Mystery Shopping for the Banking Industry

A bank’s customer service is more important than its image

In a study of 14,000 bank customers, 55 percent of respondents indicated they would leave a particular bank if they experienced poor customer service. A bank’s image only mattered to 27 percent of respondents. Furthermore, the extensive survey showed that the role of a local, branch office of a bank is changing dramatically as more [...]

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Timely Feedback Helps Financial Institutions Effectively Utilize Mystery Shopping Data

Financial Institutions Can Receive Shopping Reports Via E-mail When Judi Hess, President of Customer Perspectives, a mystery shopping provider based in Hooksett, New Hampshire, began working in the mystery shopping business 22 years ago, she spent a large amount of time explaining to financial institution executives what mystery shopping was and why it could be [...]

Recording telephone mystery shops has helped this bank improve employees’ sales and service skills

Employees and supervisors can hear the tone of the conversations Lake Sunapee Bank ($670 million, Newport, New Hampshire) has taken its existing mystery shopping program up a notch, says Angie Deschenes, VP/Retail Banking. “We’ve done in-person and telephone mystery shops for years, but new technology recently became available so that we could conduct recorded telephone [...]

Mystery Shopping Program Gauges Employees’ Ability To Cross Sell, Make Referrals And Close Sales

“Night Away” Vouchers And iPod Shuffles Awarded For 100-Plus Scores When Merchants Bank ($1 billion, Burlington, Vermont) updated its mystery shopping program three years ago, it had two main goals: Goal #1: The bank wanted to find a mystery shopping provider whose shoppers “blended in” with real customers. Goal #2: The bank wanted to gauge [...]

A Mystery Shopping Program Can Help Your Employees Transition To A Sales Culture

Expert Offers Advice On How To Design Your Program A common error that financial institutions make when designing a mystery shopping program is to assume that customer service and product sales require the same skill set, says Jack Geiger, Senior Marketing Research Consultant at Seattle-based Informa Research Services, Inc. “In a service-oriented culture, all you [...]

Leverage Your Mystery Shopping Program To Convey A Consistent Message Across All Of Your Branches

A Good Program Verifies Your Customer Service Standards Aren’t Slipping “I’d like to see banks shop their competition more. It’s tough to compete in an environment where you don’t understand what’s happening next door.” A mystery shopping program can be a great way to confirm that your financial institution’s “message” is being conveyed consistently across [...]

Employees At This Savings Bank Are Aiming For A "Perfect 10" On Their Mystery Shop

Employees Who Receive A Perfect Score Earn A $25 Gift Certificate Employees who receive a low mystery shopping score must write a memo to the EVP As explained at left, Guaranty Federal Savings Bank (Springfield, Missouri) offers a special reward to employees who receive a perfect score on their mystery shop. To ensure the best [...]

E-mail mystery shops help this bank evaluate the service that employees offer online customers

Mystery shops have led to more personalized e-mail communication Wouldn’t it be great to see exactly how employees communicate with your customers via e-mail? Lake Sunapee Bank ($670 million, Newport, New Hampshire) now has that ability. With its employees’ permission, the bank has been doing Internet mystery shops for some time, says Angie Deschenes, VP/Retail [...]

Conducting Mystery Shops On A Regular Basis Keeps Employees At This Bank On Their Toes

Bank Incorporates Results Into Its Employees’ Performance Goals Mystery shopping programs that evaluate employee performance on a regular basis may have important advantages over programs that take a more ad-hoc approach. Regular shops keep employees on their toes. They also help managers to address customer service problems in a timely manner and gauge employees’ performance [...]