Comparative analysis of mystery customer research and customer satisfaction research
With the increasingly fierce competition, regardless of the size of the enterprise, whether the products and services are simple or complex, from the long-term interests, customer service has become a magic weapon for enterprises to win the competition. The quality of customer service directly affects the customer's overall satisfaction with the enterprise. The decrease of customer satisfaction will directly lead to the decrease of customer loyalty, and then directly lead to the loss of customers. Based on this, every company wants to measure its customer satisfaction, which is directly related to the formulation of business strategy and strategy. In developed countries (with a relatively high degree of marketization), on average, each company will spend 3% of its total budget as research funds to improve customer satisfaction. For these companies, it is necessary to accurately understand the demographic characteristics, expectations, motives and wishes of customers, so as to provide better targeted services than competitors, and better services also mean higher customer satisfaction, which will lead to higher customer repeat purchase rate, and of course, the company will eventually win more profits. It can be said that any customer-oriented company hopes and is willing to accurately understand the customer's evaluation of enterprise service quality through this 3% estimate.
First, the method of understanding customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction refers to the feeling that suppliers of products or services meet or exceed their expectations. PhilipKotler's definition, "Satisfaction refers to a person's perceived effect (or result) of a product or service compared with its expectations, which forms a feeling state".
Generally speaking, customer satisfaction can be understood by four means: analyzing customer complaints and suggestions, directly investigating and studying lost customers, mysterious customer detection and regular customer satisfaction research, among which mysterious customer detection and customer satisfaction research are the two most commonly used methods.
Mystery customer detection is an investigation and research method in which qualified and trained consumers evaluate the appearance environment, service speed, service attitude and business skills of designated services one by one according to pre-designed questions, and feed back the results. Because the inspected or evaluated object cannot confirm the identity of the consumer, it is called "mysterious customer". This method can reflect the real situation of the target object more truly, timely, objectively and systematically than enterprise internal inspection and judging the service level according to customer complaints. When purchasing goods and consuming services, the "mystery customer" observes the service performance with the eyes of both customers and managers in a neutral capacity, and what he observes is the unconscious performance of service personnel. From the psychological and behavioral point of view, people's performance when they are unconscious is the most real. "Mysterious customers" evaluate goods and services like other consumers when they consume, and find problems with the same feelings as other consumers.
Customer satisfaction research usually refers to the research conducted regularly according to certain planned intervals, so as to track the satisfaction status at any time. Not only can the satisfaction status of each cycle be given, but also the corresponding reasons can be compared and analyzed. In a certain period of time, managers can improve customer satisfaction through various efforts. After taking measures, managers can measure and evaluate the results to see whether the implemented changes have a positive impact on customer satisfaction. The research on customer satisfaction has four basic purposes: to identify the key factors affecting satisfaction, to measure the current satisfaction level, to provide suggestions for marketing management, and to track the satisfaction level regularly.
Usually, company managers will combine mystery customer detection with customer satisfaction research, so that the effect will be more prominent and the company's strategy and strategy formulation will be more targeted. If customer satisfaction research is understood as the company's strategy, then mystery customer detection is the tactic adopted by the company to deal with this strategy.
Second, can mystery customer research and customer satisfaction replace each other?
We need to think about this question: can we get all the information needed by enterprises by measuring customer satisfaction with 3% budget?
Customer-oriented companies are willing to spend a lot of money and material resources on customer satisfaction research because they hope to provide basic information support for the company to formulate long-term strategies through the results of customer satisfaction research. On the other hand, they certainly hope to take this opportunity to improve the service quality of the company immediately. Then, can the results of a satisfaction study guide the company's long-term strategy and short-term tactics at the same time?
The answer is of course obvious. The same measure can't provide the information needed for two kinds of decisions perfectly. In fact, the study of mystery customers can provide more comprehensive strategic guidance on the tactical level that the company hopes to improve service quality in a short period of time.
Then companies that spend money on research can't help but ask: What is the relationship between customer satisfaction and mystery customer research? Can't they replace each other? If they can't replace each other, how should we understand the relationship and difference between customer satisfaction research and mystery customer detection?
Third, the difference between mystery customer research and customer satisfaction research
So, what is the significant difference between mystery customer research and customer satisfaction research? Simply saying that "customer satisfaction research guides the company's strategy and mystery customer testing guides the company's strategy" is too general. Let's give an example to illustrate.
Someone ate in a restaurant a week ago, and it must be difficult for him to give accurate information about the service quality of this restaurant now. Because, a week has passed, he can't remember whether a waiter greeted him when he walked into the restaurant and quickly guided him to find a satisfactory position. He can't remember exactly whether he got a hot drink immediately, whether the toilet was clean, whether the waiter had a good attitude, whether the restaurant took the initiative to issue a meal invoice after payment, and so on. However, these listed factors, together with other factors not listed, make diners have a degree of satisfaction with this restaurant.
For this restaurant, it is very important to accurately understand the overall customer satisfaction, which is of guiding significance to the restaurant's final strategic decision. However, just from the retrospective judgment of customers on all products (services) provided by restaurants (the accuracy is discounted), can it produce immediate results to study how restaurants can rely on this information to improve service quality in a short time? The answer is usually no.
Customer satisfaction research reveals consumers' feelings about the service quality of enterprises, which cannot explain why consumers feel this way, while mystery customer detection reveals why consumers feel this way about the service quality of enterprises. Through long-term mysterious customer testing, we can constantly find out the unsatisfactory places in the process of providing services, which can continuously encourage enterprises to improve their service level. In essence, customer satisfaction is a study on consumer perception, while mystery customer detection is a study on the executive level. Let's continue with the above example. If the result of satisfaction research is that consumers think the service speed is slow in the process of obtaining service-what important information this is for restaurants! If restaurants only rely on this information, it is difficult to make practical improvement measures. Restaurants can't simply ask every waiter to hurry up, can they? If such a rigid rule is made, it may lead the service staff to serve uncooked meals on the table; In addition, can the restaurant make customers pay faster for ordering? This is obviously unrealistic. If we try to find out the measures to improve the service speed of restaurants from the satisfaction study, we will fall into a trap and cannot solve any practical problems.
And if we use, for example, mystery customer detection, we can accurately measure the response time of restaurant service and find out whether there is any problem at every step in the response process. For example, through the detection of mysterious customers, it is found that dining users need to wait 10 minutes on average to get the dining invoice-for restaurants, this time far exceeds their own requirements for invoicing time. We can compare and analyze the response time of different users to get the service, and find out which link is out of order, which leads to the slow response speed of the service: it may be that the credit card authorization process is slow, it may be that the staffing is insufficient, or the employees are not skilled in using computers. These problems can be the improvement direction to improve the service quality of restaurants. It can be said that the mystery customer research provides a method for the company to improve the service quality and enhance the service level in a short time.
In addition, if the service quality and customer expectation are measured by questionnaire, it is an ex post measure and the result is difficult to be accurate. By recording customers' feelings on the spot through mysterious customers, customers' service quality and expectations at that time can be expressed more accurately.
In a word, mystery customer detection is the study of service quality in the process of providing services, while customer satisfaction is the study of customers' overall perception of enterprise service quality; The answer to customer satisfaction research is "what" and the answer to mystery customer detection is "why".
Fourthly, the limitations of mystery customer research and customer satisfaction research.
We can regard customer satisfaction perception as the last link in a series of products (services) provided by enterprises. For the retail industry, the "service" provided by enterprises (if you can say so) includes a series of factors, such as positive and friendly greetings (when customers enter the store), the impactful advertising display that customers see in the store, and the communication and guidance between promoters and customers. All these links urge customers to compare: do the services provided by enterprises meet their expectations well? The research object of customer satisfaction is the last link of providing products (services) by enterprises-revealing the situation of customer expectation and satisfaction perception as a whole; Comparatively speaking, mystery customer detection is to measure the implementation level of enterprises in all aspects of providing products (services).
Mystery customer detection not only reveals the execution level of each link in the process of product (service) provision, but also sets a benchmark in each link-this is also the basic principle of statistical process control (SPC) in TQM. SPC requires that the service process at each stage must be verifiable, not just a test of the final result.
In the retail service industry, mystery customer detection can be said to be the best way to measure the service quality of every link of an enterprise. This is because mystery customer detection measures the interaction between customers and business representatives in the process of providing products (services), which is basically impossible for other research methods. For enterprise management, it is impossible to monitor every interaction between customers and business representatives, but in fact, customers' satisfaction with the final service is obtained from every interaction with business representatives. Mystery customer research records every interactive link in detail, which can not only show enterprises the links that are well executed, but also vividly show those that are not well done. In this case, enterprises can reward good links (or business representatives) and punish those links (or business representatives) that consumers are dissatisfied with; On the other hand, mysterious customers can also put forward opinions on the formulation of the implementation standards of each service link of the enterprise from the customer's point of view.
As a benchmark, mystery customer research can identify the company's strengths and weaknesses and provide a basis for the next stage of business training and policy revision.
Because mystery customer research includes some kind of investigation (for example, after a mystery customer visits, the visit results need to be recorded in detail through questionnaires), it is very easy to be confused with customer satisfaction research. In fact, from the above analysis, we can see that there are still great differences between mystery customer research and customer satisfaction research. The most important thing in the study of mystery customers is to reflect the accuracy of the service quality standards formulated by the enterprise representatives. As for obtaining the information of customer satisfaction from the study of mysterious customers, this is not the main purpose of the study of mysterious customers, but only an indirect result.
It is worth noting that although mystery customer research is a good form, it still has the limitations of deviation. This deviation can almost be said to be innate. When mysterious customers are sent to various destinations to carry out investigation tasks, they will be trained in project execution standards in advance. Because these standards are installed on the psychological plane, mysterious customers have a special expectation on the psychological plane when they visit (this expectation is the standard of project training, which deviates from the normal and inner expectation and is different from the expectation before project training). Obviously, for the link with poor execution level of the enterprise, because there is a gap with the "training expectation" in the mind of the mysterious customer and the link that does not conform to the service standard (namely "training expectation") formulated by the enterprise, the mysterious customer will almost certainly make an evaluation of "dissatisfaction"-this is human nature. In the survey, the mysterious customer measures the implementation standard of the enterprise according to the training standard, and thus gets a negative result, so it is easier for the mysterious customer to make a negative judgment when evaluating his satisfaction-that is, after the project training, because he knows the implementation standard of the service standard formulated by the company, the judgment standard of the mysterious customer has deviated from those customers who "don't know the implementation standard of the company's service standard".
For example, through customer satisfaction research, those diners who enjoy appetizing snacks will feel that the waiting time for eating is shorter. Because of the low cost of appetizers, it is the best choice for restaurants to give appetizers before customers eat. This has also become a standard question in mystery customer detection: "Did the restaurant give you an appetizer before you ate?" When visiting a restaurant, mysterious customers will definitely say that they are not satisfied with the restaurant if they don't give appetizers. A customer who doesn't know that the restaurant will serve appetizers, will he be dissatisfied with not serving appetizers? I'm afraid not.
The study of customer satisfaction also has the limitation of deviation, which is not innate, but it is also difficult to avoid-this is the deviation caused by improper assumptions about consumer expectations. Consumers' expectations are influenced by many factors, the most important of which are demographic characteristics, psychological status and economic status. The interaction of many factors forms a person's "consumption expectation". In order to accurately analyze the "consumption expectation" of the target consumer group as a whole, it is necessary to conduct a large sample survey to minimize the deviation. Generally speaking, we can reflect consumers' psychological expectations through satisfaction surveys, rather than simply asking questions. In order to get quantitative and effective results, we can't simply ask, "When the waiter offered you appetizers, did you like it?" Instead, we should really understand customers' feelings on key factors through different questions (such as "slow service response" from satisfaction survey).
The goal of customer satisfaction research is to listen to the voice of consumers: what has not been done, which should be given priority and which can retain customers. This is easier said than done. Consumers are very busy people, especially it is more difficult to reach the target respondents needed for satisfaction research. Many interviewees are unwilling to be interviewed, and fewer and fewer people are willing to be interviewed by telephone; On the other hand, people who are willing to be interviewed are not necessarily the people we need who meet the screening conditions and cannot represent the whole. In order to control the rejection rate at a low level, research companies tend to shorten the interview time of satisfaction survey and only keep a few questions on the questionnaire. This will certainly make access easier, but it will also shrink the effective information obtained, resulting in the survey results with little practical guiding significance.
The purpose of customer satisfaction survey now is to understand the direction of service quality improvement from consumers, not just to get the evaluation data of various factors on the satisfaction scorecard. Those satisfaction surveys that only reflect the overall situation in the past and cannot provide future improvement directions are a waste of time and financial resources. On the other hand, some companies' satisfaction surveys are designed as a tool to affirm the company's current management strategy, rather than to study how enterprises can improve their service quality in the future.
If mystery customer research gives mystery customers a ruler to measure service quality, then satisfaction research tells us where to measure first. Mystery customer research measures the service quality (implementation status) of each link in the process of service provision, and satisfaction research measures the overall result (perception and expectation) of enterprise service provision. For a customer-oriented modern enterprise, these two measures are very important and should be a continuous process, so as to continuously improve the service level of the enterprise.
Finally, it should be noted that without customer service, there would be no customer satisfaction problem, and there would be no mystery customer research and customer satisfaction research.