In
From the Cold, Out to the Mall
By S. Adam Cardais
The Prague
Post
In today's consumer society, a customer is more likely to complain
about bad service received than to spread compliments when satisfied, so
it's essential for companies to monitor their level of customer service,
according to Canadian businessman Brian Tranter.
And he is trying to help companies do this.
Ten months ago Tranter and a silent partner created a company called
Mystery Shoppers that provides retailers, restaurants and even Fortune 500
companies with trained spy shoppers who will go to their stores and
offices to evaluate employees. Mystery Shoppers isn't the only game in
town, but Tranter is hoping years of experience in the customer-service
industry will set his company apart and allow it to grow.
Tranter started his career in customer service managing call centers for
companies such as American Express. He moved to Prague five years ago to
set up a customer-service call center for mobile-phone operator Oskar but
recently shifted his focus to setting up a business that would combine his
work experience with a service this country needed: customer-service
management.
"I met my partner at Oskar," he says. "We had talked about a couple of
ideas and eventually we settled on this one. There seemed to be a need for
customer-service management here, so we settled on this as a way of
helping companies."
Tranter got his experience with mystery shopping from working in call
centers, which do internal quality checks, and felt there was an unmet
need here for mystery shopping. He and his partner created a Web site and
sent direct mail to as many as 300 companies to gauge interest.
|
MYSTERY SHOPPERS
• What is it? A company started 10 months ago
by Canadian businessman Brian Tranter and a silent
partner
• What does it do? Retailers, restaurants and
even multinational companies can hire the company to
send spy shoppers into their shops and offices to
evaluate employee performance, specifically in the
area of customer service
• How's it doing? The company currently has 10
clients and projects revenues for the first 12 months
of operations to be around 1.5 million Kc
• The future? Mystery Shoppers wants to expand
operations to Slovakia and other countries in the
region |
Mystery Shoppers got a few immediate responses and now has 10 clients,
including clothing retailer Time Out, do-it-yourself store Obi and General
Electric.
Evaluation plus training
Mystery Shoppers tailors its services to clients' individual needs. Some
are starting from scratch, so it's important to make sure representatives
greet people at the door, Tranter says. Others, including Time Out,
already provide employees with customer-service training and use Mystery
Shoppers to make sure sales representatives are performing correctly.
The majority of Tranter's customers let their employees know they might be
mystery shopped, he says.
For companies such as Time Out, Mystery Shoppers evaluates sales reps
based on multiple criteria and rates their individual, and the store's
overall, performance. Time Out uses these reports as one criterion for
awarding bonuses, says Stevan Krajcinoviç, company retail manager.
Krajcinoviç, who has 20 years' experience in the customer-service
industry, says Time Out focuses on service because it is one of the few
ways for a retailer to stand out. Other stores offer similar products at
similar prices. "I think the staff makes the difference where customers
decide [to shop]," he says. "And that's why at Time Out customer service
is such an important thing."
Time Out uses Mystery Shoppers because it doesn't have the time or
resources to provide a similar service internally, Krajcinoviç says.
Market niche
Mystery Shoppers charges from 10,000 Kc ($427) to hundreds of thousands of
crowns. Revenue is projected to be around 1.5 million Kc in the first 12
months of operations, a number Tranter says will have to increase to at
least 4 million Kc to keep the company going.
Other firms offer mystery shopping here, including Market Vision and
market research companies such as Focus, but it is not their primary
service.
Blanka Frankova of Focus says she had not heard of Mystery Shoppers.
However, she added, a company offering mystery shopping as its main
service could find enough business to sustain itself.
His company's specialization in mystery shopping and international
experience in customer service makes it unique, Tranter says.
He wants to expand operations to Slovakia and other countries near the
Czech Republic. Right now, he says, he doesn't see many barriers to
further growth.
"We're just starting to get our feet in there," he says. "This is the
period where we judge whether we'll be successful or not. ... From the
interest we've seen, we think we will be successful."
Reprinted from
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/0217/busi8.php
Yours
in success,
Jennifer Callahan
info
~at~ mystershopnow ~dot~ com
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