The role of mystery shoppers in performance appraisal

¶ … role of Mystery Shoppers in Performance Appraisal

In the retail history of the past, mystery shoppers have often been used in brick and mortar stores, like the Gap, Burger King, and Office Max to provide valuable feedback to employees and their managers, as well as to act as instruments of quality control. However, one useful venue for mystery 'shopping' that has not been explored is the use of mystery shoppers on computer and other appliance help lines. When a consumer has a problem with his or her computer, Internet service, or other technological product, quite often he or she must call a helpline to solicit data for assistance. The quality of assistance may affect his or her desire to purchase more products by the company.

However, as anyone who has ever tried to call such a line well knows, the quality of advice and support can be extremely varied. Many times, it is not uncommon to call back again at a different time, get a different operator, and to have a completely different experience! Of course, the phone calls can be monitored for quality control by recording some of the calls. But mystery shoppers could also call up the lines and ask specific questions that the company wants to make sure the help lines can answer. Also, the manner of the individual and demeanor could be assessed by the mystery shopper. Simply recording a phone conversation does not always provide the emotional feedback about what it is like talking to a particular employee while he or she helps a caller figure out a problem. The mystery shoppers could try to make the call especially useful to the company by being particularly emotional, provocative, or confused, to see how the caller handed the issue. Also, the company might get an idea of potential problems about 'snags' in the company script that were not really helpful in talking a caller through a problem. The call center workers could be rated on accuracy, professionalism, and helpfulness. They could also be rated as to the extent to which they offered helpful information that the customer was unaware of, like a new deal, or a more advantageous cell phone or Internet plan that suited the customer's needs better.

In contrast, using mystery shoppers at a university would seem to be a difficult proposition. After all, sitting in on a class is not the same thing as actually taking a class. However, if the university wished to improve certain student services, the data might prove helpful in some instances. For example, mystery 'shoppers' could go to the university financial aid office, and rate the helpfulness and knowledge of the advice they received, when they confronted the official with a particular, common problem. Students could also measure how long it took them to get through certain steps of the registration process for classes online, and record if they received appropriate feedback in dealing with any potential, common difficulties with the Internet system. Students could provide information about the quality of help and the amount of time they were given with their faculty advisors, the quality of the student handbook and course catalogue, the amount of time it took to get an appointment at the health center and the quality of care they received. They could even measure and provide feedback about how long the waits were for good equipment at the student gym! or, to provide more sophisticated and detailed feedback, outsiders posing as students could critically assess some of these areas, measured against benchmarks of desired performance by the school's administrators.