Stress Test Customer Service with Mystery Shopping

Getting Started

With all this in mind, any company hiring a mystery shopping services provider needs, first and foremost, to identify what it considers to be the truly important customer service characteristics and the objectives of providing phone support. Next, the firm should work with the mystery shopping services provider to incorporate those variables into the survey questionnaires and to devise the shopping experiences that the mystery shoppers will act out. The MSPA suggests that this scenario should be realistic, representing a natural consumer behavior that can be carried out convincingly by the mystery shopper.

To be fair to the agent, the scenario should also involve processes that fit within her job description and for which she has been properly trained, according to the MSPA.

The association also advises that "to be ethical," the staff at the location being tested "must have been advised that their performance may be checked from time to time through mystery shopping."

Having employees know they can be mystery shopped at any time often translates to immediate behavioral changes: Since they don't know which calls are from real customers and which ones are from mystery shoppers, they tend to be on their best behavior with every call they handle.

As for the types of calls they make, Furrie suggests mystery shoppers begin with the basics. "If your [call center] can't get the general stuff right, the more advanced stuff is not going to be right either," she says.

Once the firm settles on what shoppers will look for, the mystery shopping company will then select shoppers with the appropriate expertise. With hundreds of thousands of mystery shoppers available throughout the United States and Canada, service providers can match any company's customer profile or geographic characteristics to guarantee a recognizable area code, dialect, and regional familiarity. This adds credibility to the mystery shopping call.

"Mystery shopping is a very horizontal plan of action," Denston says. "You can get shoppers of all races and backgrounds."

The contact center must determine how many calls are to be made and over what period of time. At the least, it should consider the number of agents, hours of operation, and call volume.

It is universally accepted across the industry that mystery shopping needs to be done multiple times, at different times of the day, and on different days of the week to catch a broader sample of agents.

Furrie, who got her start in the call center industry, says most of her clients do regular testing, starting small and then scaling up once they see the value in the reports provided. "They try it, they like it, and it becomes a part of their regular processes," she says.

Confero's Morrison also suggests running tests repeatedly. "It's always good to have an ongoing program so you can see how employees improve over time," she says.

Spreading out the mystery shopping phone calls also ensures that the test will hit the right mix of employees. Clients often want the mystery shoppers to target specific employees, but that is usually next to impossible to do without arousing suspicion. "It's often the luck of the draw who picks up the call that comes in," Furrie says.

SCI's Bell also recommends continued service checks just because turnover in the contact center industry is so high.

And then, it's important to have clearly defined goals of what to do with the information that the mystery shopping uncovers. Most professionals in the field agree that mystery shopping should not be used for punishment. On its Web site, the MSPA clearly states that mystery shopping "must not be used as the sole justification for dismissals and reprimands."

"The key to successful mystery shopping is not to use it as a big hammer from above," Paynter adds. "Use it instead as a training tool and to reward great performance. Use it to recraft your scripting, for training, and to build best practices."

As a final caveat, Denston suggests that companies looking to hire a mystery shopping firm should look for one with experience. More important, though, "look for a real partner," he states emphatically. "With any business-to-business relationship, you want to work with someone you can feel comfortable with."

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News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.

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