Is Your Hotel Hurting, or Are You Hurting Your Hotel? – Small Tourist Area Sampling Returns Big Results

San Diego, California, May 11^th 2009 – Advanced Feedback, Inc. a nationwide customer survey and mystery shopping company, phoned ten hotels, over half the hotels in seaside Coronado CA, a popular tourist island just west of downtown San Diego.  Part of a wider study on business and the economy, the mystery shoppers, posing as potential customers, simply called the front desk and asked “How far are you from Sea World?”

“I wanted to see if agents would make an attempt at a sale … with someone calling their hotel from out-of-town.” explained Geoff Gladu, Account Manager for Advanced Feedback.  Perhaps not shocking to this group of seasoned mystery shoppers, but alarming to any business manager, the team did not find one hotel agent who attempted to continue the conversation beyond answering their initial question.  “I was hoping to hear something along the lines of  ‘would you like for me to check rates and availability?’ or “Is there anything else I could help you with?’ anything, really.  Also, no one even thanked us for calling”, he added.  Considering these businesses spend a good share of their marketing budget on getting travelers to call their hotel, Advanced Feedback’s survey uncovered pervasive missed sales and branding opportunities.
Perhaps the hotel agents ignored the sales opportunity because the scenario implied the caller wanted to stay closer to Sea World, 6 miles from Coronado? To test this possibility, the team conducted a second survey to the same properties with the question “what is there to do for fun in the area?”  This time, all hotel agents did fine to sell the area but only two agents built value for their hotel and only two others thanked the customer for calling. Again, not one hotel representative attempted to continue the conversation or make a sale.

Deciding to make it as simple as possible for the front desk agent to recognize a sales opportunity, without saying “I want to make a reservation”, the mystery shoppers called the same hotels a third time asking, “How much are your rooms?”

Only one out of the ten properties that were called received a passing grade; the agent qualified the caller, built value for both rates and property and even offered to make a reservation.  All others failed.  One property attempted to qualify the caller, another spoke well of their property, but all of them were quick to provide the rate and let the potential customer off the phone – never once asking if the caller wanted to stay there!

“With beach weather soon approaching, there’s no better time for these seaside hotels to learn how to recognize and pursue the sales opportunities given – this usually starts with phone skills via a mystery phone shopping program”, said Geoff.

In a challenging economy like the current one, Advanced Feedback’s research is a wakeup call to companies not to overlook the training and monitoring of frontline employees.

Secret Shopping Enters Brave New World

San Diego, California, April 15, 2009 -

Traditionally, mystery shopping has been thought of in terms of the private sector, but increasingly public entities have turned to this service for monitoring compliance with regulations or measuring customer service levels (though the latter is primarily found in the UK.) As a result of legislation passed last year (HR 6331) that might be changing, says Kurt Adams, Senior Accounts Director of Advanced Feedback, a leading provider of telephone monitoring services. “It may the dream come true for many Americans” who wish for greater accountability and higher customer service levels from their government, commented Mr. Adams.

While the law passed last year deals with Medicare Advantage and how it is marketed to the public, it may be a portent of things to come, he speculated. (Specific concerns were allegations of ‘bait and switch’, ‘misrepresentation’ and ‘misconduct’ on the part of agents and brokers.) “It could well be that this model could be a harbinger of things to come. In this case, both the government and private agencies have seen the wisdom of using secret shopping as a means for ensuring compliance, but our hope is it will be used to increase customer service awareness as well”, he concluded.

You can reach Kurt at www.AdvancedFeedback.com.

Ocean Park Hotels turns to Advanced Feedback for Mystery Phone Shops

Advanced Feedback, Inc. is proud to announce and welcome new client Ocean Park Hotels with offices in Valencia and San Luis Obispo California.  Ocean Park Hotels owns and operates properties under the flags of Marriott, Hilton, Holiday Inn Express, and Best Western Franchises.  Hotels are located in Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Valencia, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara (Goleta), and San Diego (Poway).

OPH is the latest client to use Advanced Feedback’s telephone mystery shopping services (phone shops).  The hotel group had tried other mystery shopping companies but turned to Advanced Feedback based on the recommendation from Michael Chisholm, Executive Director, who expressed that he “was most comfortable with his overall experience with Advanced Feedback” when he was a hotel general manager.

OPH will use the phone shops for quality compliance checks across their range of properties and will further encourage the use of phone shops as a flexible tool to improve hotel service and sales with better phone skills.

Linda Tran, Account Administrator at Advanced Feedback states, “in these economic conditions, many businesses rely on phone shops and mystery shoppers to be their eyes and ears on their employees, and to serve as an effective alternative to quickly-forgotten and costly training.”

Advanced Feedback mystery shoppers, posing as potential customers, call hotels inquiring about rates and availability.  Employees are scored based on a number of criteria, such as qualification, building rapport and value, sales offers, aggressive closing, friendliness and helpful knowledge.  Advanced Feedback provides immediate actionable results in the form of an individual phone shop report and recorded call, and then follows up with a trend report to track continuous improvements.  “We welcome and look forward to helping Ocean Park Hotels maintain their high standards of sales, quality and an excellent customer experience” says Linda.

For more information regarding mystery shops or phone shops please visit www.AdvancedFeedback.com.

Telephone Mystery Shoppers Find Hard Times Drive Hard Tactics

With the country now officially recognized as being in a recession since December of last year, businesses are scrambling to adapt. Many are simply trying to hang on, abandoning, at least for now, visions of increased market share. Thus it perhaps should come as no surprise employees who deal with the public over the phone have become more aggressive, says Kurt Adams, Senior Accounts Director of Advanced Feedback, a leading provider of telephone monitoring services. “It used to be we were asked to measure items that tended to make the customer feel warm and fuzzy, such as using their name. Now it seems the sole focus is how many times we get asked for our business”, commented Mr. Adams.

While employee interest in getting or retaining a customer’s business is undeniably an aspect of good service, how and when this is manifested can be of equal importance. Specifically, Adams’ cites asking the customer for the business in the first 10 seconds of the call. “I know it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but isn’t that like asking someone for a date before knowing their name?” he asked. Good phone skills suggest building at least some level of rapport with a prospective client before getting to the proverbial bottom line. Showing interest in a customer is more than asking repeatedly for an appointment or reservation; other elements include using the customer’s name or asking how they happened to be in the market for the company’s services. Moderation, as Ben Franklin reminds us, is a good thing.

You can reach Kurt Adams at www.AdvancedFeedback.com.

Advanced Feedback extends mystery shopping to canine pals too!

Advanced Feedback, Inc. has extended their mystery shopping services to their local neighborhood Humane Society, who was originally concerned that the mystery shopping company was too big for the single location.  As stated by Nicole Campos, Customer Relations Manager, “I appreciate all of your help while we develop a program that best suits us and within what your company can do.  I realize that it is a little different than what you normally do considering the nature of our business and that we only have one location.”  After working closely with her dedicated Account Manager, the two companies were able to tailor a program to fit Nicole’s exact needs. The San Diego based company now conducts both weekly phone shops and a monthly onsite mystery shop offering valuable feedback in a timely manner.

Phone shops are placed to help make sure that each incoming call is forwarded to the correct department is important.  Phone shops help get pet related questions answered correctly while capturing the quality and level of the customer service by targeting each of the Humane Societies eight departments.  These calls range in a number of different scenarios and are valuable to Nicole due to the frequency of the calls, which are delivered to her by email including the recording and a detailed survey within 24 hours. These phone shops help keep the employees on their toes and provide the required level of customer service to all guests, both two legged and four.

The onsite mystery shop conducted each month not only targets a specific department but also the main facilities.  With a full summary of the details, along with an easy to understand scorecard, the information allows Nicole to visualize from the customer’s point of view.

When asked about the program after six months of use, Nicole stated, “We are very happy with the shop results and are finally able to really use a lot of the data we have collected for training and new hires.”  At www.advancedfeedback.com you can learn how this mystery shopping firm is able to customize and tailor their services to fit your needs.

Beach House Renews Mystery Phone Shops With Advanced Feedback

Advanced Feedback, Inc. is proud to Advanced Feedback, Inc. is proud to welcome the Beach House. Originally signed in 2004, the mystery shopping firm previously conducted monthly phone shops at the Hermosa Beach property. Due to reconstructing of management, the Beach House reestablished their phone shop service under the new management of Jerry Cronk.

The hotel relies on phone shops to monitor each agent’s customer service skills. Mystery shoppers pose as potential customers and call inquiring rates and availability. Agents are scored based on a number of criteria, such as qualification, reservation offers, aggressive closing, building rapport and value, friendliness and helpfulness. Linda Tran, Account Administrator of Advanced Feedback states, “In this day and age, many businesses are relying on phone shops and mystery shoppers to be their eyes and ears on their employees. Phone shops are made to see how the agents perform when they think that they are in the clear. It also helps business owners obtain the initial impressions of their guests.”

On a daily basis, Advanced Feedback provides immediate results to the Beach House, these results include the agent’s individual phone shop report and recorded call. This immediate feedback allows for correct training and counsel to take place if needed.

For more information regarding mystery shops or phone shops to enhance your level of guest service, please visit AdvancedFeedback.com

Advanced Feedback, Mystery Shopping in Mexico

While domestic businesses have long used mystery shopping to measure and improve sales and service efforts, a growing number of international businesses are starting to use U.S.-based mystery shopping companies to test their foreign sales and service.

In 2008 Advanced Feedback Inc. was contracted to provide telephone and onsite mystery shopping services at various resort and real estate developments throughout Mexico. International developers and property managers often use a combination of both in-house and out-sourced sales and service personnel presenting a challenge of both distance and diversity. Lacking employee measurement and customer feedback, our clients turned to Advanced Feedback for a standardized and in-depth secret shopper program, says Geoff Gladu, Account Manager for Advanced Feedback.

The San Diego mystery shopping firm sent affluent North American real estate and vacation shoppers to observe and record their sales and service experiences as potential buyers of resort and residential real estate. Advanced Feedback’s detailed reports, audio and video were used to ensure our clients were getting adequate and appropriate attention to this target market.

With world economies in rapid flux, a cross-border mystery shopping program may offer an element of comfort, a performance barometer to ensure your international sales efforts remain on track. For more information visit www.AdvancedFeedback.com

Mystery Shoppers Knock on Healthcare’s Door!

Mystery shopping has been used to enhance customer engagement initiatives in most service industries, such as Hospitality, Retail, Automotive, and Financial Services for a very long time now. Is the Healthcare community finally embracing the benefits of this vital service and sales improvement tool as well? The answer appears to be yes.

Healthcare has traditionally limited itself to long-term approaches such as customer surveys or physician surveys. However, due to the competitive nature of today’s technologically savvy and demanding “shopper”, it seems the industry as a whole has woken to more aggressive techniques for fast acting monitoring and feedback such as mystery shopping.

Zachary Hooker, President of San Diego based Advanced Feedback, a leader in mystery shopping says, “Though we have been servicing almost all areas of the service industry for more than a decade now, this is the first time we have seen some activity on the Healthcare front. It looks to be pretty promising and long term.”

“Mystery shoppers” posing as patients evaluate the facility by placing appointment calls, information calls for pricing, visiting the facility, faking symptoms, making special requests and sometimes staying in the facility overnight. The medical centers and facilities who have undertaken the services lately, believe that a number of changes have been made as a result of the practice including improvement in employee behavior, change in ambience of waiting room and reception areas, more concern towards patient privacy and lesser wait times.

While like most other research techniques, mystery shopping gives insights into ways to improve patient interaction, identifies problems in service, and increases customer loyalty, one of its most effective uses is the aid it provides in explanation of customer survey results, that is, its ability to explain the customer feedback or response.

The “Mystery Shopping” approach seems to be particularly popular amongst mid size and small size segment of the industry. This is possibly due to the stiff competition and evaluation the smaller clinics and nursing homes face. Larger organizations also benefit from the service by using mystery shoppers from within their patient database, as well as those out-of-plan. Certainly, the fast turn around time, immediate results and comparatively lower cost of service makes it an attractive feedback and training tool.

“The foray of Healthcare into the Mystery Shopping arena is a welcome move and we look forward to the customer service initiatives it will promote in the sector.” Comments Zachary Hooker from Advanced Feedback.

Advanced Feedback has over 15 years of experience in doing mystery shopping and customer engagement surveys. For more information, please visit www.advancedfeedback.com or write to Zhooker@advancedfeedback.com.