Why Mystery Shopping? When there are so many other tools available?
Yes, there are some great tools available to help you engage with your customers online, and listen to what they’re saying, wherever they’re saying it. These tools are becoming ever more advanced, impressive and indeed useful.
Customer surveys (online and offline) are a great way to gauge customer priorities as well as their opinions of you, and also to show that you care. The results from surveys can be very valuable. We organise surveys for clients, and we highly recommend their use.
One inevitable challenge though is in finding enough people talking about you in depth and in detail online, or getting enough people to take part in anything but the shortest survey. The people whose opinions are most worth seeking often don’t have unlimited time on their hands.
Mystery Shopping is a different sort of tool.
..it’s much more thorough, more focussed and direct, and immediate, providing clear insights that are often easier to act upon quickly and effectively.
When a Mystery Shopper visits a location (physical or indeed virtual), they’re prepared, and focussed on reporting back in detail on their entire experience: they’re being paid specifically to do so.
Unlike “real” customers with individual bugbears or blindspots, the Mystery Shopper is tasked with reporting on everything that matters, fully and impartially.
A sensible approach: a combined approach
The best approach, and the one we tend to recommend, is one where Mystery Shopping is used in combination with regular and appropriate customer surveys, and strong online engagement. The combination is potent, for making sure that what you do, and how you do it, reflects and yet exceeds what your customers want, consistently.
One thing that’s always been true about customer insights and new information in general, is that it’s impossible to judge the value of it, until you’ve received it, and often until you’ve acted upon it. As the saying goes: you don’t know what you don’t know.. until you do!
If you might be able to use new insights into how you can improve the customer experience, give us a call for an initial no-obligation chat. If we think we can help you to improve what you do, we’ll invite you to see for yourself with absolutely no risk.
