Challenges Faced by Banks in Conducting Mystery Shopping in Pakistan

Among numerous many ways of checking upon the value being delivered to your customers, mystery shopping is the most sought evaluation check. Customer’s point of contact makes it plausible for each interaction to be either a successful new customer on board or loss of prospective one. For each interaction to be productive and customers get all the value intended for them, mystery shopping in disguise is the best assessment. 

Why Banks do Mystery shopping:

Over the years, Ace Research has been in close liaison with banks to carry out researches to meet their requirements. Banks have strict compliances not to meet the interests of shareholders but the prime stakeholders i.e. government in terms of compatibility with the general rule of business. State regulatory authorities in recent times have adopted a stern policy to protect the right of customers and also to promote fair and transparent practices in the industry.  Mystery shopping in the banking industry assesses the customer’s interaction with a bank; it rates the satisfaction of customers visit and highlights areas that can potentially discourage them from keeping a sustainable relationship with the bank.  

At the center of the customer experience is the bank-customer interface. The customer side of this interface can be measured with a variety of research tools, including: surveys, social media monitoring, and customer comment tools. The bank side of the bank-customer interface is best measured by mystery shopping. Bank mystery shopping focus on the employee/ behavioral side of the bank-customer interface, measuring employee behaviors, and, if well designed, determines the importance of each employee behavior in terms of driving the customer experience objectives of the bank.

How is it performed?

The foundation of a best-in-class bank mystery shopping program is observations of behaviors – behaviors which are objective, observable and empirical. Best-in-class programs focus on observing specific sales and service behaviors expected from customer-facing staff to both measure and motivate these behaviors.

While empirical observations of objective behaviors are the foundation of best-in-class bank mystery shopping, observations of these behaviors are only an important first step. Customer experience managers need to prioritize the importance of these behaviors in terms of their ability help the bank achieve its customer experience objectives, otherwise there is no way of knowing if these behaviors are aligned with broader bank goals. This provides a means of prioritizing investments in motivating these behaviors, and gives clear direction as to their relative importance.

Another call to action element is subjective comments. These comments are designed to capture unaided top-of-mind explanations from the shopper regarding why they felt the way they did about the experience. This is captured with an open-ended question. Beyond a simple narrative of the experience, these questions are designed to capture raw unstructured data from the shopper about why they felt the way they did about the experience.

Essentials of Bank Mystery shopping:

• The role of the branch has been evolving for decades. We believe the branch is currently still the cornerstone of establishing the customer relationship. Mystery shopping branch assessment is an excellent tool to measure and motivate the sales and service behaviors you expect.
• Unlike call monitoring, mystery shopping of contact centers gives managers a unique opportunity to evaluate the customer experience using predetermined scenarios.
• Competitive mystery shopping can achieve two results. First, benchmark sales and service behaviors relative to the competition. Second, identify best practices in terms of driving purchase intent or loyalty.
• Internal bank mystery shopping evaluates service provided within the organization. These assessments identify bottlenecks within the internal service delivery.
• LifeCycle assessment looks at the customer experience in a more holistic way. In this, shoppers open an account; conduct a number of different transactions and inquiries over an extended period of time.
• Online webpage gives clients insight into navigation, ease of use, and the overall online experience.
• Like online shops, mystery shopping of mobile channels evaluates navigation, ease of use, and the overall mobile experience.

Benefits of Banks Mystery Shopping:

Measurement & Motivation

Beyond simply measuring sales and customer service behaviors, bank mystery shopping provides an additional benefit for financial institutions – motivation. Just the act of measuring compliance to behavioral expectations increases the frequency of expected behaviors.

Best-in-class bank mystery shopping measures and motivates the behaviors which matter most. Those which drive the bank’s overall customer experience objectives, aligning behaviors to the overall customer experience objectives.