Mystery Shopping Basics

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Bank Mystery Shopping

By Susan Tompor
Detroit Free Press

If you walk into a bank to cash a check one day, don't be surprised if you get a phone call a day later from somebody who wants to chat you up about how things went.

Or maybe the bank will send you a letter asking you to go undercover as a customer to rate one of the branches.

It's all in the name of customer service. And frankly, it is a little surprising how far banks are taking this thing.

Standard Federal Bank is asking some customers to sign up to be mystery shoppers for a full 12 months.

Comerica Bank expects to make 25,000 phone calls in Michigan once it completes a yearlong effort to survey its customers about their branch experience. That works out to about 80 to 100 calls per branch during the year.

National City Bank is calling customers within 24 hours after they visit a branch. It amounts to about 120 customers per branch during the year.

"Every customer interaction has to be good," said Bob Garrison, executive vice president for National City Bank in Birmingham. He oversees the branch network in Detroit, Ann Arbor and Toledo.

Customer surveys

Sure, all the banking experts told us years ago that people would stop going into branches. We'd be doing everything via the ATM or the phone or online. We'd never want to talk to a teller.

But the experts were wrong.

Michael Lawson, senior vice president for retail operations for Comerica, said it turns out that customers still want to walk into a branch sometimes, as well as use electronic banking methods.

"We really believe that service quality is a core part of how you retain customers and add customers," Lawson said.

So Comerica hired an outside firm to conduct the phone surveys, which will continue through this spring.

Customers are reminded that they visited a specific branch and asked about their experiences. The phone calls last about 8 to 10 minutes.

"It gives the branch manager a score card," Lawson said.

So what's got customers upset?

Like banking customers everywhere, they did complain about fees. And they wanted higher interest rates.

But Lawson said most customers were pleased with the service at branches.

The next phase for improving service, he said, will involve adding the new technology to help branch employees deal more quickly with questions.

Mystery shoppers

At Standard Federal, the bank revamped its longtime mystery shopper program recently to focus on specific behaviors, such as whether tellers smile at customers.

"The personal interaction is still very important," said Kevin Condon, senior vice president, customer-experience manager for Standard Federal in Troy.

The bank sends letters to select customers to be mystery shoppers. If interested, the customer fills out a profile within 10 days.

They're not supposed to tell the people at their branch that they're now mystery shoppers.

Customers visit the branch once a month for a year. They fill out a questionnaire for each visit and are paid $5 a pop.

"We have a goal of mystery shopping each branch each week," Condon said.

Another part of this process: Standard Federal launched a "Kill Stupid Rules" program last year. The bank has killed more than 100 rules so far, including waiving a fee for counting coins for small businesses.

Condon says banks lose customers because they move or have a bad experience.

"We can't control whether or not people move," he said.

So many banks are doing what they can to add some spark to customer service.

Reprinted from http://www.freep.com/money/business/tompor16e_20050216.htm

Yours in success,

Jennifer Callahan

info ~at~ mystershopnow ~dot~ com

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