Franchises rely on consistency of service and brand for success because customers expect the same services, products, and environment in every branch they visit. If a branch fails to provide good quality service, or doesn’t provide the same shopping experience, it has an impact on your brand. Unfortunately, most franchise owners don’t have the time to visit every branch and assess the performance. At The Franchise Institute, we recommend you hire a mystery shopper for the job because:
It’s important to see your services from your customer’s perspective to get an accurate understanding of the customer experience. As the franchise owner, you’d be immediately recognizable and the employees would quickly improve the quality of their service in your presence.
However, if you hire a mystery shopper, you can get an accurate and honest view of the service. Most business owners tend to invest in products and services that their customers might not appreciate. You might also introduce strategies and changes that your customers wouldn’t like or would find troublesome. You can avoid these mistakes with the help of a mystery shopper.
After a mystery shopper visits your franchise brand a few times, they’ll compile a thorough report of their experience for you. This report would contain their view of the quality of service of your staff. Most mystery shoppers make multiple trips in order to get the best assessment of the branch’s service. They would visit the branch during peak business hours, slow days, late evenings, early mornings, etc. This would give them a well-rounded view of what the quality of service is like during different times. Based on their report, you can alter your quality standards, training methods, and issue warnings and notices to the concerned branch. This would improve the overall quality of your services.
Most businesses endeavour to hire honest, hardworking people who wouldn’t try to cheat their employers. Unfortunately, sometimes bad apples do make it to the basket and that can lead to disaster in the form of employee fraud, intellectual property theft, stealing, and even potential law suits. A mystery shopper would actually help you spot these business hazards before they cause damage to your brand and reputation.
Mystery shoppers don’t just visit your franchise branches, they also contact your customer service handles to assess the experience. They’ll call your customer care number, engage in live chat, and send emails to see how well your customer service responds. They’ll determine whether your executives take too much time to respond, or if the interaction is friendly and helpful. You’ll be able to improve the quality of your customer service based on the data provided by mystery shoppers, which would have an impact on your customers. Improved customer service would draw more prospects to your business and improve your business reputation.
Mystery shoppers can help you make important business decisions as a franchisee and franchise owner. You can use the information provided to make hiring and promotion decisions. The information would also help you make business plan decisions regarding changes in branding, operations process, new products, and new software, etc. This would allow you to take essential steps for business growth with maximum amount of information.
If you want to know more about franchising, mystery shoppers, or want some advice, feel free to get in touch with us at The Franchise Institute. You can call us on 1300 855 435 or fill in this contact us form and we’ll reply as soon as we can.
Thanks for reading,
The Franchise Institute Team
1300 855 435
