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Restaurant patrons receiving service from bartender, demonstrating customer experience measurement in action.

Turn Your Customer into a Mini Mystery Shopper

To succeed in a fast-paced consumer environment where brand loyalty is commoditized, every organization must truly know what customers truly care about –– not just assume they know. Most brands have implemented mystery shopping at some point in order to better understand the customers’ experience. While mystery shopping is still a valuable brand tool for evaluating specific experiences, it only captures feedback from a limited group of people who may not represent the true majority.

What happens when you want feedback from anyone who sets foot in your business? Instead of relying on traditional mystery shoppers or e-mail surveys to gauge customer feedback and experience, tools like the Customer Ambassador Program (CAP) turn your customers into mini mystery shoppers to gain next-level perspectives through honest and actionable feedback, leading to valuable insights that allow you to identify areas of improvement and strengthen customer relationships — all in real-time.

So, how does it work and why should you make the investment?

Any business owner or C-suite executive knows that creating happy customers is much easier said than done. Decision makers are constantly searching for ways to set their organizations apart in today’s competitive business landscape, but there is one consistent point-of-view that we think all leaders can get behind: a positive customer experience will make or break the relationship.

Customer experience is a proven driver of revenue – for better or for worse. On average, customers will tell nine people about a positive experience, but they’ll tell 16 people about a negative one. On the flip side, customers who report positive experiences are likely to spend 140% more than those who report negative ones.

So this leads us to another question: How do you measure satisfaction in customers who visit you but don’t purchase?

The most efficient way to accomplish this is by engaging your visitors through a program that allows for open and honest feedback outside of post-purchase surveys and the like. This is why we created CAP.

CAP is a first-of-its kind — a private, simple, and universal way for customers to provide feedback on their interaction with your business during their experience, regardless of purchase. Implementing CAP in your business model means investing in real-time insights and storytelling — this, coupled with mystery shopping, provides you with the highest level of feedback from a variety of customers. This unique mix of feedback from actual visitors and hired mystery shoppers allows companies to dig into specific parts of the customer experience.

Once your company implements CAP, every customer can become a mini mystery shopper. Here are three tips for supporting your new mini mystery shoppers with CAP as they help you gather insights to build a better customer experience:

  1. Simplify the process. With shorter, user-friendly questions, a customer is able to provide their comments and constructive feedback quickly and painlessly. CAP’s SMS-based messaging is totally private and intuitive (it’s just like texting!) as it asks specific questions about friction points through the customer journey.
  2. Monitor customer responses in real time and implement changes quickly to address customer concerns and enhance the customer experience. For customers to feel their opinion is valued, their feedback should be acknowledged, either in writing or in action by fixing issues that cause customer friction.
  3. Make your mini mystery shopper feel valued, important and seen. This ensures customers feel comfortable providing authentic feedback throughout the process. Express gratitude at the conclusion of the feedback, whether it was positive or negative — all of the information gathered will help to improve your business. Offering an incentive, such as a chance to instantly win a gift card, encourages both marketing opt-ins and repeat visits from customers.

By adding CAP to your company’s customer experience toolbox, your brand can show customers that their feedback matters, building value-centric brand loyalty. By involving them in the processes and valuing their feedback, a solution like CAP allows your brand to build brand preference with existing loyal customers while continuously improving your overall customer experience for both current and new customers.

Ready to transform your customer feedback strategy? Contact our team today to learn how CAP can help you identify and address customer friction points before they impact your bottom line.