Creating a fantastic customer experience (CX) is no longer a ‘fancy add-on’ for businesses worldwide. Anyone keeping an eye on industry trends will know CX is actually at the core of business and marketing strategies today and has a direct impact on their bottom lines.
According to a latest report by PwC, 32% of customers tend to walk away from a brand they love because of just one bad experience, while they are willing to pay up to 16% above price for a great experience.
While businesses are doing everything to decode consumer preferences and adjust their brand marketing strategies accordingly, they are gradually realizing the need to level up their game to ensure an even better CX for their target audience.
This is where mystery shopping research is changing the game for businesses.
Although not a new concept, this is becoming a differentiating factor for companies that always support data-driven business decisions. Employing highly trained shoppers posing as genuine customers, companies are busy assessing everything that impacts a customer’s experience—from customer service and staff behavior to product availability and store cleanliness. This, in turn, is helping businesses understand the needs, grievances, and expectations of their target audience at a deeper level and redefine their customer experience strategy for greater success.
Why Mystery Shoppers Matter Now More Than Ever
Customer preferences are shifting fast, and increasingly shortening attention spans are becoming the norm; which is why businesses need to think on their feet when it comes to fulfilling customer needs. With mystery shopping, they get a real-world and overarching snapshot of how adept their teams are in delivering a superior customer experience.
Meanwhile, with more and more businesses putting CX first, the competition has now reached a level where brands are eager to study their competitors’ CX strategies and stay ahead of the curve. It is mystery shopping that is helping those businesses thoroughly benchmark their customer service against industry peers and standards and make more informed decisions.
The stiff competition also makes it clear that businesses cannot afford to miss any blind spots in customer service, be it in-store, telephonic, or online interactions. Mystery shopping is helping them improve their CX across all channels by uncovering hidden issues that require prompt attention, something that often goes unnoticed in standard customer feedback.
How Can Brands Measure Customer Experience Better With Mystery Shopping Market Research?
Devising a customer experience strategy is one thing, but assessing its impact is an altogether different story. It is imperative for businesses to continually check if they are connecting with target customers and meeting their expectations. It is true that today’s businesses have a variety of customer experience measurement metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES) at their disposal. These metrics help them gather data directly from customers, capturing their sentiments and feedback, which is largely quantitative in nature.
Mystery shopping market research complements these efforts, as it adds a qualitative layer to complete the CX picture. While surveys may tell a business how their customers feel, mystery shopping shows how they are treated. It also gives context to the numbers, revealing the “why” behind customer sentiments. When a low CSAT score reveals poor service levels to a business, then mystery shopping highlights the specific interaction points that need prompt attention.
Using these methods in conjunction is giving businesses a much-needed holistic view of customer experiences, which is helpful in designing effective CX strategies.
In this endeavor, our customer experience (CXi) index can act as their digital mystery shopping guide. It provides businesses with a comprehensive 360-degree view of customer drivers, enabling them to segment customer loyalty and measure their brand performance in terms of customer satisfaction.
As a consolidated index, CXi measures customer experience through four key metrics: performance, advocacy, reconsideration, and competitive advantage. Beyond delivering data, it offers businesses a holistic framework for gleaning actionable insights into their CX strategies and taking steps to improve and optimize their CX levels.
Setting the Stage for High-End Customer Service
The customer will always be the be-all and end-all for every business, and seeing your brand through their eyes paves the way for unseen insights into your customer brand experience and gives you a chance to enthrall and engage them more.
With a ground-level understanding of how your customers experience your brand, you’re going much farther than merely addressing their current needs. You are solving many future problems even before they arise. At the end of the day, delightful customer experiences is what will keep them coming back to your products, services, and brand.
