Measuring Your In-Home Associates’ Customer Service Capabilities
Online ordering and eCommerce stores have allowed brands to utilize convenience as a tool to separate themselves from the competition. Consumers are now used to being able to accomplish virtually anything without leaving the comfort of their home, and this concept is now moving beyond products and has penetrated service-based organizations. Whether it is someone that goes to fix or set-up in-home technology, complete physical therapy sessions, pet-grooming, etc. brands that complete this style of service need to make sure that their associates are maintaining the customer experience laid out by brand leadership. Applying mystery shopping programs to measure these employees can help your team ensure that is providing a high-performance Customer Experience, that leaves consumers with a positive perception of your brand.
It can be challenging to know exactly how these in-home associates are conducting themselves, because there is no direct oversight in this system. Most of the time, if there is a negative or lackluster experience, an individual will not reach out and let a brand know, and instead they will simply move on to your competition. Creating a program that captures quantitative data about the performance of these employees can unlock key insights about your brand’s Customer Experience, helping brands retain the customers they interact with, rather than losing them to the increasing number of competitors.
In practice, these programs can be more complex than a traditional mystery shopping plan, but ultimately it will provide actionable data that can be used to make tangible changes. There are three main stages in the interaction that evaluators should be measuring. First, you need to make sure that the appointment-scheduling process reduces as much customer effort possible. It should not be challenging for a customer to get an employee to come to their home, regardless of the channel they are using to set up the meeting. Next, the evaluator needs to make sure that the employee arrives at the prescribed time. This is an essential aspect of your customer perception, because if your employees are consistently showing up late, it will start the interaction off on a negative note. After the associate has arrived, depending on the service you provide the evaluator should measure how well the employee performed the desired task, and if they were polite and professional along the way. Instruct the evaluator to mark down the times at specified moments throughout the interaction, ensuring that each associate is adhering to the organizational standards leadership has set in place.
Brands that operate using these in-home associates need to provide excellent service because it is an industry based on trust. Once consumers begin to let your employees into their home, you need to make sure that they are trained to behave professionally, and that they are not causing a disturbance in that individuals daily routine. If you betray this trust even once, it is unlikely that a customer will be willing to let you back into their home for a second chance.
By implementing a mystery shopping program of this nature, you are positioning your employees and your overall brand to achieve high levels of success. Finally, these programs can help influence a more transparency within your organization, because it helps leadership clearly establish what they desire from their employees, and allows them to quantifiably know if the experience on the frontline is matching up with what is designed in the conference room.
Customer Service Capabilities FAQs
How can businesses measure in-home associates’ customer service capabilities?
Businesses can assess in-home associates by gathering real-time feedback from customers, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as satisfaction scores, and using direct observation or follow-up surveys.
Why is it important to measure in-home service quality?
Measuring in-home service ensures consistency, improves customer satisfaction, and helps identify areas for training and development.
What tools can help evaluate in-home service?
Feedback forms, surveys, and performance tracking systems.
Second To None empowers customer-centric brands to deliver consistent, intentional and authentic consumer experiences.
We adeptly design and manage mystery shopping, compliance, engagement and voice of customer solutions grounded in strategic relevance, program integrity and actionable insights. Our solutions are developed on the basis of solid research and statistical science. We achieve success through a relentless focus on quality and innovation, consultative relationships and a talented team of professional associates.