Delivering excellent customer experiences and maintaining compliance in a call centre or contact centre is never straightforward. The challenge is often even greater when call centre operations are outsourced or operate separately from the main organisation and its other customer-facing teams. This separation can make it harder to ensure consistent standards, clear communication, and a joined-up approach to service.
Mystery Shopping, when delivered to a high standard and with the right tools and expertise, can help you identify opportunities for improvement, ensure compliance, and raise standards across every customer interaction.
Our Mystery Shopping services for call centres tend to be focused around Telephone Mystery Shopping and Online Mystery Shopping, but can include other channels and aspects like SMS, chat, social media messaging. Often, these stages are built into longer multi-stage enquiry processes (that might also include visits to physical premises, for example).
A key differentiator is our own advanced VOIP telephony system. Every enquiry uses a unique, consistent phone number, enabling two-way calling, voicemail, text messaging, and full continuity throughout the process. This ensures every interaction is realistic and believable, which gives you accurate insight into your team's performance.
Schedule a discovery call or call now on 01392 984224.
Testimonials
Customerwise have delivered a series of FCA compliance-related projects for us, involving both mystery shopping and customer interviews. These outcomes have been instrumental in our approach to Consumer Duty and the path our business took.
They have worked with us to co-design the approach in each case, the required level of management information to prove a concept and have made helpful suggestions throughout the process. The standards of execution have been consistently high. They made sure that mystery shoppers were thoroughly briefed with appropriate scenarios, and that a unique phone number was used for every enquiry. The interviews have also been skilfully handled. They’ve ensured our reporting has been structured to show everything we need to see. They’ve also been great to work with, highly responsive and flexible, evolving the programmes as our needs have changed. We would highly recommend them.
Holiday Extras
Hampshire Trust Bank (HTB) partner with Customerwise to support our CX and mystery shop programmes. As our needs have increased so has the support from the Customerwise team which includes a high level of flexibility, attention to detail and excellent customer service. Tam and Paul have been invaluable to HTB with the delivery of timely reporting and data as well as access to professional interviewers and a broad network of mystery shoppers. Moreover, the operational side is a well-oiled machine thanks to Tam and the wider team.
Hampshire Trust Bank
Ceta Insurance
View Case Study
Online & Telephone Mystery Shopping & Real Customer Call Evaluation - Public Sector Legal Advice Service
Who We Help
We work with a wide range of call centres and contact centres, including:
• In-house teams handling customer service, sales, or support for their organisation
• Outsourced or subcontracted contact centres working on behalf of multiple clients
• Businesses in sectors such as banking, insurance, utilities, telecoms, retail, and more
In addition to comprehensive, more familiar Mystery Shopping services and approaches, Customerwise offers a suite of solutions, each designed to add real value and help you improve performance.
Mystery Shopping Services for Call Centres and Contact Centres
How does Mystery Shopping work in essence?
Our approach is flexible and always built around your requirements. The processes Mystery Shoppers follow as part of a programme are always tailored to the client and their requirements. However, the way that clients receive their data is consistent.
Each enquiry, or enquiry process, generates its own report, which is based on a template developed with you and ultimately decided on by you. Reports are usually divided into journey stages or aspects, with scoring and narrative feedback.
All reports are delivered via SASSIE, our online reporting platform, with tiered access, tailored dashboards, and user-friendly tools for tracking performance and spotting trends. Supporting files, such as call recordings, are available to view conveniently within each report.
Telephone Mystery Shopping
Telephone Mystery Shopping is the core service for most call centre and contact centre clients. We simulate real customer calls, covering a range of scenarios such as sales enquiries, information requests, and appointment calls. We can also handle other interaction types, such as complaints, account queries, and more.
Calls are made according to a pre-agreed framework, using “dummy” accounts if needed, and every call is recorded for your review.
Reports are objective and factual, allowing you to see how calls are handled against the criteria you set. This helps you pinpoint training needs, improve customer experience, and maintain compliance.
Online Mystery Shopping
We assess how your call centre or contact centre handles online enquiries, whether they arrive via web forms, live chat, or email. Our approach tests the speed, clarity, helpfulness, and quality of follow-up responses. This helps you ensure your team delivers a seamless, professional experience for customers who prefer to contact you online and highlights any gaps in digital service delivery.
Multi-stage Mystery Shopping
Many customer journeys involve several steps and channels, especially in complex or high-value enquiries. We design programmes that follow realistic, multi-stage enquiry processes—such as an initial online enquiry, followed by a phone call, and perhaps by a visit to a physical location, and then telephone and/or electronic contact again at the end.
This approach allows you to see how enquiries are handled as they move between stages and channels, and whether information, context, and service quality are maintained throughout the entire journey. It provides a true-to-life view of how well your team delivers a joined-up customer experience.
FCA Compliance Mystery Shopping
Where relevant, we design Mystery Shopping programmes to test adherence to FCA rules and any other compliance requirements that apply to your sector. Interactions are typically assessed for compliance with the criteria you specify, such as clarity, fairness, and identification of vulnerable customers. This helps you evidence oversight and address any gaps in process.
Kaizen Action Plans
SASSIE’s Kaizen Action Plans feature helps you to efficiently manage and track the resolution of issues, as and where these are identified through Mystery Shopping. When a qualifying issue is found, stakeholders are alerted and invited to discuss, agree, and record an action plan, ensuring that feedback leads to practical improvement.
Competitor Mystery Shopping
We can mystery shop your competitors’ call centres, giving you insight into their service standards, sales approaches, and customer experience. This intelligence helps you benchmark your own performance and identify areas where you can differentiate and improve.
Other Services for Call Centres and Contact Centres
Strategic Consultancy
Our consultancy services go beyond reporting. We work with you to interpret findings, spot trends, and identify priority areas for action. Our support is flexible and hands-on, helping you move from insight to real, measurable improvement.
Customer Interviews
We conduct in-depth interviews with people who have dealt with your call centre, gathering honest, detailed feedback on what worked well and where improvements could be made.
In-moment Customer Feedback
In-moment feedback focuses on obtaining feedback from customers at the time of an experience or immediately after it, in a way that is very quick and easy for customers. We provide digital feedback invitations, such as SMS or email, allowing customers to share their experiences immediately after a call or online interaction. This real-time feedback can help you enhance customer experience, allocate resources more effectively, and optimise operational efficiency.
Real Call Listening
We can review recordings of actual customer calls, providing an objective assessment of quality, compliance, and customer handling, based on the criteria you set.
Customer Survey Deployment
We can manage and deploy customer surveys on your behalf, making it simple to collect structured feedback and keep all your data in one place.
Why Choose Customerwise?
- Established 2016, MSPA Elite Members (MSPA members since 2018)
- Deep experience supporting call centres and contact centres across sectors
- Unique telephony system for realistic, continuous enquiry journeys
- Fully customised reporting and dashboards
- Switched-on, committed, and proactive account management
- Range of additional services, including digital in-moment feedback
Ready to Raise Standards?
If you want to improve customer experience, compliance, and operational performance in your call centre or contact centre, get in touch today to discuss how we can help.