How do you rate your company’s customer service skills? Customers who have a poor experience are more likely to take their business elsewhere than report their experience to management. In addition, word of mouth to others about negative experiences can be devastating for many businesses. If you’d like an unbiased review of your company’s customer service, try a secret shopper.
Many businesses with a strong focus on customer service hire people to secretly shop as if they were actual customers and clients, reporting their experiences back to the business. By hiring a secret shopper, you can receive an in-depth report on customer treatment in a variety of situations, such as product knowledge, responses to challenging questions or situations, waiting times, personality and disposition of staff, and the eagerness of staff to help or find solutions.
Secret shoppers shouldn’t be used as a way to reprimand staff, but rather an opportunity to increase customer satisfaction and increase sales.
In addition to secret shoppers, customer surveys are a great way to gain insight into customer experiences, good or bad. Remember to offer an incentive such as a discount or special offer, which will often increase participation.
No matter what approach you take to achieve top-quality customer service, just remember that happy, loyal customers are worth their weight in gold, so we should do whatever we can to be sure they are treated well.