Unfortunately, some IVR vendors have chosen to position IVR surveys as a replacement for mystery shopping. This is erroneous, since these approaches provide different types of data, one based on subjective recollection and the other based on objective observation.

Mystery shopping provides an objective service evaluation based on factual observations, using people who are trained to know what to look for when conducting evaluations. IVR, or for that matter, any form of customer satisfaction surveys, capture highly subjective feelings and emotions only. Facts may or may not play a part in the responses, skewing the final data.

The core difference between the two is that mystery shopping is a customer experience measure based on a predetermined set of assessment criteria. IVR surveys, however, are used either as customer satisfaction measures or as customer experience measures based on the customer’s recollection of subjective memory.

While IVR may be useful to a company seeking information on extremes of service (i.e., excellent versus poor), as extreme experiences often motivate customers to respond to IVR opportunities, the fact is that when seeking benchmarks from actual customer experiences, mystery shopping is better able to provide valid data.

The MSPA believes that a company should consider using both services if their budget allows, so that they have both objective, fact-based research as well as subjective, opinion-based research on which to make important, organization-changing decisions. Using both services provides a more complete picture of the customer experience. The MSPA does not advocate replacing either service with the other.

When it comes to measuring the Customer Experience, many organizations have preconceived ideas about what does and doesn’t work. Let’s look at some of these common Customer Experience Management problems and learn how each one can present a unique set of issues to the retailer.

1) Ignorance Is Bliss Syndrome: Some retailers operate with no working feedback system for their customers. No comment cards, no IVR Web Surveys. Nothing. These retailers may feel ignorance really is bliss. Sometimes it easier “˜not to know.” But these retailers would no doubt be very surprised by what their customers would say if we put a comment card in their stores, or placed a survey into their customer’s hands.

It’s been proven time and time again that having no strategy is NOT a strategy. In fact, take a moment if you can to read another one of my blogs for a riveting tale of two retailers: one who hid their head in the sand and another who proactively chased after customers and gave them exactly what they wanted. I’m sorry to say, the ending is no surprise. (You Get What You Give) But this story beautifully illustrates what happens at either extreme- doing nothing about your customer experience, or doing everything you can.

While some retailers may not want to leap head first into a comprehensive Customer Experience Management program, even low-tech solutions like comment cards and focus groups can help retailers to “˜get inside their customers’ heads’ and learn what they really think about the shopping experience at your location.

2) I Am a Rock, I Am an Island Syndrome: We sometimes see this problem with retailers who design a Customer Experience Management program without consulting their customers or internal teams. The backbone of any good customer survey or mystery shopping program is the survey instrument itself. Before you can design the survey, however, you need to have a good understanding of the direction you’re going. And the only way that you can know the direction is to know what your customers are thinking, what they really want. Of course, you’ll find out when you ask them, but this effort needs to be a focused initiative. A properly targeted mystery shopping program will identify many customer likes and dislikes, i.e. the store location, service behaviors, pricing, etc. i The people who can best deliver on your brand promise to your customers are your teams – the associatesqnd the employees. It’s your job to make sure that they are brought into the loop and understand the important role they play.

3) The Big Top Approach: Some retailers allow themselves to get bogged down in taking on too much at once. We see this a lot with mystery shopping programs. Typically, it begins when the mystery shopping program is kicked off, and ten items come back with comments from the retailer indicating they are stunned by the results. Of course, human nature being what it is, the impulse is to fix all these problems at once. But like many situations, both professional and personal, we run into trouble trying to do it all. Our recommendation is to pick one or two key issues and focus on them to improve performance before moving on to the next set important issues on your list. This way, you will move logically through each behavior and give it your full attention to really be sure the problem is solved.

4) The Tool Chest Dilemma: This one could also be described as “˜picking the wrong tool for the job.’ You wouldn’t use a drill to pound a nail, right? IVR Web Surveys and Comment Cards are great tools. So is mystery shopping. But each of these tools quantifies data in a different way. IVR Web Surveys and Comment Cards quantify what the customer is thinking via subjective feedback. However, mystery shopping programs measure your customers’ expectations more objectively against a set of Customer Experience standards that you know works. IVR Web Surveys and Comment Cards are a great way to understand a customer’s expectation of your business, but mystery shopping is the best way to accurately measure the customer experience for your business.

5) The Panacea Effect: The dictionary defines “˜panacea’ as “˜a solution, cure or answer.’ Retailers who favor this approach believe that one specific way of measuring the customer experience will solve all their problems. They may believe that simply offering Comment Cards is all that is needed. Or they may believe a single survey will do the trick. The reality is that no one approach is 100% successful on its own, and no retailer will be totally successful by using just one approach. Mystery shopping is a great way to understand what you’re delivering to your customers, but you’re missing half the story if that’s all you do. IVR Web Surveys and Comment Cards are a great way to find out what your customers are thinking and to understand what they like and dislike about the shopping experience at your locations.

6) The Packrat Syndrome: Retailers can find themselves paralyzed by information overload. I like to call this problem “information rich but execution poor.” We sometimes see this when companies spend millions of dollars on compiling information from different places, but don’t know what to do with that information once they have it. Like any good initiative, everything should be done in steps and, instead of focusing on just getting lots of info, we need to be looking at what we want to do with that information before starting a Customer Experience Management initiative.

Customer feedback, typically obtained through customer feedback mechanisms, such as interactive voice response surveys (IVR), allows companies to define their own unique brand of customer services that answers the demands of their markets. Mystery shoppers, on the other hand, help to ensure the proper implementation of these customer service strategies through ongoing self-evaluation and troubleshooting. By taking an unbiased, qualitative measurement of a store’s operational habits, mystery shoppers can pinpoint which revenue-generating behaviors need to be reinforced with employees, allowing the company to respond accordingly ““ whether it is additional training, policy modification or even employee admonition.

For example, while a regular shopper can tell you whether or not their experience was pleasant, they are not likely to report how quickly the sales associate greeted, whether the sales associate suggested additional merchandise, and if the correct merchandise was displayed. Mystery shoppers are equipped with a pre-determined set of criteria from which to evaluate a store’s ability to execute its own unique customer service model. It is through mystery shopping that a company can find out exactly where it falls short and where it excels.

Customer feedback is a valuable source of information as well because it considers the perspective of the actual consumer – someone who patrons a store on their own accord. These people are not consciously concerned with customer service and business models; they are looking for the store to fulfill their needs via products and service. It is through customer feedback that a business can determine if it is successfully filling its customer needs.

However, customer feedback should never be used as a substitute for mystery shoppers. Rather, customer feedback should be used in combination with mystery shoppers to gain two separate but equally important perspectives. Together, these tools support each other in supplying businesses with a complete picture: what their customers expect and the extent to which their employees are meeting standards of service to satisfy those expectations. If used in isolation, a business only learns half the story, which can ultimately lead it down a road of uninformed, if not bad, decision making.