Secret Buyers. Need a restructuring?

We were taught that the story develops in a spiral. First, the main method of improving the quality of service was a survey of real buyers. Special people were behind the box office and asked customers various questions. The obtained information was processed, systematized, on its basis, deficiencies were identified, service standards were developed, etc. Then began the era of Mystery Shoppers, when under the guise of ordinary customers (buyers), specially trained people come to the company, receiving the information requested by the customer. In this case, the needs of customers can be divided into three categories: competitive intelligence; verification of employee compliance with accepted procedures and service standards; staff motivation. However, recently, the pendulum has again gone the other way, and EFM systems (Enterprise Feedback Management) are becoming more and more common, designed to survey real buyers (as before the era of Mystery Shoppers), but on a fundamentally different technological level. True, it seems that this trend has not reached Russia yet, so "men do not know."


Will EFM systems be able to press on the Mystery Shoppers market? Do Secret Buyers need restructuring? To answer this question you need to understand not only the advantages and unique advantages of Mystery Shoppers, but also the disadvantages inherent in this method. Today in Russia, the Mystery Shopping method is positioned almost like a silver bullet. This is a universal motivator, so that the staff is not particularly relaxed. This is a tool for assessing the quality of customer service. This is the main audit tool, in a word, and the reader and reaper and dude igrets. Much has been written about the advantages and benefits of the Mystery Shoppers method. But try to find at least one article in Russian, which would not systematically set forth the disadvantages, at least the limitations of this method. I did not succeed. Therefore, in order to reasonably answer the question set in the article’s heading, I want to consider the main limitations and disadvantages of this method, as well as how they can be circumvented.

Relatively high cost, low representativeness of the sample, uncertain reliability of results

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I combined these three flaws into one, because they are all interconnected. The relatively high cost is a consequence of a large proportion of manual labor. The low representativeness of the sample is a consequence, firstly, of the relatively high cost, and secondly, of the high labor intensity. Statistics say that representative samples start with 50 measurements. Today, Secret Buyers are invited, at best, once a quarter, more often - once a year, the coolest - once a month (this is an exception). The low representativeness of the sample makes it difficult to use statistical methods, which negatively affects the reliability of the results. Suppose that some seller, who was abandoned by a girl, came to work after a sleepless night, did not contact the Mystery Shopper who entered the shop, as he always does. If the sample were large, this seller’s mistake would have been offset by other measurements. If the sample is small, for example, 4 Mystery Shoppers participated in the “secret purchase”, then it will be concluded that 25% of the staff does not comply with accepted standards of customer service. Based on this, wrong management decisions can be made. For simplicity, I simplified the case a little, but the essence does not change.
The indefinite reliability of the results is also a consequence of the impossibility for the customer to assess the quality of the work of Mystery Shoppers. How honest, professional, and impartial they are (they are not influenced by the brand, personal preferences, etc.) The customer must accept their professionalism, honesty, impartiality, etc. on faith? I have no doubt that in many cases - all this is really true, but is this true in most cases? "I am plagued by vague doubts . " I will explain why.

The Mystery Shoppers method involves three modus operandi . In the first case, Secret Buyers are professionals for whom this is the main job. In the second case, these are real buyers who purchase products or services for themselves and regularly report their observations to the management of the client company. In the third case, these are “professionals” for whom this work is a part-time job and at the same time a hobby. If the Secret Buyers were always only the first two categories of workers, there would be less doubt. But today in Russia, the overwhelming majority are Secret Buyers of the third category. Of course, they will tell you that they are “specially trained people” and they work under control, etc. etc. But read what these “specially trained people” write about their work on the Internet. Especially interesting are the reviews of offended Secret Buyers who are delayed in payment. And after all, what is interesting is that they paid for many years, but now for some reason they stopped. See which companies do not pay, and what they write about preparing their Secret Buyers. Vague doubts will appear and you. Conclusion: the results of the work of Mystery Shoppers should not be taken for granted. They need to be checked and this should be done by an INDEPENDENT expert.

One of the verification methods is the Expert Monitoring technology used in the Sales Point Tachometer solutions and the Loyalty Button . The essence of the idea is as follows. Almost all companies have installed video surveillance systems. Motivate the staff by pressing the wireless key fob (or wireless button) to record every fact of communication with the client, every sale attempt is a must. Organize the automatic recording of information about all clicks in the database. Having received a representative sample, organize selective qualification of the quality of personnel work. To do this, it is enough to compare the information of the video surveillance system with the information about the button presses stored in the database. The qualification should be done by an expert who may be an employee of ANOTHER provider of Mystery Shoppers service. Compare the results of the Expert Monitoring with the results obtained by the Secret Buyers. If the conclusions of the expert and the results of the Secret Buyers coincide, then they can be trusted. However, the advantages of Expert Monitoring are not limited to this.

1. Having a constant control over the work of the staff embedded in business processes, you will significantly reduce your expenses. There are tasks that cannot be solved without Secret Buyers. But to control the simplest procedures, for example, whether the seller says “hello”, how quickly he approaches the client, how friendly he is, etc., is possible by means of Expert Monitoring. The quality of modern video surveillance systems allows it.
2. You will significantly increase the reliability of the results. It's one thing when information providers are students for whom this is a part-time job. It is quite another thing when a professional expert evaluates the work of the staff.
3. Constant monitoring will allow you to receive information characterizing the activity of sellers, which is impossible to obtain by the method of Mystery Shoppers. This information can be used to calculate the Net Conversion, as well as to create a much more efficient system of staff motivation. Read more in the article “Retail. KPI management. Conversion .
4. You will be able to increase staff productivity without the risk of reducing its loyalty. This topic deserves a separate section.

Personnel loyalty versus Labor productivity

Since this is a large and important topic, in this article I will only outline the most important points.

In accordance with the rules of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, company personnel must always be aware of the ongoing “secret purchase” promotion. In practice, this rule is often not respected. In addition, the results are often used not only to identify “bottlenecks” and whom to send for training, but also for “punitive” purposes. How does this affect the psychological climate in the team and the loyalty of the staff, I think, speaking unnecessarily. But even if the staff knows about the ongoing action, for most workers it still causes anxiety or even stress. Sellers say that it’s not so much the fact of the check that is unpleasant for them, but the form of its conduct (á la traffic cop in the bushes). Many people perceive this as disrespect for themselves or a desire to find a reason to deprive them of their bonuses, which is often true. And such workers, as practice shows, are the majority. By the way, according to the rules, sellers should know by what criteria they will be evaluated, but this also does not always happen. All this reduces the loyalty of staff.

So is there any benefit? Does the arrival of Mystery Shoppers increase staff productivity? Yes, it raises, but not significantly. I want to bring the results of the research The Impact of Mystery Customers on Employees , which conducted Lund University (UK) in one of the large stores, which they call High Street Retailer. As a result of the study, it was found that 84% of the staff had a “secret purchase” promotion that caused anxiety or stress. I wonder how this action affected labor productivity in two cases, when sellers knew who the Secret Buyer was and when they did not know it. The results are shown in the table.

Impact on labor productivity	The staff did not know who the Secret Buyer	The staff knew who the Secret Buyer was.
Productivity increased substantially	20%	74%
Performance increased insignificantly	77%	26%
No impact on performance	3%	0%
Performance deteriorated	0%	0%

% - the percentage of the total number of employees.

As can be seen from the table, the arrival of Mystery Shoppers increases staff productivity. Thus, on one side of the scale - reducing employee loyalty due to regular stresses. On the other - an increase in labor productivity in 20% of the staff. What is more important? The answer is not obvious. Probably in different cases in different ways.

But is it possible to make so that the sheep were intact (loyalty did not decrease) and the wolves were fed (productivity increased)? My opinion: yes you can. Note that when sellers knew who and how to check them, labor productivity did not significantly increase in 20%, but in 74% of the staff. This is due to the fact that other drivers work when explicitly checking. If with a hidden check it is a subconscious fear of possible punishment, then with an explicit check it is a desire to show oneself from the best side. In one case - negative control (or perceived as negative). In another case, positive control (or perceived as positive). See "Control is a delicate matter . " Positive control received the name of the Hawthorne Effect (the influence of observers on the increase in labor productivity), which was noted in the report on the results of the study.

Thus, the way to save the sheep and feed the wolves is to make the control not hidden, but explicit, i.e. staff must know that their work is being monitored. Then, by the way, there will be no stress. But for control to be technologically advanced, it must be built into the business process. It is this idea that underlies the Tachometer Point of Sale solution.

Inability to learn the most important (secondary information received)

Secret Buyers look at the work of the company through the eyes of ordinary buyers, but at the same time they can see what the ordinary buyer does not pay attention to. This is their advantage. But Secret Buyers cannot see what real buyers feel, what they like, what annoys, what they pay attention to, and what is indifferent for them. They do not know and cannot know the motives of real buyers, for example, why they came here. And most importantly, they can’t say whether they’re content to leave, whether they will come and recommend the retailer or service provider to their friends. This information is absolutely necessary for making the right management decisions.

Secret Buyers work according to the scheme they received from the customer. How did this scheme appear? Who came up with corporate service standards? Who said that a desperate salesman cannot, for example, cry, but should smile? Secret Buyers check the process. But besides checking the process, it is necessary to control the result. Process monitoring allows you to diagnose a problem. But if you don’t control the result, you can simply don’t know about the problem (don’t know what to check). Therefore, in order to assess the satisfaction of real buyers, Secret Buyers are practically useless. Conclusion: for effective management of the efficiency of retail and the service sector alone, Mystery Shoppers are not enough. ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED means to control the result. One such tool is the Loyalty Button .

But there is an important point about which it is impossible not to say. The fact is that control of the result is also a process. It is not enough to put push-button consoles at the exit or at the cashier and invite buyers to answer your questions. They simply will not answer them. Why do they need it? Perhaps, when very unhappy, they will press the "red button". For buyers to answer questions (thereby providing the information needed by the Business), sellers must behave accordingly. As a minimum, ask buyers to take part in the survey. In other words, you need to control the process. Thus, process control and result control are inextricably linked to each other. Therefore, both are necessary.

See the whole elephant

Today, for an effective management of any company operating in the retail and services sector, an integrated approach is needed - personnel and business processes need to be controlled simultaneously from several different parties, using DIFFERENT methods and systems. To use only one method, whether it is Secret Buyers or something else, in my opinion, is not enough. Remember the parable about the blind who were asked to say what the elephant looks like? The one who touched the legs said that the elephant is like a tree. Who touched the trunk, said that the elephant is like a snake, etc. Similarly, with the evaluation of the company, you need to use different methods simultaneously. One method will show one. The other is different. If the conclusions are the same, then you “see” everything correctly.

My opinion is that in order to see the elephant in its entirety, it is necessary to SIMULTANEOUSLY look at the staff and business processes from at least three points.



The first point is really Secret Buyers, without them nowhere. The second point is an automated system for monitoring business processes. An example of such a system is the Sales Point Tachometer . The third point is the EFM system, for example, the Loyalty Button . On the method of using the Tachometer Sales Point can be found in the article “Retail. KPI management. Conversion . About the Loyalty Button - in the article "Quality of customer service. KPI self-regulation .

Do you think that the classic service Mystery Shopper needs modernization and restructuring?

While in Russia, an integrated approach is the exception rather than the rule.

“Secret Buyers are a universal and very effective tool, the main thing is to use it correctly. We have a lot of experience, specially trained people, know how, our methods really work. ”

Contact the company that offers the services of Mystery Shoppers, and with a high probability you will hear something similar. They can be understood, they are so used. If you talk about it with Business (customers), then you are very likely to hear that the services of Mystery Shoppers are not enough for them, that they don’t really trust this data, and in general they would like something more efficient and technological. When I say this to companies providing the services of Mystery Shoppers, they usually respond that they (the Business) simply need to change the contractor (partner).

Perhaps both are right. But it seems to me that in the near future the importance of Mystery Shoppers, as an independent service and a universal tool, will significantly decrease. This service will be included in the service package with the provisional name Business Efficiency Monitor (OIE), within which, besides the Mystery Shoppers themselves, Business will also be offered at least automated monitoring of customer satisfaction, loyalty and quality. And at most, management of the main loyalty drivers (queue length, IT infrastructure health and business application performance), as well as automated marketing research. In this case, the OIE will not be offered as a one-time service, but as a subscriber service (most likely an IT Service). The main tool of the OIE will be EFM systems, integrated, on the one hand, with accounting systems and databases of loyalty questionnaires, on the other hand, with CRM systems, corporate portals and Service Desk products.

The services of Mystery Shoppers, of course, will remain, but they will be developed not in breadth, but "deep". Significantly increase the use of video surveillance ( Expert Monitoring technology), which will increase the efficiency of the use of expert time. Experts will remotely (without wasting time on trips) connect to video archives and databases of customers' events and, thus, evaluate business processes and personnel work. Work on the spot, too, naturally, will remain, but it will become less, so professionals and real buyers will gradually replace students and housewives (the first and second modus operandi , see above).

I think that all this will happen faster than many people think, but not before serious IT companies are interested in it. Today, the main deterrent is not the lack of demand, but the lack of supply caused by the reluctance (or impossibility) of traditional service providers of Mystery Shopping to think out of the box and change something. They are used to, and they feel comfortable working in the old way. They can be compared with home doctors who are willing to spend hours asking clients about their sores, giving advice, trying treatment regimens, etc. But if they are offered a cardiograph or tomograph, then most will say that they do not need it. "We know everything without him." Do you really know? Or just think they know? Colleagues, I am for home doctors. But I am opposed to ALL doctors were only home!

The traditional services of Mystery Shoppers can be understood. They fear that the use of automated systems will deprive them of certain competitive advantages, which are the result of methods accumulated over the years (training schemes, control schemes, etc.). My opinion, if these are really working methods, then there is nothing to fear. As for the subconscious fear of change, here the arguments are powerless. By the way, please note that the leaders of companies offering the services of Mystery Shoppers, as a rule, are women, most of whom live by the principle of "the best enemy of the good." And in their own way they are right.

It would be very interesting to know what YOU think about it. Do you think that the classic service Mystery Shopper needs modernization and restructuring?

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