Making the Most of Mystery Shopping - Can You Feel the Passion?

In an ideal world sales teams would make the most of each enquiry, offering potential customers a second-to-none service. But when enthusiasm wains, time pressure prevails or a lack of motivation sets in, its time to call in the experts. Help is at hand as Lucy Owens reveals how mystery shopping programmes can boost performance

(PRWEB) October 29, 2004 -- Recording calls is a common technique to improve sales performance for individuals, teams and organisations-- and many companies use this traditional method to keep a close eye on customer service levels. It can be an extremely effective method of training if action is taken on the results.

But action takes time -- an increasingly scarce commodity in todays business world -- and managers are often left frustrated with the information at their fingertips and the lack of resources to act upon it.

Quest Travel, a specialist in tailored long-haul travel, is one company that has set out to do something about it. With a sales team of 35, monitoring their customer service skills and knowledge base, and then finding the time to consult them on their performance is almost impossible," said Dave Simmons, Quests Managing Director.

Que mystery shopper. Posing as a regular customer wanting to enquire about, or book a holiday, the mystery shopper service effectively measures the level of service customers are experiencing, and the ability of call centre staff.

One company with its finger on the pulse of effective customer service is Naked Training, an energetic team devoted to designing and delivering flexible, tailor-made training programmes for the travel industry. A key part of this service is the mystery shopper exercise.

Recording the calls is only a small part of the mystery shopping programme," explained training guru Dave Pope, the man behind Naked Training.

The benefits come from the time spent in-house working with the sales teams and their managers. Together we listen to the calls and coach the agents on ways of improving their sales technique and service levels. In addition we also work with the supervisors on performance management," said Dave.

The key aim of the mystery shopping exercise is to compare employee performance against two key objectives - exceeding customers expectations every time and maximising profitability. Training from real-life scenarios enables knowledge and procedure gaps to be identified and addressed.

Mystery shopping has confirmed time and time again that expensive marketing is not always supported by first-class customer service or a real passion to close the sale and maximise opportunities. So why dont travel companies carry out this kind of service themselves?

In a bustling business, staff development is sometimes the one thing that gets left aside but by bringing in a professional training company you can guarantee it is going to happen," said Dave Simmons from Quest.

Exceeding customer expectations is a key to our strategy, so it was important that our programme provided a constant focus in this area," said Dave. As well as gaining an external perspective on performance, Quest Travel also find its sales agents are much more receptive to outside advice. Worries over agents being criticised or put in the spotlight are needless as the emphasis is on the positive. Working in teams naturally creates a small amount of peer pressure - but this acts as a catalyst in boosting confidence levels and self esteem.

The key to success though is continuity. Quest Travel has been using Naked Trainings mystery shopping programme regularly for over two years and has reaped the rewards.

We have grown substantially and a lot of the development can be attributed to the fresh sales techniques and motivated agents that the programme has given us," said Dave Simmons.

Capitalising on its success, Quest Travel has recently opened its fourth office in Brighton to accompany offices in York, Swansea and Kingston (headquarters).

Consistency is the name of the game - and thanks to fully customised programmes, companies can benefit from well-planned sessions and training that are guaranteed to breathe fresh life into telephone sales.

For further information on Mystery Shopping excellence programmes from Naked Training please call 0870 420 7137 or visit www.naked-training.com

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