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The Mystery Customer Is Around 身边的神秘顾客 当你用餐、购物或享受某种服务时，“神秘顾客”或许刚好与你擦身而过。这是一群十分挑剔的人，正所谓来者不善，他们花钱不为享受而专为找破绽。 Ms. Clark is a "mystery shopper," one of thousands of contract workers that companies hire to pose as regular customers in order to gauge customer service,3 cleanliness and whether a store is selling a product that meets company specifications. Mystery shoppers can be found, or, rather, not found, everywhere from restaurants and automotive shops to video rental chains, convenience stores and department stores.4 They play a constant cat-and-mouse game with store and restaurant employees and managers. However it's not all fun and games. Once in the field, a mystery shopper will typically work several stores or resta urants per hour, taking mental notes while inside, then jotting down physical notes after they leave.5 It's important for mystery shoppers to be as exact as possible, because the client companies6 are looking for data they can use to improve their service. The questionnaire won't say, "Does the trash can need to be emptied?" What an educateds hopper will say is,"The trash can to the left of the front door was overflowing with 10 pieces of trash on the ground.? Companies don't need opinion but facts. CHAMPS stands for cleanliness, hospitality, accuracy, maintenance, product quality and speed of service. And mystery shoppers have to be able to observe and take note of each of these aspects of the restaurant within three to five minutes. Restaurant shoppers might also sample the food.8 Nowadays mystery shoppers are armed with a number of high-tech devices, such as a digital scale and a digital thermometer, as well as a handheld PC for recording the entire experience.9 It's a challenging job but a rewarding one.10 Mystery shoppers can be full time or part time, but the full-time workers tend to stick to standard mystery shopping while part-timers often opt for the less complex reward-based programs11. In those, the shoppers stay disguised only until the "shop" is finished, and then reveal themselves to the store management and award prizes to employees who provided excellent service.12 To be a mystery shopper, it's important
to be a good observer, but sometimes it''s important to have the right
profile13, too. Companies often recruit shoppers from particular backgrounds
to better blend in with clients" regular customers.14 If a secret
shopper will be sent in, for example, to do a high-end automotive shop,
the candidate must have a particular profile that meets a high-end,
luxury car-type buyer profile."It's a challenge to perform your
shop without being discovered," Ms. Clark said,"because most
of the people that we work for are very aware of the mystery shopping
program." |
I
find myself glancing at my watch to see how long I've been standing
in line1,"she said. "Everywhere I go, I notice if the dumpster
gates are open or if there's trash in the parking lot.?