Mothers have a special knack for keeping track of their children’s behavior. In every neighborhood there is one mom that seems to have eyes in the back of her head. Regardless of the level and type of mischief her kids get into, the mom KNOWS. Business owners and managers can similarly expand their vision and increase their ability to keep track of employee behavior through the use of mystery shoppers.

Mystery shoppers provide a customer’s eye view of a business and provide information on how interactions with customers are occurring right now. Using this information, businesses have an opportunity to change business practices to meet and exceed customer expectations, providing a great customer experience.

An effective mystery shopper visit collects information on the elements of a customer’s experience.

Some of the elements are observable and include overall cleanliness, quality of merchandising and employee product knowledge. In addition, mystery shoppers collect information on actions by employees such as offering a greeting, providing assistance, or offers of additional sales.

Mystery shoppers should not become part of a "gotcha" program where poor performers are caught or fired. A mystery shopper report highlights where an employee is falling short of expectations and provides an opportunity to discuss specific improvements.

Conversely excellent performance on a mystery shopping report presents an opportunity to recognize a job well done and provide an incentive for good performance. Just like children, employee behavior improves when monitored.

There are two ways to engage a mystery shopping program.

One is to hire an organization to provide shoppers on a monthly basis. The advantage of professional shoppers is that the items to be observed can be discussed in advance insuring that the "shopper" does not miss any critical elements.

The other method is to create an internal mystery shopping program. The Home Depot is conducting its own mystery shopper program. The program is simple. A customer is invited to participate. If the customer is willing, a cart full of products is supplied and the customer proceeds with the transaction. At the end of the transaction, the customer notifies the cashier, "You have been shopped." The customer receives a small discount on their purchase and the cashier receives a report on his or her performance.

A self-managed program requires significant management involvement, however there are advantages.

One is that employees may be selected to participate. This insures everyone gets shopped and evaluated. In addition, based on the items placed in the cart, the training team can determine if the cashier catches errors, follows procedure and is efficient. Last, and most importantly, there is an opportunity for the customer to share impressions of the experience.

Whether a business uses an external agent or sets up a program internally, several elements are required to make the program valuable.

• Define the information desired about the customer experience. Things such as employee product knowledge, staff friendliness, store cleanliness, ease of finding products or acquiring service.

• Review each mystery shopper report. The summary is a snapshot of one transaction for one customer. One transaction does not provide enough information to drive sweeping change, however, it may highlight an opportunity for change that requires additional study.

• Take action. Share the report with the employee. Provide recognition, coaching or discipline as needed. If the report is good, consider the elements that may be duplicated for other transactions. If the report is poor, what changes can be made to improve the customer experience for the future.

The eyewitness information from a mystery shopping program creates the opportunity to change and improve the customer experience.

Contact Leslie Clark, president of Shift, through her website www.shiftcustomerservice.com or (520) 971-0456. Shift provides training and consulting services for businesses working to provide distinctive customer service by collecting information, developing processes and training people. Customer Focus appears the fourth week of each month in Inside Tucson Business.