The Client –
This case study is on a full-service printing franchise organization with numerous franchises throughout the country.
The organization looks to provide exceptional customer service to their customers. Conducting mystery shopping visits to ensure that this excellent customer service is maintained within their franchisees has been maintained throughout several years.
Problem –
For a couple of years, mystery customer visits to their franchisees across the country came to a halt. They now needed to gain insights on what the level of service is to bring it up to the level they need to remain competitive and work towards standing out from their competitors.
Strategy –
The strategy was to make phone mystery shopping enquiries to all the franchisees and to assess the level of customer service delivered at the various points of customer contact.
Process –
Phone call enquiries with a specific scenario was made to the various stores. KPIs relating to customer service were focused on and scored to allow for easy assessment of what was working well and what needed to be worked on.
Discovery –
Our findings showed that majority of the stores immediately requested that the customer send the inquiry through email. Many omitted to ask for contact details from the mystery customer. This meant that the potential customer could go elsewhere without them knowing and that it would also not allow for any follow ups. Many opportunities were possibly lost. There was a lack of questions being asked as to the needs of the mystery customer, which was more lost opportunity in offering advice or recommendations, and possibly securing commitment to purchase. There was also a lack of quotes being provided. A lack of selling skills by store staff with most stores not following up in some way was uncovered.
Payoff –
Targeted training sections were identified for the organization to act on and improve which would support them in working towards standing out from their competitors. This improvement would undoubtedly lead to providing exceptional customer service and as a result would increase sales within each franchise.
The Praise –
“We recently had Anne & her team do a mystery shop for us. She discussed the project with us beforehand & sent a very thorough report afterwards with the results.
We will certainly be using her again in the future.”