Hi,
Last week, I was teaching a course about Mystery Shopper in the new SGS Internal Auditor Program. I talked about the 5 major Guidelines for a good Mystery Shopper. A Mystery Shopper is someone who pretends to be a customer and observe objectively the service process.
A Mystery Shopper observes and report, while a Coach observes and inquire, a Facilitator observe and guide and a Salesperson observe and lead. We all observe and these 5 guidelines can also be applied.
1. See/Hear but No Feel. It is nothing about you. We only see and hear what's happening and our feeling is not important when observing objectively.
2. Yes/No but No Good/Bad. It is not our responsibility to judge what we observed. They is no good or bad, only yes or no - something has happened or not.
3. A Structure to Follow. There are so many things out there. If you don't have a structure to guide you to observe, you either observe nothing or too many things. Mystery Shopper has a well-designed survey form. Coach has Coaching Models and Facilitator has Principles.
4. Focus on what you are Observing. Don't try to see everything. We just can't. Recent research proved that multi-tasking is not really possible.
5. Things happen to You and to Others. Mystery Shopper observes both, while facilitator and coach focus on Others only. However, I always think that a truly objective Mystery Shopper should consider what happened to Others being more important to those happened to you. It is more objective!
Keith
Explore, Exceed & Excel
