IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/eureri/1737.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mystery shopping: A tool to develop insight into customer service provision

Author

Listed:
  • Hesselink, M.
  • van Iwaarden, J.D.
  • van der Wiele, A.

Abstract

Reaching service excellence through a focus on the customer, demands more than just measuring customer satisfaction by means of questionnaire surveys. Nowadays, it is not sufficient anymore to have service excellence in services, processes and relationships. Now is the time to create excellence in customer experiences, as the only way to create competitive advantage in the market. Organisational change should then be driven by a broader focus on customers’ expectations and multiple ways of measuring customers’ satisfaction. The case of a service company in The Netherlands (a temporary employment agency) illustrates the way to service excellence as an organisational change process. The case supports the need for a broad focus on measurements in order to be able to monitor and to direct organisational changes. Customer satisfaction data based on surveys are needed, however, they will not be sufficient for continuing the change process over time. To achieve that, other measurements like mystery shopping may give more stimuli to change. Therefore, this research argues that mystery shopping can be a useful instrument in addition to the more often-used survey methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Hesselink, M. & van Iwaarden, J.D. & van der Wiele, A., 2004. "Mystery shopping: A tool to develop insight into customer service provision," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-082-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:1737
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/1737/ERS%202004%20082%20ORG.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin Shaw & John Ivens, 2002. "Building Great Customer Experiences," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-55471-9.
    2. Boselie, J.P.P.E.F. & Hesselink, M. & Paauwe, J. & van der Wiele, A., 2001. "Employee Perception on Commitment Oriented Work Systems," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2001-02-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    3. van der Wiele, A. & Hesselink, M. & Boselie, J.P.P.E.F., 2002. "The Importance Of Customer Satisfaction In Organisational Transformation," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2002-60-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. I. Eskytė, 2019. "Disabled People’s Vulnerability in the European Single Market: The Case of Consumer Information," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 521-543, December.
    2. Alessandro Bonadonna & Simona Alfiero & Massimo Cane & Edyta Gheribi, 2019. "Eating Hamburgers Slowly and Sustainably: The Fast Food Market in North-West Italy," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-14, April.
    3. Rachel J. C. Chen & Clayton W. Barrows, 2015. "Developing a Mystery Shopping Measure to Operate a Sustainable Restaurant Business: The Power of Integrating with Corporate Executive Members’ Feedback," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-16, September.
    4. Matthews, Lindsay & Lynes, Jennifer & Riemer, Manuel & Del Matto, Tania & Cloet, Nicholas, 2017. "Do we have a car for you? Encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles at point of sale," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 79-88.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hugo Martins & Paulo Carvalho & Nuno Almeida, 2021. "Destination Brand Experience: A Study Case in Touristic Context of the Peneda-Gerês National Park," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-17, October.
    2. Pearce, Philip L., 2020. "Tourists' perception of time: Directions for design," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Jatinder Singh & Oriol Iglesias & Joan Batista-Foguet, 2012. "Does Having an Ethical Brand Matter? The Influence of Consumer Perceived Ethicality on Trust, Affect and Loyalty," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 111(4), pages 541-549, December.
    4. Joather Al Wali & Rajendran Muthuveloo & Teoh Ai Ping & Mohammad Bataineh, 2021. "The Impact of HR Practices and Innovative Work Behavior on Job Performance in Physicians," International Journal of Human Resource Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 11(3), pages 4266-4266, December.
    5. Muhammad Waqas & Zalfa Laili Binti Hamzah & Noor Akma Mohd Salleh, 2021. "Customer experience: a systematic literature review and consumer culture theory-based conceptualisation," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 135-176, February.
    6. Skorek Monika, 2016. "Attitudes of Polish Consumers Toward Experiential Marketing," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 24(4), pages 109-124, December.
    7. Ioannis Rizomyliotis & Athanasios Poulis & Kleopatra Konstantoulaki & Apostolos Giovanis, 2021. "Sustaining brand loyalty: The moderating role of green consumption values," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(7), pages 3025-3039, November.
    8. Sara Amoroso & Simonetta Pattuglia & Imran Khan, 2021. "Do Millennials share similar perceptions of brand experience? A clusterization based on brand experience and other brand-related constructs: the case of Netflix," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 33-43, March.
    9. Katarzyna Dziewanowska, 2015. "Dimensions of Real and Virtual Consumer Experiences," Faculty of Management Working Paper Series 42015, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management.
    10. Zhenshan Xu & Hong Zhang & Chunhui Zhang & Man Xu & Nan Dong, 2019. "Exploring the Role of Emotion in the Relationship between Museum Image and Tourists’ Behavioral Intention: The Case of Three Museums in Xi’an," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, January.
    11. Hyunjoon Kim & Jinkyung Jenny Kim & Muhammad Asif, 2019. "The Antecedents and Consequences of Travelers’ Well-Being Perceptions: Focusing on Chinese Tourist Shopping at a Duty Free," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-22, December.
    12. Damien Chaney & Renaud Lunardo & Rémi Mencarelli, 2018. "Consumption experience: past, present and future," Post-Print hal-01951670, HAL.
    13. Sofia Salgado Pinto, 2008. "THE SPECIFICATION of HIGH INTERACTION SERVICE PROCESSES," Working Papers de Gestão (Management Working Papers) 022008, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    14. Ajemunigbohun SUNDAY, 2018. "Policyholder’s Experience of Claims Settlement Methodologies in Motor Insurance Business in Nigeria," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 2, pages 5-11.
    15. Cao, Yue & Dong, Yizhe & Ma, Diandian & Sun, Li, 2021. "Customer concentration and corporate risk-taking," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    16. van der Wiele, A. & Hesselink, M. & Boselie, J.P.P.E.F., 2002. "The Importance Of Customer Satisfaction In Organisational Transformation," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2002-60-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    17. Corina Paula TARTA, 2013. "The Perception Of Young Romanians On Experiential Marketing," Management and Marketing Journal, University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 0(2), pages 311-321, November.
    18. Jacques Beukes & Hein Prinsloo & Theuns G Pelser, 2017. "Customer Service Expectations from South African Alcoholic Beverage Suppliers in Urban and Rural Areas," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 9(3), pages 28-45.
    19. Baird, Michael & Ouschan, Robyn & Phau, Ian, 2011. "Discrepancies of positive and negative consumption expectations in high risk drinking experiences," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 1-6.
    20. Kim, Dohee & Park, Byung-Jin (Robert), 2017. "The moderating role of context in the effects of choice attributes on hotel choice: A discrete choice experiment," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 439-451.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    customer satisfaction; mystery guest; mystery shopping; service excellence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
    • M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - General
    • M39 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ems:eureri:1737. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePub (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erimanl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.