Mystery shopping in the banking sector


General union Unite explained to LRD in 2012 how the use of mystery shoppers impacts on the daily lives of staff in the retail banking sector. Typically, a mystery shopper visits a branch covertly, without prior warning, and compiles a report on a range of specific issues. These include organisational issues (such as branch smartness, queue management, waiting time) as well as issues specific to the performance of the member of staff serving the mystery shopper. 


Marks are awarded (or taken away) based on performance scored against a fixed series of criteria such as whether the worker greeted the mystery customer with a genuine smile, used the customer’s name at least once, made eye contact or asked if there was anything further s/he could help with, said goodbye or ended the encounter with a friendly comment. An unsatisfactory score can have disciplinary consequences such as a verbal warning. Unite argued that as the mystery shopper is anonymous and the member cannot challenge any allegations, this was wholly unfair, and that the use of mystery shoppers should be limited to training purposes. 


Unite identified other problems with this kind of monitoring. For example, a “one-size-fits-all” approach to customer exchanges and a demand that a conversation includes key phrases or pointers reduces staff discretion, generates stilted, unnatural interaction and inhibits normal behaviour with established customers. In “real life”, individuals are trusted to make judgments about how best to communicate based, for example, on individual differences such as age or demeanour. The subjective nature of the criteria is also worrying. Who judges, for example, whether a smile is “genuine”, and what if the mystery shopper has had a bad day? There is also plenty of evidence about the relationship between the constant demand to self-regulate behaviour in this way and stress. 


As well as using “mystery shoppers”, retail banks monitor performance by conducting random phone-based customer satisfaction reviews, asking a fixed set of questions about service quality based on a recent branch experience. Again, questions can extend beyond organisational issues like waiting time to include detailed questions about the service delivery of the individual worker. Results typically feed into the branch bonus and the branch manager’s performance rating. 


Performance related pay is common in the retail banking sector, and different kinds of monitoring — including recording of calls, use of mystery shoppers and customer feedback — are used to inform performance assessments and decisions on pay. Assessment of customer service skills in the banking sector have become increasingly important in recent years; following scandals relating to the miss-selling of financial products and the dubious practices which led to the banking crisis in 2007-08, banks have had to move away from measures of staff performance based on how many products have been “sold.” Indeed any attempts to revive assessments of performance based on “selling” are challenged by the unions.