The news from the  Gulf keeps getting worse. In today's news, BP announced that the stop-gap measure they put in place was sucking up 5,000 barrels of oil!  That's great no more oil - right?  Well, it turns out that there may be a few thousands or tens of thousands of gallons of oil coming out than they originally estimated.  Oops! I can only surmise that BP either has the worst estimators in the world or that they lied.  (I vote for #2) If they lie about the amount of oil, it goes that they probably lied about their inspection programs too.  Probably their safety records.  Who did they fool?  Nobody.  In the end, I don't know what will be left of BP.  My guess is that it will take decades for their reputation to be restored, if they're around that long. The same is true of businesses who don't have a mystery shopping program in place.  You're only lying to yourself.  The truth will come out in the end.  In the best case scenario, you'll have to spend more money to attract customers.  In a worst-case scenario, you'll need to prepare for a liquidation after all your customers are gone. 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