When you sit down to input your mystery shopping reports, what happens when you see the instruction, “Write four to five complete sentences in the comment section.”?
Does your brow furrow? Do your fingers freeze on the keyboard?
Sometimes it’s hard to think of an eloquent way to respond to “Was the phone answered in a polite, timely manner?”, right?
The reason mystery shopping companies ask for this is because we want our clients to ‘hear’ and ‘see’ all that you did. We, and our clients, are counting on you to be the zoom lens into knowing how their employees act and react when the boss isn’t watching. Or even if he or she is.
Our clients need to know what you hear and see. And sometimes they ask how it makes you feel. So even if they are in the room when the phone is answered, they don’t know how you are reacting to what you are hearing.
Telling them exactly what happened when the phone was answered in your mystery shopping reports should be done with more than one or two words.
The simple answer to “Was the phone answered in a polite, timely manner?” is “Yes” or “No”.
Our clients do not know what ‘Yes or No’ mean without your explanation.
The Words in Your Mystery Shopping Reports
The reason mystery shopping is conducted is because the client needs detailed information about their customer’s experiences. Valuable and useful information. The type of information they can act upon, not numbers to enter into a database.
The types of answers clients would like to see are:
“Yes, the telephone was answered promptly after two rings. Mary introduced herself and the company and asked how she could help me. She was easy to understand and had a friendly tone to her voice. Mary made me feel as though my call was important.”
Or
“No, the phone was not answered in a polite manner. It was picked up after two rings, but the person answering did not introduce themselves. I asked if they knew if they had a certain product in stock and was put on hold. After 4 minutes on hold, the same person came back and said, “Yes, it’s here.” And then they hung up the phone. I did not have a chance to ask how late they were open or if they could hold it for me.”
These explanations provide our clients with the insight they need to reward an employee. Or conduct further training with an employee. Or change their standards or training.
The simple yes or no just does not cut it.
Mystery Shopping Reports with Value
Mystery shopping is a valuable and important form of market research. It isn’t conducted to ‘spy’ or ‘check in’ on employees. The information is used to make decisions for operations, marketing, human resources, budgeting, and more.
So, the next time you sit down to write up a report, be sure you write all you heard and saw.
Those four or five sentences are of great value and great influence!
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