Customer satisfaction survey VS. Mystery Shopping
Customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shopping reports are both tools of market research, Each of them has a different job, they cannot be a substitute for each other. Although we cannot imply, that mystery shopping reports have better results than customer satisfaction surveys or vice versa.
Customer satisfaction surveys
Customer satisfaction survey is a marketing research tool used to ask customers about their opinion about what is important to them and their feelings about the service or product. The customer survey research method includes web surveys, phone surveys, voice response surveys or filling out CS cards and more.
Customer satisfaction surveys mainly try to figure out the following points through sets of questions the customer is asked to answer whether in the form of choices or open-ended questions.
- Customer view of the organization
- Customers’ feelings and perceptions
- Customers’ opinions about employees, locations, products, and services
- Information only from the customer’s point of view disregarding the surrounding factors affecting the situation and company standards
- Information that is used to form the company’s strategies
- Information that is used for planning
Mystery shopping
Mystery shopping is mainly used to measure how the employees comply with company standards by sending a mystery shopper who is trained to act as a customer, asked to interact with the business personnel and report their observations directed by a set of questions and situations prepared to gather information about the customer service and facility compliance with the company standards.
The Mystery shoppers’ observations are gathered into a report that covers the following information which is useful for the client (business owner) to help him make decisions.
- Performance of the from the line of the organization
- Compliance of the company’s personnel with the company standards
- Information for a customer’s point of view putting in mind the company’s standards
- Information useful to form the company’s tactics
- Information useful for the management to take actions
Conclusion
Customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shopping are both marketing research tools that work perfectly together and cannot be substituted for each other. CSS is recommended if you need to figure out what should be done to satisfy your customers or update the company’s strategy, while MS works best if you already know what should be done according to the company’s strategy or plan and need to know if your employees are complying with this plan and actually delivering results according to it.