John Sperry
CEO Mindshare Technologies

There's an old cliché that says "When the cat's away the mice will play." In the service industry this anecdote is quite appropriate. The cat has to be there all the time to protect the brand and ensure proper service to the customer. Some companies rely on mystery shopping with 1 or 2 shops a month, but with thousands of customers coming through your doors your employees rarely worry about mystery shoppers. Why no worries? With only 1 or 2 shops a month mingled among thousands of real customers they never expect it to be them, or more likely they've never heard about them at all so why would they worry. But what if you could change this paradigm? How would it be to have thousands of eyes watching your shop every month? And with more monitoring, you will have no more mice at play

BUT HOW DO YOU GET MORE EYES ON THE SHOP?

Automated Customer Feedback systems are designed to turn your customers into a powerful mystery shopping force. It's very simple how it works.

1.		An incentive is printed on your receipt and given to every customer.
2.		A percentage of these customers call to redeem the incentive and in exchange participate in a 2 minute survey.
3.		The information gathered during the survey is then available real-time on the Web.
4.		Alerts and reports get sent out via fax and email to managers and owners.

THE MICE MAY NOT LIKE IT BUT THE CAT LOVES IT

So, who is protecting your customer? Your store? Your franchise? Your brand? Your customer is! And who better to tell you what's right and wrong, or what things they'd really like to see. Customers know your business surprisingly well. They're the ones paying for it. Give them the power to review your business and your employees will quickly learn that every customer has a voice, and the customer is always watching. No longer can comment cards be torn up, or customers told to just 'go away'. A new culture develops that is focused on service.

The employee becomes 'aware' of the customer and seeks to attain high marks on customer service. By using CONNECTT, Mindshare's automated feedback system, you can turn your customers into your own mystery shopping force. They will 'watch the shop' for you and help foster a "culture of quality" within your staff. The valuable data you capture on demographics, marketing, and service will also help you to protect your store, your franchise, and your brand.

The information comes straight from your customers, not filtered by servers and managers. You can actually listen to your customer's comments and hear how they felt about an issue. What an amazing thing to actually understand the perceptions of your customers.