The company I work for has begun using a “Secret Shopper” service to evaluate our Customer Experience, and we are all living in fear. Mild fear, but fear all the same. Many stores recently have received Bad Scores. My store has only gotten Good Scores, even with seasonal employees during Christmas, but every time we hear that The Shoppers are out and about, we quiver with a nameless dread. Sometimes we will be told “you were shopped last Wednesday” and we will check our calendars and breathe a sigh of relief when we discover that Wednesday was our Day Off. Or the rating will come in the mail and we will huddle together and say “it was me, I know it was me” until the envelope is opened and another seasonal employee’s name appears. Of the three Fulltime Employees, none of us has gotten Shopped yet. Til today.
When I open the store I find a fax on the machine, and I see that it is the dreaded report. I take the second page in my hand and read the narrative that describes the Shopping Experience…I don’t want to see the first page with the name. I read the description of the sale and breathe a sigh of relief…I do not recognize the scenario, the dialogue, anything. It was not me. It wasn’t me!!! But it is a great review…perfect 100%.
Then I look at the first page, and scrawled across the top are the words "Great Job, Kittenblue!!! I am puzzled. I check the date and time of the Shopping Experience…last Thursday, when I opened and was by myself for three hours. I check the journal log to see what I was doing during the twenty minutes this person said I was waiting on them so brilliantly. I had just finished one customer’s sale, and I remember exactly what happened next. I got the merchandise, I started engraving it and had problems with the set-up, and spent many minutes fussing to get it right. In frustration, I remember looking at my watch, thinking I was running out of time, and seeing that it was 20 minutes later and I still had plenty of time. This was the exact period of time the Secret Shopper claims to have spent with me. She got my name right, but spelled wrong. Age and height were correct, but she described my hair as brownish-gray, and I object…the roots may be starting to show, but not enough to be mean about. Number of people in store is right, but I never, ever said the things she said I said.
My manager tells me to let the Regional Manager know, because if the Shoppers are falsifying the good scores, they might fake the bad ones too. The regional Manager is puzzled, and pretty much tells me that she’d just as soon take the good score and not worry too much how we got it. Only I could get upset about a perfect score. I mean I’m glad we made it through another one, but if they aren’t accurate, they shouldn’t be paying this company big money to keep us Living in Fear.
Personnaly I don’t care that much, I do my job the best I can do with the little what/who the company gives me. I sincerely hope the customers are happy, and if the mystery shopper is not, it’s just going to help me to improve my customer service level. It’s a positive thing!