Jay Goltz for the New York Times published a great piece on reforming your customer experience program. Goltz boils it down to what we know is the key to improving customer service: employee training.

Customer experience programs are not simply great ideas drawn on the whiteboard or brainstormed in the boardroom. Solid customer experience programs are formed through training and education. The retail industry is constantly evolving. Our customers are changing their shopping behaviors, the economy dips and rises, and new technology regularly unfolds, all of which require ever vigilant attention to our customer experience.

Goltz summaries the three essential areas of customer service: Desire, Hiring, and Training. We’ve spoken in depth on the internal company desire, staff training, and customer experience program development in several blog posts. As Goltz points out, they are all interrelated to form a whole customer experience program. You cannot do one without the other. Great service is dependant on staff training. Staff training is dependant on measuring your customer experiences through metrics (mystery shopping) and knowing what improvements are needed. You cannot hire great staff unless your company values the customer experience as the primary focus. Customer experience programs are full circle development that continues on through the life cycleyou’re your business.

The single most important aspect to take away from any customer experience article is the training aspect. It takes management training to understand where the customer experience metrics can be used to improve processes. Management needs a quality and knowledgeable industry leader to provide the proper metrics and mystery shopper program with valuable training on how to use the information. The training continues down the chain to the customer service staff. Superior customer service staff goes through continuous training that develops and hones their skills when dealing with customers. Training and education are the fundamental keys in having great customer service.

To go back to our original question “Where do I begin?”, the answer is simple. You begin with educating and training staff. Knowledge is powerful, especially when it comes to knowing your customer and establishing great customer experience.

Maximization vs. Optimization is based on a very sound mystery shopping formula:
When budgets are limited, it is generally better to shop fewer stores on a more frequent basis than all stores less frequently.

You may, for example, decide it is more important to shop your top 30 best-performing stores. Or you may want to establish different frequencies, or rotate your stores and districts. There are an infinite variety of ways to create the program that works best for you, but the bottom line is to remember that there are enough variations possible to allow you to get the most out of your program without sacrificing the crucial data you need to meet your program goals. When it comes down to whether you should conduct your program quarterly, monthly, weekly or daily, there are other factors to consider:

Quarterly
Great for compiling a “snapshot” of data but, with so much time elapsed in between shops, it is very difficult to use data to effectively make consistent changes or drive behaviors. Acceptable for monitoring and data collection.

Monthly
Monthly programs are the most popular and budget-friendly choice. A monthly program means a more consistent view of store/team performance, more dependable behavior reinforcement, and more effective identification of strengths and opportunities over the long term

Weekly or Biweekly
For those wishing to implement a variable program based upon stores types (i.e. such as with high and low volume stores, loss prevention, etc.), a weekly or biweekly program is very effective in driving behavioral changes through constant reinforcement.

Daily
Unless your main goal is loss prevention, a daily program is most likely overkill. In fact, if your main goal really is loss prevention, you are probably more in need of hidden cameras than mystery shopping. Daily programs produce a lot of data that will prove to be useless, since the Manager will not have the time or opportunity to understand and use the data that is produced on a daily basis.

The second most popular question I am asked (especially by naysayers of mystery shopping or those who get low scores) is something along the lines of, “Hey this is only one shop a month. How can this really demonstrate what is happening in my store?”

Sadly, statistically it can’t. And therein lies the mystery shopping conundrum. Stores with a smaller budget perform fewer shops. Fewer shops lead to less credible data. Less credible data leads to less opportunity to change behaviors and delayed gratification in meeting overall program goals. It also translates into fewer opportunites for training for the entire store. This is exactly why I advocate the Maximization vs. Optimization formula we talked about earlier. Simply put, you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck without compromising.

The truth is, anything can happen anytime. But if it happened once, it’s happened before and will happen again. When it does happen again, that’s when it is time to become concerned. Can you imagine a sports game being played where no one announces the score? Sounds ridiculous? Well just imagine for a moment, what that would be like……those basketball teams are running up and down the court, throwing baskets on both sides, but since no one is keeping score, no one is leading! Soon, the players begin tiring out. They start walking off the court and sitting down. After all, who cares about working hard if no one is winning? Then, one by one, the fans begin to get up and go home. If the team doesn’t care, why should they?

Do you see the point? Just like in basketball, where the players play harder when they know the score, your frontline staff and store managers will be far more effective when they can see the results of their hard work. Regular, consistent data delivered as expected, in an easily digested format that can be used to direct and change staff behavior, is what wins the retail race.

The article’s author Frederick Reichheld tells the tale of a group of Fortune 500 executives at a customer service symposium swapping stories on what revs their customers’ engines and generates successful consumer loyalty. But CEO’s from high-profile brands like State Farm Insurance, Chick-a-Fil, Vanguard and others really pricked their ears up during a talk from Andy Taylor, the CEO of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, a talk that Reichheld describes as “riveting”.

According to Reichheld, Taylor and his senior team had figured out a way to measure and manage customer loyalty without the complexity of traditional customer surveys.

Every month, Enterprise polled its customers using just two simple questions: one about the quality of their rental experience and another about the likelihood of whether the customer would rent from Enterprise again.

Because the process was so simple, it was fast. That allowed the company to publish ranked results for its 5,000 U.S. branches within days., thus giving the offices real-time feedback on how they were doing and the opportunity to learn from successful peers. The survey differed in another way, Reichheld said. In ranking the branches, Enterprise counted only the customers who gave the experience the highest possible rating.

That narrow focus on enthusiastic customers surprised the CEOs in the room. Hands shot up. What about the rest of Enterprise’s customers?, the marginally satisfied who continued to rent from Enterprise and were necessary to its business? Wouldn’t it be better to track, in a more sophisticated way, mean or medium statistics?

No, Taylor said. By concentrating solely on those most enthusiastic about their rental experiences, the company could focus on a key driver of profitable growth: customers who not only return to rent again but who also recommend Enterprise to their friends. Reichheld’s point, made via the Enterprise story, is that customer satisfaction surveys aren’t at all useful. They’re complicated and off-putting to customers, who invariably hate filling out all those long forms. Consequently, they produce low return yields and little useful information for executives to act upon.

In two years of research on the subject of customer satisfaction versus customer experience, Reichheld concludes that linking customer satisfaction surveys to actual customer behavior, using as little as a single survey questions, was highly related to company financial growth.

The Enterprise question ““ “would you recommend us to your friends?” ““ was the strongest sign of customer loyalty, he reports. “But evangelistic customer loyalty is clearly one of the most important drivers of growth,” writes Reichheld. “While it does not guarantee growth, in general profitable growth cannot be achieved without it.”

What Reichheld is really talking about is loyalty ““ i.e. the willingness of someone ““ a customer, an employee, or a friend ““ to make an investment or personal sacrifice in order to strengthen a relationship. And trying to measure loyalty through customer retention exercises or complicated customer satisfaction surveys simply does not work. As Reichheld points out, there is no demonstrable connection to actual customer behavior and growth. Figuring out a way to accurately measure customer loyalty is really the name of the game.

Customer satisfaction surveys can provide great insight if they are well written and administered. Surveys which focus on the wrong questions, verbage, or are written without a goal for specific information can be a waste of time. While customer satisfaction surveys are an essential tool to understanding shopping behavior and customer experience, there are additional tools to consider.

And that’s where mystery shopping comes in. A good, reliable mystery shopping program can extend into all facets of your business, providing a solid analysis of your company’s best practices and reliable data on which you can continually build customer loyalty ““ and your company’s growth in the process.

Historically, gauging consumer “experiences” has been the primary responsibility of the customer service department.

But in my experience, customer service departments have become little more complaint departments. Or even worse, a place to go for customers to go and replace unwanted merchandise. Let’s face it, you can’t use the current customer service department model as a way to gauge the health and vibrancy of your company’s customer relationships ““ it’s an outmoded model that is spread too thin in terms of responsibilities and is not advanced enough to handle all the measurements that need addressing across the company.

Enter the mystery shopper.

Sometimes stereotyped as a subjective and slightly campy approach to evaluating customer service (think trench coats, wigs and dark sunglasses) mystery shoppers actually embody the complete customer satisfaction program.

How so? By measuring both the tangibles and intangibles of a company’s customer experience program. Mystery shopping is a the answer to the question “How can managers seek to understand their company ““ and its product, service, or idea ““ from the customer’s perspective?”

Let’s face it, the level and quality of service you deliver to your customers is critical to your company’s success. In fact, it may just be the ultimate barometer of your success. Many company’s don’t realize it, but their customers’ total experience with the business and its employees dictate whether the company will succeed or fail…whether you will be profitable or not. Simply having expectations about what sort of experience your customers will have is not enough…you have to measure, you have to inspect. In the form of good, solid, effective mystery shopping programs, objective, anonymous, third-party assessments of the customer experience will provide the information you need to ensure that your expectations for customer experience are carried out in reality.

ICC/Decision Services worked directly with L.L. Bean to conduct surveys and metric reporting systems to aid the retailer in understanding the customer’s needs. L.L. Bean’s success is a combination of proactively seeking independent research and surveys focusing on the customer. Armed with knowledge of what improvements where needed and where successes excelled, the retailer was able to create the number one customer experience program.

Retailers can look to L.L. Bean’s success as an attainable goal. To be successful, companies should look to independent research firms that have the tools to gather well rounded metrics and offer program suggestions to conquer areas of improvement. L.L. Bean’s success will reward the company in increased customer loyalty for years to come.

What is your company doing to measure customer expectations and experience programs?

He stopped and asked: “What are you doing?”

The clerk answered: “I’m settling a complaint.”

Field shot back: “No, you’re not. Give the lady what she wants.”

Marshall Field, a notorious “floorwalker” at his landmark store, was way ahead of his time. He knew that giving customers “what they want” is the heart and soul of any commercial enterprise. He also knew that the key to boosting both his company brand and his bottom line was by constantly measuring progress, not just as a customer service barometer, although that’s obviously critical to any company’s success.

Like most successful business owners, he also measured the overall quality and effectiveness of the entire shopping experience. That’s what separates the contenders from the pretenders in business today ““ the ability to know exactly what makes customers enter your doors and come back again and again ““ knowing they can rely on receiving the same quality, service and product each time they do. Fast forward to the first decade of the 21st century, where companies like Starbucks are taking a similar page out of the Marshall Field playbook.

No matter which store or city a Starbucks customer is in, each one knows exactly what to expect ““ not just in terms of service, but in terms of overall experience. Each store’s product, design, atmosphere, décor and service is so predictable that it becomes intuitive; as a result, consumer behavior and response becomes accurately predictable ““ making it even easier to design promotions, incentives and products that will immediately boost sales.

What’s the key to Starbuck’s success? Why do they enjoy this level of consumer consistency and enjoy a fatter bottom line as a result? By identifying and statistically quantifying every conceivable element of the overall consumer experience  — and then continually analyzing just how consistently those elements are delivered.

Although some retailers may have an affinity for the survey over the mystery shopper or the IVR over the focus group, the fact is calculating customer satisfaction employing only one of these devices is like measuring a hurricane by just using radar. Important information can be garnered from Doppler radar, but tracking wind speed, rainfall amounts and their effects and flooding and destruction from rising rivers, streams, and crushing tides gives you a total picture of the storm and its consequences.

Just as the effect of a hurricane may be measured using various methods, so too can the effectiveness of customer service in a consumer-connected business be analyzed. For this reason it’s not only a good idea to use an array of measuring devices for success it is essential. Mystery shoppers, IVR/Web surveys, and focus groups all gauge the efficacy of your business in relationship to your customers, but each of these instruments provides its own set of revelations.

Mystery shoppers are professionals who enter an establishment in order to test the manner in which you run your business. They rate various aspects of your store, including physical attractiveness, inventory accessibility, and store layout. Aspects of customer service that employees are graded on are product knowledge, friendliness, and helpfulness. Most companies that use mystery shoppers keep the 15 to 20 questions used to rate a store consistent over an extended period of time. This uniformity helps the company’s leaders recognize trends, positive changes, and continuing challenges.

Although the IVR and Web survey use different media, they are similar in content and objectives. If a customer is asked to call a voice center or log onto a Web site, they’ll encounter numerous multiple-choice questions about their retail experience. Usually a customer receives some sort of premium for taking the time to rate the retailer. They may be given a coupon to use towards a future purchase or entered into a sweepstakes. Customers are chosen at random when paying for merchandise and usually have a window of time in which to take the survey.

The major difference between IVR/Web surveys and mystery shoppers is that the former are composed of people who have made a choice to seek out the retailer’s services and products, while the mystery shopper is a professional evaluator possessing specific criteria by which they rate the establishment. The IVR/Web surveys offer a large sampling that may be more indicative of a customer’s basic experiences, feelings, and conclusions, but the mystery shopper is able to create a more intricate analysis focusing on the systemic relationship between management, customer service, merchandising, and other facets.

The third type of grading instrument is the focus group. Focus groups successfully combine elements of mystery shopping with the IVR/Web survey. Like those taking a survey, focus group participants are consumers who have availed themselves of a store’s services; like the mystery shopper, they can be more critical. This is due to the fact that group discussions tend to develop ideas and yield more details than a survey. Additionally, the group discussions are led by a professional who, like the mystery shopper, has a particular agenda, This panel of customers is a sampling that can offer more specifics than the larger group of survey-based evaluators.

If businesses choose each of these unique testing tools, they have a better chance of developing a more detailed picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their enterprise. Focus groups create an opportunity for retailers to delve into detailed discussions with customers. Mystery shopping provides specific insights and expert analysis devoted to establishing, maintaining, and improving professional standards. IVR/Web surveys have the power to give an accurate but generalized sketch from customer related questions. The bottom line is this total approach to measuring and assessing every part of your retail machine is about improving your bottom line.