Secret Shop On Purpose

Building and maintaining a secret shopping program that runs smoothly requires purposeful planning and upkeep. Many times we start a program and expect it to happen on accident; however, an effective secret shopping program calls for strategy. Not because it’s hard or time consuming, but because it must be introduced to the group as positive reinforcement and not negative.

The best place to start is to make sure your managers know what is expected of them. Clearly express that the starting-out point may not be what you desire, but your goal is to see improvement. Then, follow up each mystery shop by asking the managers what they could work on next time. Make sure they know how to improve in each area; it may just be a matter of them not knowing where to go with it. Once you and they agree on the next goal, follow up and reward them when they reach it.

The goal is to purposely use the tool as a self-reflective evaluation in order to improve sales and customer service. Asking the manager what they think they could do differently gets them focused on the usefulness of a mystery shop. This is a great way to avoid getting stuck in a defensive mode or automatically disregarding a secret shopping evaluation.

As scores improve, your managers will be able to take pride in the goals they’ve met. Make sure the managers display awards so that coworkers and customers can see them. Company loyalty or pride is an excellent and valuable characteristic of an employee and makes the working environment fun.

Unsatisfactory performances may still arise; though, if you’ve discussed how you wanted to see the group or individuals improve and how they could have made those improvements then poor scores have less room to be shrugged off and the consequence becomes more significant.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American writer and activist

Written by Sarah Little, TQA Account Executive

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