Top Grade
-
How would you feel if everything that you were doing on your job was being graded? Would that typically make you nervous or would you feel like nothing is wrong because you feel your level of service is superior. It is definitely great to have the confidence that all that you are doing a great job, but what would happen to your confidence if a customer that you were serving gave you a bad grade? For many people, that would be a blow to your psyche but you have to get back out there and help the next person.
Some management personnel decide to tell each associate that they are being secret shopped every customer, every night. They do that because they do not want their service personnel to get stagnant in their service and let something slide. They want their servers to get a great grade from each person they serve. Of course there are not many people who go out there and aim to make each customer their serve angry or upset. Many people want to hear how great of a job they are doing.
Secret shopping is in place to let a customer service agent and the company they are representing know how a customer feels about the level of service they receive. Most of the time the store, or the corporate office, deems how they want each agent to be graded and how they want that agent to find out their grades. These secret shoppers aim to be as positive but helpful as possible. Not every agent will take the comments well. In fact there are many agents that will take offense to not getting a perfect score. They will have to put their pride aside in order to improve the next time they serve a customer.
You could go months without getting a review from a customer, and it is natural to let your guard down. It would seem as though when you let your guard down, that customer is judging you on this particular night. Secret shopping is not limited to in person. You could be graded the next time you answer the phone. Typically the company will let each agent know what they are being graded on so they know how to impress their customers. That gives them the advantage if there is one.
The secret to being great each time you serve a customer is actually care. Most times when service is not up to par is when the service agent is not paying attention or caring about the customer they are serving. Good customer is service is not rocket science, but it would appear that many people believe it to be.
Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

