» Secret Shopping

In this mystery shop blog I would like to address some things that should not be done while conducting an over the phone mystery shop.  The most obvious rule in conducting a shop is to be as convincing as possible without blowing your cover.

One way to avoid suspicion is to already have a scenario prepared.  Having a scenario prepared includes having a fictitious name, address, and phone numbers as well as why you are calling the business that you are shopping.  Already having this information will eliminate words being used such as um or uh.  These words are clue words that could raise suspicion when used at odd times such as when giving your name.  Normally a basic answer to What is your name? is one that should be able to be answered without any thought or hesitation. 

Another thing that should be done during a secret or mystery shop is to use as little knowledge about the place and the products and the services that they have.  If you use words that are familiar or unique to the establishment that you are calling, it may appear that you are more knowledgeable than you’re letting on. Last but not least, you should relax and have fun when conducting a mystery or secret shop.

Written by Angela Perry

Thanks for reading our secret shopping blog. We offer sales training and quality assurance to the self storage industry.

PhoneSmart is your offsite sales force and call center in Columbia, Missouri.

Rent self storage at 625 Lowther Rd, Lewisberry, PA 17339

Find your next car storage, boat storage or self storage at your StorageConcierge – Your premier national and local self storage search engine and free quote provider.

If you’d like to be a guest blogger, send your entry for consideration to Sarah Little.

Tweet This Post 

Secret shopping should be customized to meet the goals and marks that your company specifically needs. Even within the same industry, two companies are almost guaranteed to have different ideas on what is more important, asking for a name and phone number or asking for a reservation. One company might be stronger in their sales presentation than the other. Perhaps one of the companies wants to revamp their entire sales pitch.

All these circumstances and preferences factor in to how your secret shops should be conducted and what standards they are evaluated against.

When choosing your mystery shopping provider, make sure that your shops are easily formatted to meet your needs. You should have complete discretion over  what the criteria are for making the shop and also the degrees they are evaluated on.

Especially in self storage where there are so many choices and ways of doing things, a secret shop that works well for another guy might not be what you need.

Before starting a secret shopping program, it’s best to sit down with the people involved in the decision-making process and determine what your goals and purposes are. And then brainstorm how you will measure this. I’d also suggest letting your secret shopping provider, if you’ve already chosen one, be a part in the conversation so that everyone is on the same page. They will also be able to tell you what they’ve seen work and what they’ve seen not work so well.

Written by: Sarah Little, TQA Executive

Thanks for reading our secret shopping blog and inside view of the self storage mystery shopping industry.

PhoneSmart is your offsite sales force and call center in Columbia, Missouri.

Rent self storage at 980 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11232

Find your next car storage, boat storage or self storage at your StorageConcierge – Your premier national and local self storage search engine and free quote provider.

Be Our Guest! If you’d like to submit and article for consideration, send it to Sarah Little, Blog Editor.

Tweet This Post 

It’s very interesting when I try to describe my job. In normal conversation, people ask what I do for a living and when I say I help run a secret shopping department they sort of just look at me with a dumbfounded and puzzling look. I don’t feel like I can sum up my job description with just a few words, and when I start telling the whole story it tends to get a little winded. Here is what I tell people I do for a living;

Have you ever heard of StorageMart the storage company? Most say yes. Our company PhoneSmart is a smaller company that developed off StorageMart when the need for an inbound call center for storage rental arose. PhoneSmart was able to not only handle StorageMarts needs but eventually gained its own clientele in the storage business. Then as PhoneSmart developed, we were able to expand some of our client services to include more than a call center. One of these services is our secret shopping or mystery shopping department. (We now call it our Total Quality Assurance Services department because of the other jobs we do.) We are contracted by outside storage, apartment rental, senior living and assisted living communities to call their business and act as if we want what they offer. The calls are recorded and compiled and burned to CD’s. The CD’s are given to our team of evaluators and sent to the customer. We typically shop over 400 employees a month and hope to raise that number by the end of the year. Right now, there are two of us in the office and many shoppers and a team of evaluators handle the work load. It’s an interesting job in not so few words.

Written by Natalie Thomas, TQAS executive and business blog writer.

Thanks for reading our Secret Shopping Blog, an inside peek at the secret shopping and mystery shopping industry.

PhoneSmart is your offsite sales force and call center in Columbia, Missouri.

Rent self storage at 7536 Wornall Rd, Kansas City, MO 64114

Tweet This Post 

Secret shop can be conducted in many different forms.  It is possible to secret shop over the phone or you can even conduct a secret shop which is better known as a mystery shop in person.  Either one of these ways are effective in acquiring a valuable report of how the store is doing overall.  If the choice was up to me I would chose to do an in person type of mystery shop instead of over the phone secret shop.  This way the facial expression can be read as well as the body language of the sale person.  It is also easier to see the cleanliness of the facility that you are shopping.  The phrase that seeing is believing is very critical when conducting a mystery shop in person. Presentation is the key in the ability to persuade a person to purchase an item from your store rather than the local competitors’ store. People are more apt to rent or purchase items from a facility or store that is clean and looks nice.  This is hard to interpret whether the facility is clean and tidy if you are conducting a secret shop over the phone.  When a mystery shop is done in person it helps to see how well the employee interacts and assists customers.  Does the salesperson offer other services such as boxes, or truck rental?  Does the manager offer a shirt to accessorize that new pair of shorts that were purchased?  Mystery or secret shop is not only done in the self storage industry but in all industries, the shop is usually customized to meet the varying needs of different businesses.

Written by Angela Perry

Thanks for reading our secret shopping blog and inside view of the self storage secret shopping industry.

PhoneSmart is your offsite sales force and call center in Columbia, Missouri.

Self storage is just around the corner at 21002 Heron Way, Lakeville, MN 55044

Tweet This Post 

I heard a secret shop call the other day, where the store staffer at the self storage facility told the caller, I have three people in front of me at the counter and I can’t really talk to you like I normally would. The crazy thing is that this is a PhoneSmart client that uses us for our roll-over sales support, too. I can’t help but wonder why she even answered the phone. The call center is here to help her in just such a situation.

Does her boss give her a hard time if she lets too many calls roll through to PhoneSmart. If so, that boss is awfully short-sighted, don’t you think? She could have let us take the call. We would have paid proper attention to the caller and maybe even have written a reservation. Instead the people at the counter were frustrated by the interruption and probably annoyed that they may get treated like that on the phone one day. The callers never like feeling as if they are getting the brush-off.

So if you can’t give a good call experience, let the call roll.

Written by: Tron Jordheim, PhoneSmart Director

Thanks for reading our secret shopping blog. We offer sales training and secret shopping to the self storage industry.

PhoneSmart is your offsite sales force and call center in Columbia, Missouri.

Rent storage at 1352 Holton Ln, Takoma Park, MD 20912

Tweet This Post 

This is an old cliche or saying; patience is a virtue.  This especially holds true when you are working in the customer service field. A caller may have many questions and would more than likely test your patience.  You have to learn to be patient and show patience.  Of  course, you don’t want to spend hours with one customer alone.  We are available to assist a customer with any questions they may have, thus we are offering them a service.  However, sometimes there are people who want to talk and talk about anything but the reason they needed customer service in the first place.  It is ok to be polite and pleasant and converse with the caller, even if the conversation is briefly on something other than the subject matter.  I know there are times when a caller goes on and on about a personal situation or whatnot and I may feel like cutting them off and getting to the point.  There is a way to politely get into the reason why the caller needed customer service in the first place. One can  swiftly direct the conversation to where it should be without the customer being fully aware, thus not being able to feel hurt in anyway.  Patience is a virtue and our patience will be tried

Written by: Carmen Huff

Thanks for reading our secret shopping blog. We offer sales training and quality assurance to the self storage world.

PhoneSmart is your offsite sales force and call center in Columbia, Missouri.

Rent storage at 7233 Windsor Mill Rd, Baltimore, MD 21244

Tweet This Post