Many small-business owners are new to the world of mystery shopping. They understand the gist in that that people are sent in to evaluate various aspects of their customer experience, but beyond that generalization, much of what companies like The Brandt Group do remains a mystery—forgive the pun.
We value transparency, so let’s take some time today to demystify some aspects of the mystery-shopping process so that you are better informed when it comes time for you to work with a company like ours:
The Nature of Shoppers
Mystery shoppers are almost always regular people, oftentimes recruited from within your own clientele. They are likely to have careers in completely different industries than your business, and are going be looking at your sales and customer-service processes from an outsider’s perspective.
This is ideal. While there are certainly professional mystery shoppers who specialize in specific industries or even just in the art of evaluating customer service, we find these folks are rarely as useful as your average Joes and Janes. After all, your customers are rarely experts themselves, so why would you want feedback from people who are so different from your normal customers?
What’s Measured
As a consequence of being regular people, and not industry experts, shoppers are best at measuring their experiences from a layperson’s perspective rather than expounding on the technicalities that only insiders appreciate. For example, most people are not wine aficionados—they may enjoy wine, but they’re not trained as sommeliers. The average person will be able to relate how well they thought the wine waiter did in explaining his recommendations—rather than give a technical analysis of a wine portfolio.
In truth, a layperson’s kind of evaluation is the most useful. We suspect you are already an expert in your own industry, so you don’t need to have someone lecture you on the ins-and-outs of what you do. What you really want to know is whether people are having a positive experience overall, and that your employees are well trained in your policies.
The Whole vs. the Sum of Its Parts
So, the outsider’s perspective is critical. Because business owners are usually so well-versed in their industries, they’re more likely to miss the forest for the trees. Company leadership often falls into the trap of obsessing over details and nuance rather than seeing the big picture. The risk is that a lot of little things might be great—perfect, even—but the way it all gels together is disappointing.
Perhaps your business’s customer experience requires a lot of individual steps, including having your salespeople give your customers an education on your product offerings, making sure to offer add-ons and upgrades, and capturing contact information for follow-ups. These are all important, but if your customer isn’t prepared for the time investment, he or she may end up frustrated.
That’s why it’s so important to get a normal point-of-view. If they’re not privy to the inside baseball of it all, then they can tell you why a process is not working well for them. This feedback can help you make sure your employees are trained to set the right kinds of expectations rather than just assuming that because something makes sense to you, it should make sense to someone else.
What Kind of Expertise Matters
While the mystery shoppers are rarely experts in a given industry, they are experts at what they like and don’t like. And just as importantly, we at The Brandt Group know what to target with our audits. We make sure we ask the right questions to get you the answers you need to take your customer experience to the next level. That’s what we’re experts at. We don’t presume to know your industry better than you, of course, nor will our shoppers. But we do have insights about salesmanship and customer service from our 30 years of experience.
So, let us share our knowledge and resources with you. Drop us a line here, and we’ll answer any lingering questions you might have about how mystery shopping works. Moreover, when you’re ready, we’ll get started on designing a program that’s custom-tailored to your business so that you can get the kinds of actionable feedback that will capture customer loyalty and enhance profits for years to come.
