Companies can realize unanticipated rewards when they change their approach to how shoppers gather the information or add mystery shop sections. As the examples below illustrate, the rewards may include improved safety measures and even the discovery of website pitfalls, to name two.

For an automotive client, adding non customer service questions to the mystery shopper survey resulted in valuable data and potential savings in safety-related areas for the company.  The company consulted with other departments to gain ideas on areas that mystery shoppers should assess at their locations. In response, Confero added several safety-related questions to the survey.  Following the visits with the added survey questions, management was able to quickly view mystery shop results through a secure web-based reporting system, including the information about safety procedures. The results: fast data on safety deficiencies at certain locations as well as decreased number of accidents, due to the increased accountability that the mystery shop program created. You can view other stories on our Automotive Mystery Shopping and Customer Experience Research Case Studies page.

In another example, a financial services company desired a telephone mystery shopping study to assess the competition and compare approaches to their own employees’ selling styles. The shops assessed employee practices for placing customers on hold, as well as their sales and service approaches. At the onset, Confero’s team researched the client’s website.  Confero’s Client Services Manager wanted to learn how potential customers would find contact and location information about the company online. When researching the locations on the company’s website, we learned that there were significant deficiencies in the company’s online location search feature.  In fact, some location information was missing, meaning that customers would potentially never learn about those locations online. Â

The Client Services Manager immediately communicated this information to the client. While the competitive phone strategy information provided vital information to management, learning about their own website’s pitfall allowed them to quickly correct the problem and inform more prospects of location options. To learn more about this case study, visit our financial services case study section.

Another case shows how mystery shops help prevent lost revenue. Confero’s mystery shoppers visited branches of a newly-merged financial institution. Upon making typical inquiries about opening a new checking account, mystery shoppers gathered other important data. They reported that rather than opening the new account on the spot, some employees were inviting prospects to return and open the account at a later date after the merger was completed. The client was quickly notified. Management communicated the information to employees, so that the loss of potential new customers was avoided.