Many organizations that have established mystery shopping programs have a laundry list of items that they measure. These are usually specific actions they have trained their employees on. Good for them!
The next step is to measure subtle elements of the customer experience that are not fully, or out of your control completely. The key is to not “score” these questions. An example would be traffic on the way to your location being shopper. How was parking? Could you see the signage from the street? Were there people loitering about? Did you feel safe?
Now, given past articles on keeping the observation objective, versus these subjective observations I’ve proposed, you might think I’ve gone off my rocker. I assure you I haven’t. The important thing here is that these questions are “FYI” only, or carry no weight in the overall score of the shop.
By asking an independent third-party to evaluate these elements, that do affect the customer’s experience, you can use it as a call to action with city officials or property managers to correct the situation. It will also give you a head start on managing customer expectations from the get go!
