Mystery shoppers strike again!
Warwickshire County Council employees may once again have helped a customer who wasn’t all they appeared to be!
That’s because a team of ‘mystery shoppers’, whose mission is to check out the council’s levels of customer service, has struck again, carrying out their undercover mission in a number of ways.
Some visited council services in person, while others made ‘mystery calls’ to the county council’s switchboard. The council’s response to letters and emails was also checked out.
The county council regularly invites ‘mystery shoppers’ to check up on its staff and procedures to make sure that people in Warwickshire are getting a good service. The latest ‘mystery shop’ took place in the autumn and the results have now been collated.
53% of ‘mystery shoppers’ who contacted Warwickshire County Council’s switchboard rated their call as ‘excellent’, with 36% rating it as ‘good’, 6% as ‘ok’ and only 5% rating the call as ‘poor’.
When visiting council premises, only 11% of mystery shoppers encountered a queue - an improvement from the previous ‘mystery shop’ that took place in spring 2007. The ‘shoppers’ also reported that staff were always well-presented, polite and almost always helpful. In addition, the availability of disabled parking at council premises showed a significant improvement, up 17% to 89% from the previous ‘mystery shop’.
When rating their entire visit to the council the mystery shoppers gave an overall score of 74%, 2% better than in spring 2007.
When it comes to responding to letters, the exercise found that 88% of responses were received within the county council’s standard of 5 working days, an 11% improvement on the last time a ‘mystery shop’ was carried out. When responding to emails, the exercise revealed that a final response was received from the council on 76% of occasions.
Councillor Alan Farnell, Leader of Warwickshire County Council, said: “The reaction to our most recent ‘Mystery Shopper’ exercise reveals that, in general, the council is performing well to lift standards of customer service. However, we’ll be looking closely at several areas where we can get better.”
The Mystery Shopper exercise is part of a range of consultation work carried out by Warwickshire County Council. To find out more and ‘have your say’, visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/consultation.