Attention retailers: mystery shoppers are so yesterday

OLD school once-a-month mystery shopper programmes are well past their use-by date as a tool to understand and improve customer satisfaction, according to Empathica ANZ managing director Andrew Baird.

"It's a model that served its purpose for many years," he said.

"As an operational audit tool, it still has a role, but as a customer satisfaction tool it is fraught with inaccuracies.

"It is expensive, statistically unreliable and slow. Today, we can tap into real-time consumer feedback, use that to help our retail clients shape their service into what really matters and help turn their customers into true advocates for their brand."

Based in Toronto, Empathica provides Customer Experience Management (CEM) programmes to companies like Boots, Waitrose, Canadian Tire, Debenhams, and Pizza Hut internationally.

"Our goal is to help retailers determine what it takes to turn their customers into raving fans," Mr Baird said.

"Today, customers can have a huge influence on where their friends and family shop, based on a bad experience -- or an incredible one. We provide a range of tools to measure and provide in-depth analysis of customer experience, every day, multiple times a day. We even help customers recommend the stores we work with.

"86% of consumers stop doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience -- up from just 59% four years ago.

"Now, more than ever, it's critical to stop the rot, quickly."

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