There is a bit of a stigma in the retail world – that mystery shopping is used as a spy tactic so that companies can see how badly their employees are screwing up when they’re not looking. This just isn’t the reality, at least not in companies where the right values are instilled in employees.

I have a history in retail. During my high school and university days I was a clerk, supervisor and later a manager at a number of different establishments. One of the first places I worked truly shaped my customer service values and it relied heavily upon the use of mystery shoppers. We were trained to treat every person that walked through the door like they might be a mystery shopper. It was not to instill fear, but to teach us to do our best. It became a bit of a rush learning your scores and then trying to improve upon your personal best. It really became a game, but is there a better game then one that depends upon customers winning?

Some of the retail jobs I had after this first one weren’t as focused on mystery shopping, but the ideas stuck. I may not have been trying to improve my personal scores, but I would focus upon the challenge of pleasing the most difficult person ever rather than grumbling about them!

It all goes to show you how a mystery shopping service can transform the people who are directly responsible for your customers’ experience!

It may not be realistic for every CEO to go undercover within their own company, fun as it may be,  but mystery shoppers can provide many of the same benefits that are seen on the show, including:

1. Insight on employee satisfaction – this seems to be the main focus of Undercover Boss as the executives take the time to sit down and discuss job satisfaction. Secret shoppers can gauge this through the actions and job commitment of employees that they encounter during a visit. From there, businesses can run with the feedback and try to improve in areas that staff feel are lacking for even better morale!
2. Customer response to company policies - all retail establishments have practices in place that employees are expected to uphold when dealing with customers. Some might be better in theory than in practice, as the Undercover Bosses learn when working on the front lines. Certain sales tactics, for example, might not get the desired response from customers. Mystery shop reporting may help understand the unintended consequences of these policies.

These are just a couple of the links to mystery shopping that appear on Undercover Boss. You might be tempted to tune in just to see executives embarrassing themselves, but you’ll find your interest piqued about secret shopping.

But as you get ready to devour your meal-in-a-box, reality hits. This burger looks nothing like the picture. In fact, it looks more like a two-year-old slapped it together from pieces of other burgers. You, my friend, have just experienced one of the underlying themes shoppers complain about most often: a disconnect between a brand’s image and the actual customer experience.

If your store’s brand doesn’t match your typical customer’s experience, get on the phone to HR right now. You may not have much time to undo the damage that’s been done. While many customers will put up with an occasional snafu in service or expectations, consistently disconnecting from your brand with bad customer service and substandard products will kill interest in your product. When this happens, your only hope is to prioritize the training and monitoring of your frontline staff to revive public interest and match your service and product with those pretty pictures in your advertisements.

True, customers are fickle. One day they want you to leave them alone to wander the store, and the next day they complain no one is helping them. But the bottom line is, customers who consistently have poor experiences will look for someplace else to shop. And they tell their friends. No retailer wants to suffer bad word-of-mouth. The Internet has made it all too easy to turn the tide of a brand’s popularity with a few truthful, albeit wicked, stories in a very short amount of time.

Retailers must be seriously supportive of ongoing training and coaching for sales associates based upon the principles of excellence in service. This is the only true competitive advantage in an industry where your brand may sink or swim based on public opinion. Companies who seek assistance in developing and maintaining strong training and coaching programs often need a comprehensive mystery shopping program to cultivate the strong frontline staff that drives sales, and provides managers and store owners with the ongoing, meaningful data necessary to maintain and continue to build on those increases in both sales and customer loyalty.