Jolau1701 From United States of America, joined Feb 2009, 211 posts, RR: 0 Posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 6241 times:
I have a curious question.
I have a friend that works for Air France as a customer service agent in SFO, and she tells me that during their briefings, they commonly talk about Mystery Shoppers and how they rate the CS agents over there at AF. (And usually it's quite poor from what my friend says)
I have never heard of an airline using the practice of Mystery Shoppers, with Air France being the sole exception. I know UA rates the customer service experience through the letters they get from passengers and rating complaint vs compliment and questionnaires that passengers fill out and turn in.
LanAlemania From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 189 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 6191 times:
I know of at least one european LCC doing mystery shopping, although not rating single employees but checking if all additional fares like excess baggage, if applicable, will be charged according to their rules.
My guess is that many airlines do it, just not necessarily to rate individual staff members but to check adherence to rules and service levels.
Runway23 From US Minor Outlying Islands, joined Jan 2005, 2037 posts, RR: 40 Reply 2, posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 6085 times:
I've done mystery shopping for a European airline part of Star.
My results were poor at the airline's hub and excellent at the airline's outstation.
Yellowtail From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 5150 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 6012 times:
I know someone that does it for BA at their Caribbean stations.
When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No-one has ever collided with the sky.
OHLHD From Finland, joined Dec 2004, 3962 posts, RR: 27 Reply 6, posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 5941 times:
Quoting LH4116 (Reply 5): What the devil is a Mystery Shopper anyway, any explanations please?
Imagine you sit at the check-in and passenger comes up to your counter and you check him in. This passenger can be a mystery shopper.
Maybe it is not so easy. Sometimes they tend to ask tricky question or just for fun have too much luggage or they seem to be harsh and they test you how you react.
Planeguy727 From United States of America, joined Mar 2007, 1066 posts, RR: 1 Reply 7, posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 5 hours ago) and read 5840 times:
That's my dream job... To travel the world evaluating the consistency of customer service and meeting the rules and expectations. And most importantly, someone paying me to be on a plane or in an airport... FUN!
I make a point of sending thank you letters for good service (and feedback when no so good) to many businesses I use. I think it's a good idea. Even to fast food places (on the rare event I go to them), supermarkets, etc. I wish more people would send notes of appreciation for good service - it make a great incentive to keep up the good work!
And should you have the responsibility of hiring mystery shoppers for an airline - do contact me!
MillwallSean From Brunei, joined Apr 2008, 1115 posts, RR: 5 Reply 8, posted (4 years 2 months 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 5660 times:
Working with SM enables me to use Mystery shoppers on a regular basis.
I have been involved with projects for several airlines, bus companies and a few hotelchains.
Quite a few airlines use them. However its not common for them to pass judgement on individual staff at least not that I know of. I have never seen any Mystery Shopping task set out to judge individuals. It seems rather difficult to so that since you need to follow it up and measure it against something.
Or perhaps its just a random sample or a spotcheck. What anyone would learn from that is difficult to understand though.
Perhaps an overzealous manager that want to install control over the employers...
A good Mystery shopper will time tasks like check in. Ask check in representatives preset questions and see what answer thats given.
They will enter lounges and check them out according to a protocol or approach customer service with a set number of questions.
Plenty of Mystery shoppers never make it to the airplane, they only have a fake booking.
Most Mystery Shopper that gets on a flight aren't hired for the task, rather frequent passengers that agrees to perform certain tasks and gain, for example, bonusmiles for it.
Sending hired Mystery shoppers around the world would be a very expensive task. It might be financially justifiable on a domestic or limited amount of routes but not around the world.
I have been a Mystery shopper on many occasions.
As far as I know its often consulting companies that brings in the Mystery shopper when they get involved with an airline.
There might be an ongoing improvement program or it might be done as a benchmark. It all depends what you want to find out.
The hard thing with Mystery shoppers is that if you ask them to judge service overall, their responses will be based upon their own perceived image of service not a blank page.
Thats why anything that involves Mystery shopping has to be very carefully constructed and have limited room for individuals to use their own preferences.
I doubt there would be any interest in a Mystery Shopper that is so interested in airlines that they are on airliners.net
I would assume that such persons have preferences and thus might be less inclined to provide me with the answers I am looking for.
AA777223 From United States of America, joined Feb 2006, 1112 posts, RR: 7 Reply 10, posted (4 years 2 months 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 5248 times:
Quoting MillwallSean (Reply 8): Working with SM enables me to use Mystery shoppers on a regular basis.
I have been involved with projects for several airlines, bus companies and a few hotelchains.
Can I come work with you? I would love that. I have always been a letter writer, for good and bad service, and I love getting to evaluate it. This would be a dream job...
IB for sure!
I knew some of them. Nice Job!
If you see a pax that is not eating anything at all and spends the whole flight writing, it could be a MS!!!!!!
MillwallSean From Brunei, joined Apr 2008, 1115 posts, RR: 5 Reply 12, posted (4 years 2 months 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 4587 times:
Quoting AA777223 (Reply 10): Can I come work with you? I would love that. I have always been a letter writer, for good and bad service, and I love getting to evaluate it. This would be a dream job...
All you need is a degree in marketing.
Then go after a job with one of the large market research companies. They do this on a regular basis and are pretty keen on younger staff.
SM in my earlier post stands for service management and not for an airline. My mistake.
4EVERVARIG From United States of America, joined Jan 2009, 66 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (4 years 2 months 1 day 21 hours ago) and read 4426 times:
Quoting OHLHD (Reply 3): That is why it is called mystery shopper. Nobody should know about them.
I can tell you endless stories about mystery shoppers who took their job a bit to the extreme and gave me the "white glove treatment" if I didn't afford them "special service". I actually had a woman tell me "I am your mystery shopper and I am your worst nightmare". I gave her what she demanded and reported her to the ops department.
Oldeuropean From Germany, joined exactly 8 years ago today! , 1900 posts, RR: 4 Reply 14, posted (4 years 2 months 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 4353 times:
I've heart from mystery shopers working for LH.
I expect many airlines using this as an instrument for quality checks.
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