Technically, it is possible to check customer experience on your own but a 3rd-eye view is a must to bring significant changes. How a business can evaluate customer experience? What is the most efficient way to find actionable insights and design a better customer experience strategy? The answers to all these questions lie in Secret Shopping.
It is no secret that a company often hires secret shopping service providers to check what a customer experiences while making a buying decision. Let us find out what it stands for first before we jump to find the reasons to hire a secret shopper.
What is secret shopping?
Secret shopping or mystery shopping, in layman’s language, is a process where a professional is appointed to visit a business point and act like a shopper to walk through a buying journey. It helps the professional to evaluate customer experience and identify the pain points.
A company hires a secret shopping service provider who then appoints professional shoppers with experience. This process is often supported by digital tools to set pre-defined parameters and develop questionnaires. The reports generated by a team of mystery shoppers after visiting specified business points enable a hirer to see the hidden issues of customer service vividly.
It is then a data-driven strategy is developed comprising actionable insights and implemented across the domains of customer service in the targeted business points. This is how secret shopping works.
Reasons for hiring an expert secret shopper
When you hire a mystery shopping company, it will focus on creating a team of experts who have immense experience in mystery shopping in a particular industry. This experience is going to be an eye-opener for the hirer. Let us delve deeper and find out why experienced secret shoppers are hired for the job.
1. Performance
Secret shoppers are foot soldiers of a secret shopping program. The entire planning depends on how they perform. This is why experienced experts are hired for this job so that the program is a success on the first go.
2. Keen observation
It so happens that a secret shopper does not get ample time as the customer’s journey is short-lived. During this period, he has to focus on different aspects of customer service and note down the experience. Only an experienced secret shopper can do his job in the most efficient way. Hence, all the reports generated will be quality-controlled and will deliver the expected outcomes.
3. Understanding customer sentiment
The brand image of a business is entirely dependent on customer sentiment. A true secret shopper will put on customers’ shoes and understand the sentiment to find out the hidden issues of customer experience.
4. Response
Asking the right questions and providing an accurate response by means of the proper interpretation of experience done by secret shopping experts are what you need for your business’ image.
In a nutshell, secret shopping needs proficient and experienced professionals who can add value to the program and deliver the right outcomes. These outcomes will then be used to redefine customer experience programs.
