, as well as health care facilities. In the UK, mystery shopping is increasingly used to provide feedback on customer services provided by local authorities and other non-profit organisations, such as housing associations

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Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.

When a client company comes on board with a company providing Mystery Shopping services, a survey model will be drawn up and agreed to which defines what information and improvement factors the client company wishes to measure as part of the mystery shopping process. These are then drawn up into survey instruments and assignments that are allocated to shoppers registered with the mystery shopping company in question.

Some of the common details and information points shoppers:

the date and time of the pre-visit phone call
the name of the store on each side of the store visited
number of employees in the store on entering
how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted
the name of the employee(s)
whether or not the greeting is friendly
the questions asked by the shopper to find a suitable product
the types of products shown
if or how the employee attempted to close the sale
whether the employee invited the shopper to come back to the store
cleanliness of store and store associates
speed of service
compliance with company standards relating to service, store appearance, and grooming/presentation
Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue (known as scenarios). For instance, mystery shoppers at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping services. Not all mystery shopping scenarios include a purchase.

While gathering information, shoppers usually blend in to the store being evaluated as regular shoppers. They may sometimes be required to take photographs or measurements, return purchases, or count the number of products, seats, people during the visit. A timer or a stopwatch may be required. In some states, mystery shoppers must also be licensed as private investigators in order to perform some of the tasks.

From there, the shopper will then submit the data collected to the Mystery shopping company in question. The data is then reviewed and analyzed before quantitative and qualitative statistical [analysis] reports on the data are then returned to the client company that enables measurement against the previously defined criteria.

Would you like to see detailed analysis of your companies sales and service scores. Contact us now to arrange some mystery shopping evaluations in your units, by our team of mystery customers.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.

The mystery shopping industry had an estimated value of nearly $600 million in the United States in 2004, according to a 2005 report commissioned by the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA).

Companies that participated in the report experienced an average growth of 11.1 percent from 2003 to 2004, compared to an average growth of 12.2 percent. The report estimates more than 8.1 million mystery shops were conducted in 2004. The report represents the first industry association attempt to quantify the size of the mystery shopping industry. Similar surveys are available for European regions where mystery shopping is becoming more embedded into company procedures.[3]

As a measure of its importance, customer/patient satisfaction is being incorporated more frequently into executive pay. A study by a U.S. firm found more than 55% of hospital chief executive officers surveyed in 2005 had "some compensation at risk," based on patient satisfaction, up from only 8% to 20% a dozen years ago."[4]

CBC Television's news magazine program Marketplace ran a segment on this topic during a January 2001 episode.

Ethics
American Medical Association Mystery Shopping Recommendation
In June 2008, the The American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs released a recommendation on the use of "secret shopper patients" in the Medical / Healthcare. The Recommendation: "Physicians have an ethical responsibility to engage in activities that contribute to continual improvements in patient care. One method for promoting such quality improvement is through the use of secret shopper �patients� who have been appropriately trained to provide feedback about physician performance in the clinical setting

You could make your teams fee�s performance related. Simply marry them up with your mystery shopper results from your mystery shopping evaluations and pay accordingly.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.

It's not as simple as being paid to do your weekly shopping, if only! You're normally asked to complete an assignment at a specified store, or restaurant, or hotel and to act out a scenario whilst posing as a normal customer. The job involves assessing staff performance, customer service and store tidiness and cleanliness. You might also be asked to check on merchandising or asked to audit a store in some way. Each assignment is different, depending on the needs of the client. But the one thing you must never do is reveal yourself as a mystery shopper - posing as a normal customer is essential!

Some assignments require you to make a purchase to assess customer service and efficiency at the till, some may ask you to return a purchase to evaluate the stores return/refund policy. Some scenarios may involve asking a simple 'product knowledge' type question, to assess the knowledge of a staff member. Be prepared to be flexible!

How do Mystery Shopping Companies select their shoppers? Is there an interview process?

The selection process differs from company to company (and there are several MS companies in the UK). The majority ask that you complete a detailed application form and may then expect you to complete a 'test' shop to determine your observational and reporting skills. A few may require a face-to-face interview, but in my experience, this is pretty rare. One of the companies I am registered with rang me out of the blue for a phone interview, but again, this isn't common. These days, most MS Companies have taken advantage of internet technology which means that potential shoppers can apply online.

Do you ever meet the company face to face?

In my experience, this is fairly rare. One or two companies I have approached have asked me to attend an Open Day to learn more about the company and the way it operates, followed by a formal interview. In most cases, work is allocated to you either online or by telephone or in writing from your area allocator. You'll possibly get to know voices very well, but not necessarily faces! Some Companies have no vetting procedures at all; you simply complete an online application form and are accepted immediately.

Is it difficult to be selected?

Being selected will depend on a number of factors, but first and foremost, your geographical area. If the company already has a lot of shoppers employed near you, then they may not want new recruits. It's always best to check with the company concerned that they have a need for shoppers in your town before filling out lengthy application forms.

You will also need to show commitment, have a very good memory and excellent observational and report writing skills. You must also be prepared to work to strict deadlines and return your reports as soon as possible after completing each assignment, normally the same day or the day after at the latest! Flexibility and enthusiasm are a must!

Can you make a full time living out of mystery shopping?

MS is rarely full time and work is normally allocated on an ad hoc basic. You may be offered lots of assignments one week, and then nothing for a month or two. It's a great means of supplementing your income or an opportunity to earn a few extra pennies in your spare time. If you register with as many MS companies as you can, your chances of receiving a lot of assignments will increase. And one nice thing, you are never obligated to accept any assignment offered to you, so you can pick and choose! However, if you show willing in the first instance, and accept pretty much all of the assignments you are offered, it may help you in the long run to secure the 'most wanted' types of assignments, as you will have proven yourself to be reliable and committed.

Does mystery shopping always involve physically visiting stores?

Not always! Mystery Shopping can take many forms, one of the most popular currently being telephone mystery shopping. This involves ringing an organisation or Company and assessing how well you are dealt with, the staff members' knowledge, the manner towards you, and courtesy etc.

Some companies offer covert video mystery shopping, where you actually film the staff and shop interior with a concealed camera, whilst acting out your scenario. This is a great (and sneaky) way of really seeing how well staff deals with customers!

Does every company use a standard report or questionnaire?

No, each company has its own way of obtaining results and each will have its own report format. Some are just tick sheets; others require lots of comments and detail. A lot of Companies like you to enter your feedback via an online reporting system, but a few still prefer the old-fashioned paper, ink and snail mail option! So it's important that you can record your findings in an objective and detailed way. Some Companies will call you, to take your feedback over the telephone.

Does it pay well?

Pay rates differ from company to company, but as a general guide, telephone assessments pay on average between �1 and �5, physical mystery shopping visits pay up to �12 per assignment, and covert video mystery shopping up to �25 per visit. Each job comes with its own fee dependent on the amount of work involved. Some Companies also refund your travelling expenses (public transport at cost, a mileage allowance averaging about 22p per mile and car parking charges) and all will refund any necessary purchases, although current trends have seen a reduction in mileage allowances. All Companies refund the majority of required purchases, although some will set a maximum reimbursement level.

What�s the best thing about being a Mystery Shopper?

It's fun and it's varied. You never know when the phone is going to ring offering you a job at your favourite local restaurant, pub, hotel, or clothes shop and so on. The brief for each job differs each time and you find yourself discovering outlets that you may not have come across before. You get to travel to local towns and cities and see new sights, eat at different restaurants and pubs (with most costs refunded!) and are paid for the privilege too - in some cases!

What's the worst?

There are a number of factors you should consider. Some jobs are very poorly paid for the amount of detail you have to remember and record. Some jobs offer a reimbursement level that is difficult to keep within. Deadlines are often very tight and you should never accept an assignment unless you are 100% sure you can complete it in the required time. Sometimes scenarios don�t pan out the way you expect, or a staff member may suspect you of being a mystery shopper - don't ever let on that you are, always plead ignorance! You have to be flexible and be able to think on your feet. It can be tiring, and stressful and can involve travelling a good distance. One other negative factor is that some assignments may require you to make a major purchase, and although you will be reimbursed, bear in mind that this can sometimes take several weeks, depending on pay schedules.

What advice would you give to those thinking of becoming mystery shoppers?

If you're looking for an easy way to make a fast buck, MS is not for you. But if you're diligent, have a good memory, pay close attention to detail and can write objective reports, then this is one line of part time work that you should thoroughly enjoy. Work is varied, if intermittent, and fun in the main. Once you've had a taste of a few assignments, apply to more companies to try and increase the scope of work available to you. Be prepared to be flexible, accept a few of the less desirable jobs and you may just be offered that sought after expensive hotel stay as a valued reliable shopper!

Louise has explained what mystery shopping entails and how to be a good mystery shopper, follow these rules and you wont go wrong.

Mystery Customer Evaluation Team.