Does traditional telephone mystery shopping give an accurate picture?

Traditional telephone mystery shop exercises are still used by many businesses to gain an understanding of training needs of their staff and representatives. Bust does this method really offer an accurate picture of individuals skill sets?

I believe that traditional telephone mystery shopping does have its place, but it can often mislead organisations causing then to waste valuable resource and budget on staff training and coaching programs that have little or no impact on sales performance.

Telephone mystery shop exercises are a great for testing targeted training exercises post event in areas such as product knowledge. A mystery shopper can be tasked to ask key questions following product launches and will quickly establish the success of product training programmes and the deployment of knowledge learnt.

In reality though, nothing is as good as the real thing, and that involves analysing real customer conversations rather than measuring actors fooling actors.

More often than not, businesses who record telephone calls received by, or made by their staff comment on how powerful and telling these calls are when reviewed. So this is an area that requires careful consideration and understanding.

It is very easy for businesses to record calls; they can also listen to and review the calls as needed. However the hardest element is remaining objective and consistent.

Sales call analysis requires dedication, clear parameters and above all lots of time!

We work with many organisations: listening to, reviewing and reporting on calls on their behalf. Customers see the benefit in a number of ways:

1)      A clear and accurate understanding of staff training needs

2)      Improved staff performance

3)      Improved business results

4)      Reduced wastage of training and coaching budget lines

What do you think? Please let us know your opinion…