The Client –
This case study is on an air conditioning franchise organization. This reputable air conditioning franchise has been around for several years, and they have many franchisees all around the country.
The organization values and works very hard to maintain exceptional customer service and giving their customers good experiences when they choose to do business with them.
Problem –
One summer the temperature sored, and everyone wanted an air conditioner urgently. The organization felt that the level of their customer service had dropped during this period.
The challenges this franchise faced was identifying which franchisees had dropped the ball on customer service and which areas within their customer service.
Strategy –
The plan was to make mystery shopping visits to all the franchisees with enquiries regarding installing the most suitable air conditioner and assessing their performance on the various points of customer contact.
Process –
Undercover customer enquiries were submitted to every franchisee’s websites, mystery shopping phone calls were conducted, and mystery customer physical site visits to all the franchisees were carried out.
Specific criteria related to the delivery of their customer service, and response times were evaluated.
Discovery –
For one of their franchisees, when the mystery customer website enquiry was made, it went unanswered which could have meant a possible loss of sale. Upon further enquiry, it was discovered that backups were being made at the time the enquiry came through and was directed somewhere else and got lost.
Generally, the customer service process and overall performance of each franchisee was good. Some performed much higher than others achieving scores in the extreme 90s. Specific areas within the customer service categories assessed of what was working and what was not, were clearly identified.
Payoff –
Computer back up times were changed so that this problem would not arise again.
Having insights on what was not working well now meant that it could be worked on to improve towards doing better going forward. This would also help them stand out from their competitors with their customer service.
Knowing what and who was working above and beyond meant that they could recognize and award those high achievers motivating others to do better.
The Praise –
“Anne and her team are very professional and provided a detailed market research report for a very fair price. We have used them on multiple occasions and will again, recommended”