Mystery Shopping

A multinational bank operating in Bulgaria needed to identify ways to improve the customer experience at its offices nationwide. The bank’s management contacted Client X to assist, through a mystery shopping program, in obtaining unbiased, first-hand information regarding customer service. Client X designed a mystery shopping and mystery calling program in which clients visited or called the bank’s branches to inquire about products/ services.

OBJECTIVES
Specific objectives of the research were to evaluate the customer experience on several key points:

• Corporate standards
• The welcome/farewell
• The hospitality offered
• Understanding the needs of the customer
• Staff knowledge and professionalism
• Quality of consultation
• Upgrades or additional products/services offered
• Experienced mystery shoppers made personal visits or telephone inquiries to each participating branch and documented their experience, based on detailed evaluation forms and questionnaires.

OUTCOME
Customer feedback helped identify a number of issues to be addressed in order to enhance the customer experience at bank offices. The information obtained allowed the bank’s management design and implement a new staff training program to achieve consistent service quality across different branches.