Mystery Shopper

“We are launching our mystery shopping programme for the new financial year and as Customer Services Manager I am a big supporter of the role mystery shoppers can play in helping me to evaluate the service we provide to our customers. This article explains the programme and how it may also help you develop your skills and contribute to your CV.”

Anne Vaughan, Customer Services Manager

Examples of mystery shopping questions include:

• Telephoning our income team to ask for a rent statement and checking your account balance

• E-mailing our customer service centre if you have an actual repair to report

• Telephoning our customer service centre and asking how you apply to join our housing waiting list

• Write to us on behalf of a friend to see what she needs to do to report a problem with her neighbour

We would then like you to assess the level of customer care. For example, did we give our name, and did we treat you as an individual. We will also want you to assess the timeliness of our response and whether we were knowledgeable on our policies and procedures.

As a thank you for taking part at the end of each programme we will give you High Street vouchers. Please see our Spring 2010 newsletter for more information (Pages 6/7)