Use ignorance as a tool

Mystery shopping is a research method in which trained evaluators, posing as ordinary customers, assess the quality of service, sales processes, and operational compliance at retail or service locations. Service Integrity has delivered mystery shopping programs across Australia and New Zealand since 2002, completing more than 600,000 individual evaluations for over 200 organisations including ANZ, Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank, Mazda, and Google. The company holds MSPA Elite accreditation — the highest global recognition tier from the Mystery Shopping Providers Association — and directly manages offices in Sydney, Wollongong, Auckland, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Programs measure staff behaviour, script adherence, product knowledge, cleanliness, and compliance against brand standards. Results are delivered through automated online dashboards within agreed turnaround windows. Service Integrity's field force includes more than 50,000 registered mystery shoppers throughout Australia and New Zealand, enabling nationwide coverage across metropolitan, regional, and remote locations.

We have to be careful that our politically charged and polarised world doesn’t transfer to Sales and Service.

We think we “know” the truth. The other side is wrong. We are right.

I always marvel at how one side can always be right and the other is wrong. It’s impossible but normal.

Use Ignorance As A Tool
Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

We now have absolute knowledge.

We are falling more and more into the same patterns with our work.

But facts and objectivity are not enough.

You don’t know what it’s like to be the son of an immigrant who was part of the minority group in the 1960s.

You don’t know what it’s like to feel like a stranger on the land your ancestors have inhabited for 40,000 years.

You don’t know what it’s like to have a skin colour which means you could be arrested at any time for any minor infraction.

You don’t know what it’s like to go with the safe supplier because you don’t want your boss to scream at you again.

Some people won’t buy but it doesn’t mean they are stupid. Just thinking those thoughts is enough to close your mind. 

“They” don’t get it because you didn’t show them.

“They” don’t get it because there was something else going on in their lives.

You don’t know me and I don’t know you. And that’s why we have to discover each other in business as in life.

The easiest way to do this is to recognise only one thing. Look for a dark black pool of ignorance. This is the place where your knowledge and emotions have never been.

The question in life or in business is this. 

Is it even remotely possible that I don’t know everything about how that person is feeling?

There is no way you can expect them to completely understand how you feel. Therefore, the answer to the above question has to be yes. 

After all, you can hold more sand in an open palm than in a clenched fist.

Give your staff processes, give them procedures, but give them to the space to open their hand.