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.
You know the scenario, skip the queue and get automated customer service on a chat session.
But beware!
If you chat with Qantas online, you get reasonably quick responses and you can deal with the back and forwards in your own time.
All good.
However, you’re in trouble if the enquiry is anything but simple.
The call centre staff are local, have been trained over 6 months,
Here’s the problem with the chat staff:
- they have less training
- they don’t have discretion
- they’re usually managing up to 6 customers at once
- they can’t feel the customer
Giving good automated customer service means giving the chat staff the appropriate training (of course), then give them discretion, but importantly, give the customer a path to speak to someone if it goes pear-shaped.
Keep your service consistent. This is not a surprise to me. My mystery shopping business gets secret shoppers to test all customer contact points. Inconsistencies are not uncommon, but they really impact the customer.
Now, if you’re a Qantas customer, take it from me, call them and use their callback service.
