As a business consultant, I still spent some time for once in a while to be mystery shopper directly. I did this because I want to know the real service in the market. One day I visited one of the new restaurants around Alam Sutera Serpong. At that time, I ask the difference between fried chicken A and B – I was shocked when the waiter answered that dish A comes from city X and dish B from city Y (in the menu is written Fried Chicken X and Y). That answer is not the answer that I wanted, but why the waiter was answering that way?
The second story that I experienced when becomes the mystery shopper in big computer stores in Solo, Central Java. That store coincidentally also sells smartphone. I asked easy things, which is the difference between smartphone brand AA and CC (just a term). The answer that I received was really disappointing, the person said ‘almost no difference’. The answering process was quite long and you must be shocked if I continues this story. The sales who helped me was holding 2 smartphone that I asked, then I saw it closely before giving answer that was less in quality before.
The second story that I experienced when becomes the mystery shopper in big computer stores in Solo, Central Java. That store coincidentally also sells smartphone. I asked easy things, which is the difference between smartphone brand AA and CC (just a term). The answer that I received was really disappointing, the person said ‘almost no difference’. The answering process was quite long and you must be shocked if I continues this story. The sales who helped me was holding 2 smartphone that I asked, then I saw it closely before giving answer that was less in quality before.
The ocurrence that I experienced may be ‘something that you usually experienced’, but with the extraordinary effect because customer can become not to buy because they feel ‘do not comfortable’ with the explanation that was given by the seller. My question is , whether you are sure that the service in the work places that you managed is already good enough and there is no unprofessional answers? Do you believe that all this time only trust the team who gives services without doing evaluating process and never look the service process that was happened? If you never do service audit again, please be careful because it can be that the length of your business becomes shorter and may bankrupt soon.
Based on the observation and research that I had done, there were many things that makes customer not to buy the product, which is: ‘inappropriate answer from the seller’, ‘slow and unproper service’, ‘do not give product education convincingly’, ‘customer does not feel being appreciated when they comes’, ‘product unavailability’, and many other reasons.
Through this article, I would like to give important message to the businessmen, to closely look on the service standard and keep evaluating. Remember! Smile and friendliness is not enough in this era. The proof is that the restaurant and the computer stores that had been talked before – all the workers who served me with ‘friendliness’ but still they decided not to shop or buy. Thus, the core of all customer service process is ‘to give right solution’ and ‘to make customer feel comfortable’ and also ‘to get exciting experience’.
If you believe and your current business still have not done these important things that I mentioned above – fix it immediately! So that your business still has its existence and be able to compete.
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