Mystery shopping is most effective when it is used in conjunction with a training program. Mystery shopping results suggest areas to include in the training agenda, and comments from shoppers provide a detailed account of how customers perceive specific service interactions. Trainers use this information to bring the customer experience to life and illustrate how different service behaviors and strategies can affect customer satisfaction. Repeat the study. Mystery shopping is typically repeated periodically to measure change and test goals.
Some call centers conduct shopping monthly, but a quarterly schedule is usually sufficient.
There needs to be enough time between rounds to print reports, share results, set goals and train employees. If the program is designed well, it will be flexible enough to change over time. As basic service levels improve to a point where incremental improvements are increasingly difficult to obtain, more challenging scenarios can be used and more sophisticated skills can be measured. Reporting formats can change, also, with different weighting and scoring methods used to encourage the use of particular skill sets. These 10 points represent the basic components in the design and implementation of a call center mystery shopping program.