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The customer experience is gaining more ground as a form of retention and loyalty. In fact, according to Bain & Company, companies with outstanding customer experience see their revenues grow 4-8% above their market.
A strategy not so well known, but used for years, to identify flaws in the process and correct them with a view to improving satisfaction, is to hire a mystery shopper.
In a recent post, we saw the Customer Journey Map as an effective way to evaluate and improve the shopper experience of your business.
But, with the mystery shopper, you will get an external perspective of the problem, which sometimes is more assertive or at least complements the one from within the organization.
What is a Mystery Shopper?
The mystery or hidden customer is a person who acts as a regularconsumer of your company, while conducting a thorough evaluation of the quality of your business service processes, to correct possible failures.
This person is hired by the company and is in charge of verifying, among many other aspects, the response capacity, empathy, facilities, environment, regulations, service channels, among many other aspects.
Act from anonymity and analyze everything concerning the purchase process in each channel you have available. Then, it will deliver a report with its findings and recommendations so that you can implement the improvements as soon as possible.
Benefits of Hiring a Mystery Shopper?
You will know from a direct source, the vision that the client has about your different service channels.
It will help you reduce the complaints and claims that bring so many inconveniences to the company.
Improves customer loyalty, therefore, sales are increased while reducing acquisition costs.
You will be able to identify new forms of sales or needs that you had not previously perceived.
You will have a better perspective on the training needs of your sales and support team.
You will be able to check how the campaigns are developed, as well as the new implementations, to correct along the way.
You will identify those standards that do not add value to your processes and generate new ones that improve customer satisfaction.
How is the Profile of a Mystery Shopper?
It is not about hiring anyone, because you will not get the expected results. The hidden client must first of all be someone who meets the criteria of your ideal client, so that it does not arouse suspicion among your workers or collaborators.
On the other hand, you must be very clear about what is expected of your sales process and even, you must have a perspective of what your competition offers, to show you what your business does not do and what you should implement as soon as possible.
In the personal aspect, you must show high capacity for organization and analysis to identify even small details that affect the processes. So it must be an experienced person when it comes to purchases on the sales channels that your business has.
It has to be very skillful so as not to generate suspicion, but at the same time, try to capture as much data about your customer service processes.
What is the Process that a Mystery Shopper must follow?
There are many aspects that the bearer of this profile must evaluate when interacting with your business. Let’s see some of them:
Characteristics of your stores or premises
When it comes to physical stores, the hidden client is in charge of evaluating the environment, if it has adequate lighting, the aroma, if cleanliness is observed in each of its spaces, type of music, disposition of vendors and merchandise demonstrators.
While in an online store you will evaluate its appearance, layout of banners and products, lead magnets, location of service channels, among others.
The clients
This person will be in charge of observing what the customer’s interaction is like, how they dress, how their expression is during the sales process and what courtesies were received with it.
From the point of view of an electronic store, it is difficult to observe the expression of the customer when acting from anonymity. But, you can have a perspective through the rating systems or comments that they leave on the products and services.
In this way, the vision of the process can be completed.
The employees
The mystery shopper will be attentive to how long it took to offer an answer, how was the greeting, how the conversation unfolds, if mastery over the request was demonstrated, the hours of attention, among other aspects.
The shopping experience
One of the most important factors in the process. This profile will be in charge of evaluating how many steps were necessary to make a purchase, the available payment methods, difficulty of the process, suggestions made by customers, billing, emails, security, dropped links, among other aspects.
However, the mystery shopper will also be able to evaluate how customers behave with respect to promotions and other activities that aim to improve the connection to increase sales.
Conclusions
The mystery Shopper is a profile that can bring multiple benefits to a business, as it will help to identify possible failures in processes, sales funnels or at any other point of customer interaction with the company.
By using this profile, you can get an external view of any problem that affects the sales of a business and decreases customer loyalty.
This can help to have a clear vision of the customer’s perspective, reduce complaints, claims, improve loyalty, get new opportunities, identify training needs, check implemented strategies, reformulate standards, among others.
It must be a person who is located within the ideal client profile, so that they do not raise suspicions, capable of analyzing the details, who can even have interaction with the competition’s channels, so that they achieve a broad perspective and generate high-value proposals .
It will be in charge of evaluating from the physical aspects of the store, the behavior of the clients, how the workers act, what the purchasing process is like, among other aspects.
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