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3 Steps to Improve Customer Service

Customer Service during the pandemic was something that was not on most people’s radar. For many small businesses, hospitality especially, they did all they could just to stay afloat. As we begin to vaccinate more and more people, businesses are beginning to open up again. With this new reopening comes some challenges. Some previous employees are not returning to work. Good help is becoming harder to find for some industries. As a business owner, you may find yourself in any or all of these challenging situations.

As crazy as it may sound, I believe this is the very best time to create a way to gather customer insights and to evaluate the customer experience. One silver lining for a reset it that it allows a business reinvent themselves. No longer should you just do the status quo. Stepping up your internal measurements by starting with how your customers see you and what they feel can be improved upon.

1. Evaluate Customer Service Levels Before You Get Busy

Unless your business allows you to be present 100% of the time, you need mystery shopping. Mystery shopping measures what you train. Training employees takes a lot of time and resources. Isn’t it worth the time to evaluate its effectiveness? This allows your employees an opportunity to learn. It can do wonders to improve your business by increasing customer service.

Sending in evaluators to measure things like initial greeting, rapport building, listening skills, cross sell or up sell, follow up, etc. can be very eye opening. Most owners believe they know what is happening in their place of business. Once you mystery shop your locations, you may find an entirely different situation. One that can cost you a lot of money.

Beginning a program now is smart because it allows you to see areas that may need improvement before you are back up to 100% capacity. Fixing those areas can be well worth the investment!

2. Gain Customer Service Insights

This may be the best time to gather customer feedback on services, programs, products, etc.. that your business sells. Most people have had to change their way of life for the past year. They are working remotely, teaching their kids at home, shopping differently, etc.. In other words, your customers have changed. How have they changed and how will it impact your business? What can you do now to insure they think of you when they do start going out more regularly again?

Listening to your customers will improve your business by tapping into what is most important to them. Once you have a good understanding of what they are looking for, you can update or add items that may influence their purchases.

3. Competitive Intelligence

Researching your competition is always a good idea and now is no different. Do you have the same competitors as you did a year ago? What are they doing differently? How do their service offerings compare to yours?

What about their pricing? Have they increased or decreased? Gaining these insights now can be of great value in positioning your business down the road.

How do their service levels compare to yours? A great idea is to send your employees in to your competition and use the same evaluation form you currently use for mystery shopping. This not only shows your employees the importance of this type of measurement, they will come away with the differences between your business and the competition; good and bad.

Just taking some proactive measure now will increase sales and profitability down the road.

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Sometimes Mystery Shopping is not Enough

Mystery shopping has been used by a variety of businesses for decades. Most of the time, mystery shoppers are used to make key evaluations of employee behaviors and to evaluate the customer experience. They evaluate what employers train for. This is used to make sure training is effective and that employees are following guidelines and policies of the company for which they work. It is very effective when done properly and it actually incentivizes employees to do a great job. It is the best feeling in the world to be rewarded for a job well done! Getting a 100% mystery shop report from your employer can mean a lot.

From time to time, hiring a company to send in mystery shoppers is not enough. When employee theft is suspected, it is best to refer to a Private Investigator.

During the past year, we engaged the services of Private Investigators twice. The very first time was for a retail store who sold high end suits. The owner of the company felt that a Sales Associate was “stealing” customers by showing them suit options, and then steering them toward his own online store for a less expensive alternative.

Why not send in a mystery shopper?

Several reasons. The most important reason is the legality. Investigators are trained in the law and know exactly how to gain information that can be used in court if necessary.

Secondly, the gathering of evidence. Private investigators are allowed by law to gather evidence of employee dishonesty and fraud. This is very important because in some cases, it can actually save the company money if the case goes to court.

A Private Investigator has knowledge on how to obtain information on a suspected employee by watching behavior in person (surveillance), and online. We work with Investigators across the United States to assist in the timely online collection of information on a person of interest. Our service, e-chatter, researches online information that is publicly available. If an employee is stealing retail goods for example, many times they will use easy, online ways to sell that merchandise. This breadcrumb can allow the Private Investigator to attempt to make a purchase or attempt a meet up.

Employee Theft

Two-thirds of all US-based small businesses fall victim to employee theft, according to employee fraud stats.(National Federation of Independent Business)

According to Certified Fraud Examiners, a typical company can lose up to 5% annually to employee fraud. In fact, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners conducted a study in 2018 titled, “Report to the Nations: 2018 Global Study on Occupational Fraud and Abuse.” The study included 2,690 known cases. Many do not get reported due to the stigma and bad public relations to the company itself.

The study goes on to reveal some other commonalities.

  • The overall amount of loss by men is 75 percent larger than those caused by women.
  • The most common way employee frauds are discovered is via tips.
  • Internal control weakness is responsible for nearly half of frauds.
  • Employees committing fraud who have been with their companies longer stole twice as much.
  • Small businesses lost almost twice as much to fraud per scheme as larger ones.

Contact us if you need direction as to which way to go if you have an internal employee issue. We can get you in touch with the right Investigator for your business.

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Social Media Post Scolding

Last December, a Facebook social media post by an unhappy customer triggered anger among employees. Lidl in Tavistock, Devon had an alleged incident that the company is now investigating. This may be a situation where reputation management went a bit too far.

Customer Service & Social Media

Plymouth Live broke the story about a customer shopping, minding her own business in a Lidl Grocery Store, when suddenly she was asked to step in the back. The shopper first discussed how during a visit, she had her bags looked through by a staff member. The staff member used the excuse that they have had a lot of mystery shoppers in the stores during December. She was very upset and chose to write about her experience in a local Facebook group asking if anyone else had that experience in the store. Her post went too far according to a store employee.

Next time she shops, she is confronted about her Facebook post. During the conversation, she turned on her mobile audio app to record the conversation. It went like this, according the the publication:

The Facebook Post Scolding

“Ana provided Plymouth Live with a recording of the alleged conversation.

In the recording, a person says: “First of all, are you aware we’ve got a customer service number to contact for any issues you might have in store?”

Ana responded: “Sorry?”

He continued: “Are you aware we’ve got a customer service number to contact for any issues you might have in store?”

Ana replied: “Yeah possibly.”

“Lovely. So what I’m going to speak to you about is that you chose to use social media to complain about an individual, one of our members of staff.. You failed to contact a member of staff about an issue you had.

“We’ve got it all documented and passed on to our HR department. So what I’m here to do today is to make sure you’re aware we have ways of dealing with issues. What you failed to do was mention to a member of staff or anyone about the issue.”

Anna replied: “You can’t tell me what I failed to do or what I have and have not done. What I post on Facebook is my choice, and I suffer the consequences. I’ve already sent an email.”

The worker responded: “Perfect, lovely, that’s fantastic. So what I’m saying to you is that I would ask you not to directly put abuse about a young woman on the shop floor who you upset by doing that.”

Ana hit back: “My post is not directed at her. There’s no mention of your member of staff, I can show you my post. It’s asking if other customers experienced the same things. My post is not directed at anyone there’s no name.”

He then said: “You’ve posted something that has incited comments against an individual. What I’m telling you, what I’m asking you to do is to not open abuse to staff who are working through this pandemic..

“What I’m speaking to you about is that there are means and ways of speaking to members of staff. I’m informing you, I’ve never said you’ve done anything other than what you can and can’t do. You can call members of staff if you have any issues.”

What Happens Next

What happens next is that Lidl is investigating the incident and has issued an apology.

A spokesperson for Lidl said: “We were very sorry to hear of this incident and would like to sincerely apologise for any distress caused.

“We can confirm that this is currently being investigated by our regional management team, and that our customer services team are in direct communication with the customer, who will inform them of the outcome.”

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