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Capture The Moments In Mystery Shopping

 

When people think of mystery shopping, they typically think of the more traditional shopping where mystery shoppers submit reports detailing their experience. There are two kinds of shops that are emerging as popular alternatives – video and recorded phone calls.

Both types of shops give a new dimension to mystery shopping – instead of reading through narrative reports to visualize the shopper’s experience at one of your locations, you can now see and hear it for yourself. We’ve always trained shoppers to write so that when a client is reading through a report, they can feel as though they were sitting right next to the shopper the entire time. This newer methodology brings it to a whole new level.

These types of shops are more expensive and more detailed in nature, but are a great alternative for companies who would like a different perspective of their business. Specifically, these shops are great for:

 

  • Training purposes: when telephone calls to your customer service center are recorded, they can be edited to remove identifying information and used as training materials.

 

  • Employees with challenges: if you have employees whose performance is consistently not up to par, yet they are disputing the details of the report (“I ALWAYS greet customers within 30 seconds – that shopper is wrong…again…”), having the experience video or audio taped makes it very clear as to what transpired. The results of the video and/or audio shops can be a great starting point for retraining and overcoming challenges in the workplace.

 

  • More complex businesses: where there are employee interactions that involve a lot of detail, such as new home sales or mortgage evaluations, video shops can capture all of the details needed, along with the facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. These types of shops are typically done less frequently than more traditional retail or restaurant evaluations, so the cost will not play a significant factor in implementing this type of program.

 

There are some things to keep in mind if you’re considering trying a video or audio recorded shop:

 

  • Audio recording laws: each state has either a one party or two party consent law. In one party consent, only one of the parties in the conversation, in this case the shopper, needs to give consent to the conversation being recorded. In two party states, both parties need to give consent. Here is a list that outlines which states are one and two party consent for your reference.
  • Volume of shops: if you are doing a traditional mystery shopping program, you need to think about your current frequency of shops and how that will change by incorporating recorded shops as they are more expensive. It’s not meant to replace the entire program, but it is a good option to target your locations with the most challenges or even rotate traditional and recorded shops so each location gets a video or audio shop once in a while, but continues with the traditional program.

 

There are many options available to enhance your mystery shopping program thanks to technology. If you’ve not thought of it before, it might be a good time to consider it and try it out.

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Your Employees May Not Be Talking To You…

 

…but they may be talking to the world!

 

Social media monitoring tools are generally thought of for monitoring a company’s online reputation with its customers. Have you given thought to the fact that employees are sharing their thoughts and opinions too?

 

We’ve seen an increase in clients wanting to monitor their online reputation in the eyes of their employees lately, even if they use an employee based feedback program. As it is with customer feedback programs, sometimes employees do not share their true, honest opinions for fear of retaliation or thinking that no matter what they say, their voice will not be heard. But, they will tell the world through social media.

 

Traditionally, our social media monitoring started as monitoring employee online activities for instances of company degradation or disclosing proprietary information. Lately we’ve seen a shift in more general monitoring – not to see what an employee is doing this weekend, for example, but instead looking for trends among employees talking about their work.

 

This can be more difficult to uncover and cannot always be tied to a specific individual because they prefer to leave anonymous comments. However, this data is still quite useful, especially if you see a negative trend in one or more aspects of the workplace. This may be a sign that you need to do more in depth interviewing of your staff.

 

There are a few places you can start:

 

1. Glassdoor: if you’re not familiar with the Glassdoor site, it is a site that offers company information, along with an area for employees to review the company. A quick search on this site may tell you if employees are talking about your company and what they are saying.

 

2. Run an initial online search: type in your company name along with the words “employee” and “reviews” or even “hate my job” – word phrases that disgruntled employees may use. You might be surprised with what you find. You may even find, like with Starbucks and Walmart, that there are forums specifically created for employees to complain about their jobs.

 

3. Google Alerts: this is a start to uncovering employee opinion and sentiment, though it can be challenging and time consuming depending on how you set up the search. If, after running an online search, you find results that indicate your employees may be talking about their work online, then it’s a good idea to set up a Google alert to watch the trend in conversation. If it remains consistent or increases, good or bad, it might be time to turn to a more formal social media monitoring program to help you. These programs are more streamlined and do the legwork for you. Additionally, they can provide some analytical insight into the social media data.

 

Keeping the lines of communication open with your staff is important; making sure you’re collecting as much feedback as you can, from as many channels as possible, will serve you well in the long run.

 

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