Finishing time：2015/9/24 13:52:00 Announcer：TRISEARCHER
With increasing more transnational corporations introduced the service in China, “MS study” is developing widely and rapidly. Due to the technical requirements and difficulties in quality control during implementation, the method is only adopted by a few number of multinational corporations and domestic professional market research companies, and is hardly known by outsiders. As a result, the coverage of “mystery customer” method is limited due to the above reasons in domestic enterprises and in fields of consultation and research. However, because of the advantages of its systematic and rigorous features in arrangement, organizing and execution; objective and scientific natures in performance indicators and consultation analysis respectively, the advanced method like “mystery customer” will influence and penetrate into the management level of vast domestic enterprises, and the customer service department and service quality evaluation department in various industries will take the lead to adopt the method or hire a professional market research to perform it, during the same period of China entering WTO and increasing more multinational companies competing for the product market share. All of the above-mentioned will surely bring out a “service marketing” revolution oriented by “improvement of customer satisfaction”.
During recent years, “MS study” is widely used by various service agencies and brands to evaluate the customer satisfaction and management of terminal market, and is becoming a significant tool used in market competition. Within a short period of time, “MS study” is developing at an ever fast speed. Increasingly more service businesses such as the retail terminal, after service center and IT call center in restaurants, hotels, durable customer goods companies and fast consumable goods companies, are using this method to evaluate their own level of service. China Mobile, Haier, Lenovo and China Construction Bank have adopted it. Presently, the service marketing is developing in a longitudinal way. An increasing number of companies and government organizations are attaching greater importance to service dynamic monitoring and management. From the traditional tangible product sales to intangible service, from telecom, power supply, banking and business halls to automobile 4S shops, even the government service agencies and regional investment organizations have begun to do so.
With the increasing number of projects of domestic “MS study”, customers’ requirements and needs are also becoming more diversified. “MS study” in China have obtained great improvement in fields of basic theories, training, operational and research techniques. However, based on the current status, there’re still some noticeable problems, which lead to the irregular phenomenon, price-squeezing by clients and unsound development of the “mystery customer” industry.
1st potential problem:
Since the 1990, “MS study” has been widely recognized by the public. However, up to now, there’re still no standard and professional system for recruitment, training, control and evaluation of mystery shoppers in China, which led to the irregularity of the whole industry. At the meantime, clients haven’t fully understood the “MS study” or market research, therefore, the research may not fulfill customers’ requirements, and clients attach excessive significance to the price-squeezing efforts.
2nd potential problem:
In China, quite some enterprises fully recognize the advantageous effect of mystery shoppers, but they share some one-sided understanding that mystery customer visit is equal to “secret investigation”, and made inadequate preparation or arranged the mystery shoppers on their own in short notice without proper recruitment, training, work quality control and evaluation system; some only focus on squeezing price of the third party service provider company and are indifferent about the scheme or strength of respective vendors but only treat the cost as their top one concern, which led to the unprofessional, nonobjective research result, and caused the unsound development of MS study business.
3rd potential problem:
“MS study” in China lack in-depth theoretical research and practical operation without proper theories as guidance. As a result, the whole industry is now “groping” in the dark. In contrast, the development of abroad “MS study” is comparatively mature, but we haven’t introduced its proven techniques, theories and practice, which results in the distortion of the purpose of mystery shopping and make it based on clients’ standard, such as “price-oriented” or “ irregularity-oriented”. The effective method that’s used for service quality improvement has been degraded in a “mechanical” way to form-filling, summary of information, staff rewards and penalty. “MS study” lost its value due to the status quo.
4th potential problem:
As for “mystery customer” recruitment for large project, market research companies have no professional mystery customer network, so they can only rely on market research network, or leave the recruitment to their own discretion. They can only provide short-term training to the hired mystery shoppers, which lead to “nonstandard criteria, insufficient knowledge and training, nonprofessional and unfair” of the recruited, and will surely contribute to the doubtful consequence of the objectiveness and fairness of final result. Without professional training, the recruited mystery shoppers will be unable to discover properly analyze problems, make no distinction between the major test indicators and the minor ones, disordered execution processes, identity exposure rate of is comparatively high, all of which result in the quality declination and unable to meet clients’ requirements. The vicious cycle of “client price-squeezing” – “quality deterioration” – “re-price-squeezing due to clients’ dissatisfaction” is thus formed.
5th potential problem:
The domestic entry barrier of “mystery customer” industry is quite low. Presently, there’s no standard or restriction when market research companies recruit “mystery shoppers”. Under most circumstance when the client’s requirement is urgent, almost all applicants will be hired. Many of the applicants lack relevant professional background, and it’s even harder to guarantee their personal quality, professional ethics, research techniques, communication skill, and the most important objectiveness and fairness. The lack of qualified “mystery shoppers” and the non-guaranteed overall quality lead to the disappointment of many clients towards the current industry status, and it also causes aversion and resistance of the staffs being tested.
