Why leaders must mystery shop their businesses

Whilst mystery shopping is common in retail, hospitality and banking, it is far less prevalent among B2B companies.

Perhaps leaders of fast-growing B2B businesses are often too busy dealing with operational challenges to mystery shop, but they should.

Taking time to see your business from your customer’s perspective will give you invaluable insight. As the adage goes ‘your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room’. It is time to think like you are someone out of the room.

And it’s not just customers you should be thinking about. Consider too potential suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. They all engage with your business both online and in person. How are you making them feel when they engage with you?

With the advent of AI chatbots and other technologies, we can easily lose sight of the fact that our customers, suppliers, employees, and all stakeholders for that matter are human beings.

So why should leaders Mystery Shop their own business?

Research into the benefits of mystery shopping by business leaders drove improvements in leadership decision-making, leadership training, sales performance, and Cx strategy.

But here are three good reasons with some real examples I have come across.

1. Ensure Your Strategy Works in Real Life– Check if what you planned happens. g.,
   1. A SaaS CEO signs up for their product demo and finds sales reps are too focused on pushing features rather than understanding customer needs.
   2. A consulting firm partner inquires about services using a generic email and never receives a follow-up, highlighting gaps in lead nurturing.
   3. A manufacturing business leader tests the reordering process and discovers a confusing, outdated portal that frustrates customers.
2. Fix Problems Faster– Spot issues firsthand and solve them before they frustrate more customers. E.g.,
   1. A SAAS CEO signs up for their software trial and notices the onboarding emails are confusing, leading to high drop-off rates. Within days, they streamline the process to improve activation rates.
   2. A professional services managing partner calls in as a prospect and finds that inquiries are being handled too slowly. To prevent lost business, they immediately implement a new lead follow-up system.
3. See What Customers Experience– Walk in their shoes and catch issues reports might miss. E.g.,
   1. Your chatbot is hateful (they all are in my opinion!).
   2. Finding a contact phone number is difficult.
   3. Your wait times are much longer than surveys suggest.

You don’t have to leave it to a professional to mystery shop your business.

Even a 15-minute investment in your time will generate some fascinating insights.

So here is my 5-point checklist to get you started.

Leaders - Mystery Shopping Checklist.

1. Define Key Stakeholder Touchpoints

• Create a simple journey for each stakeholder. Only identify the most critical stages in their respective journeys, including the first point of contact, the purchasing process, customer support interactions, and any follow-up communication.
• Evaluate the first impression your business creates, whether through your website, a phone call, a physical storefront, or any other stakeholder-facing channel.
• Assess how easy it is for customers to navigate your platforms, ensuring that information is clear, accessible, and intuitive to find.

2. Use Multiple Stakeholder Personas

• Approach the experience as a first-time customer, prospective employee or supplier to understand how intuitive and welcoming the process is for someone unfamiliar with your brand.
• Test the journey as a returning customer to assess how well your business nurtures loyalty and maintains engagement over time.
• Simulate an interaction as a high-maintenance or demanding customer to see how your team handles complex requests, difficult personalities, or unusual situations.
• Try submitting an urgent request or lodging a complaint to evaluate how quickly and effectively your business resolves customer issues.

3. Assess Digital & In-Person Interactions

• Navigate your website to test its overall usability, mobile-friendliness, and the smoothness of the checkout or enquiry process.
• Engage with your brand on social media to measure response times, the quality of interactions, and the effectiveness of your team's customer engagement management.
• Send an email inquiry and note how long it takes to receive a response, as well as the professionalism, clarity, and helpfulness of the reply.
• Call customer service and assess how knowledgeable, friendly, and solution-oriented the representatives are during the interaction.
• If applicable, visit a physical location to evaluate cleanliness, staff friendliness, efficiency, and how well processes are executed in a real-world setting. (Tim Martin of Wetherspoons never notifies the pubs he visits!).

4. Measure Response Time & Quality

• Track how long it takes to receive a response across various customer service channels, including phone, email, social media, and live chat.
• Evaluate whether staff interactions align with brand guidelines and company values, ensuring consistency in tone, language, and service quality.
• Assess how effectively employees solve problems by examining their ability to provide clear, confident, and customer-centric solutions.
• Check whether service quality remains consistent across different times of day, days of the week, or locations, identifying any gaps in customer experience.

5. Document Findings & Take Action

• Assess the key strengths observed, as well as specific areas that require improvement.
• Identify simple, quick fixes that can be addressed immediately, alongside more strategic, long-term changes that will enhance the overall customer experience.
• Provide targeted training or retraining for staff members who need additional support in meeting service expectations.
• Implement necessary changes based on findings and conduct follow-up tests in the coming months to measure progress and effectiveness.
• Establish a regular mystery shopping routine to continuously monitor service quality, ensuring high standards are maintained over time.

If you found this useful and want to take your Cx strategy to the next level.

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