How are you looking?  I didn't ask are you looking good.  What I mean to ask is, "From what perspective are you looking?"  Too many times, when an organization is preparing their secret shopping or mystery shopping outline, they look at the customers experience -- from their (the company's) perspective. I would argue that you should look at the entire interaction from the customer's perspective.  If you go into a Walmart, there's usually a greeter, often a senior citizen, there to welcome you.  After Walmart started to publicize the fact that they had greeters, large retailers from Sears to Target started to have greeters at many locations.  I even noted that there's now a greeter at my local ACE Hardware and Fry's Electronics! They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery.  But, sometimes something get's lost in the translation.  The purpose of the greeter at Walmart was actually three-fold; To make customer feel welcome, answer questions, and prevent thefts/robberies (crooks like to be unnoticed and invisible -- kind of hard to do if your grandma just greeted you...)  What often happens, is that the imitators don't get it! They chit-chat with other employees -- I learned more about pregnancy while I was waiting for a young lady at the ACE Hardware to wrap up her conversation.  The flat-out ignore customers coming in the door -- it took me 23 -- YES 23 VISITS -- to Fry's before the person standing at the "greeter" desk actually acknowledged that I was coming through the door.  (I'm not being too critical, I'm not counting the times when the store was busy with tons of people coming through the door -- these are the times it was just me!) It doesn't matter whether you're in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago or New York -- your customer wants to feel welcomed!  If you look at the entire customer's experience from their perspective, not yours, you will begin seeing immediate results. Be sure to stop by our other web sites for additional information and ideas about building customer loyalty: The Service Quality Department ServiceQuality.US ServiceQuality.CA ServiceQuality.co.UK ServiceQuality.CN High Definition Mystery Shopping