Mystery Guest

How do businesses lose customers?

  • 14% leave because of dissatisfaction with the current product/service
  • 1% die
  • 3% move away
  • 5% follow a friend’s advice
  • 9% leave because of a better product/service or price

Compare the above to this startling statistic:

68% of customers leave because of what they perceive as indifference from the service provider. This makes them feel unappreciated, unimportant and taken for granted.

(Source: Disney University)

Before you spend your time and money attracting new customers, consider the following statistics:

  • Repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers.
  • Referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than non-customers.
  • It costs 6x more to sell something to a prospect than to sell that same thing to a current customer.
  • It costs as much to gain ONE new client as to keep FIVE existing ones.

(Source: The Times)

In our business sector a lot of small individuals perform a largely non systematic mystery guest service. At the Carlton Institute we provide systematic professional feedback, gathered using a range of proven techniques that provide quality feedback.

We put together a questionnaire and a “client” briefing designed to achieve your objectives. This normally follows the typical client journey and we can highlight the performance of each department. There are several different question types. Weightings are applied to get the focus right and we can track equivalent questions in subsequent questionnaires. If you are new to mystery guest, we can advise on a suitable questionnaire to get you started.

We agree a schedule of visits with you for each period. We will select suitable assessors who will be briefed and will visit your sites as paying guests.

The main aim is to avoid risks to ratings or reputation that may be caused by inconsistent application of your values. However, for large chains with well-defined brand standards, we can also provide on-site coaching following a visit.

There is a fixed report fee for a brand audit where anonymity is maintained and an additional hourly rate where the assessor is required to report their findings on site.

On instruction we will work with you to develop a programme tailored to your own exact requirements. This can be anything you want it to be and may include some of the following criteria:

  • Telephone Etiquette and Sales Analysis
  • Customer Service Levels
  • Product Knowledge
  • Product Quality
  • Sales Skills
  • Staff Appearance
  • Facility Standards
  • Website Guest Satisfaction
  • Speed of Service
  • Presentation of Staff
  • Up Selling Skills
  • Ambiance
  • Competitor Analysis

We are passionate about making a real and lasting improvement to the performance of your business. We can use the valuable information we gather to train your staff on the issues highlighted within your mystery shopping programme.

At Carlton Institute we are experts in training and are the only mystery shopping company to have won National Training Awards in our category for training excellence. We develop exciting training programmes that are designed to engage your staff in the real issues effecting business performance. We measure success on achieving long term behavioural change, not just attendee’s feedback.