Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• d, Robert C
• Latham, Gary P
• Lennox, Gwen

Titel

Mystery shoppers: A new tool for coaching employee performance improvement

Ist Teil von

• Organizational dynamics, 2011-07, Vol.40 (3), p.157-164

Ort / Verlag

New York: Elsevier Science Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Quelle

ScienceDirect

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Mystery shopper data has been widely used by service and hospitality organizations to provide feedback on overall organizational performance. Mystery shoppers are typically employed to systematically record and then promptly report back to "shopped" organizations' managers about performance on key aspects of a service experience. Because they are costly, most organizations employ mystery shoppers too infrequently to collect enough data to assess performance detail beyond service quality at the organizational level. One restaurant company we studied experimented with gathering mystery shopper feedback frequently and found that providing daily feedback to an employee from a relatively dispassionate shopper significantly and positively impacted performance outcomes. The use of mystery shoppers by this restaurant chain offers a unique opportunity to see a real world application of coaching feedback provided to employees on a variable interval schedule. While the value of this reinforcement schedule is well known in lab settings, this is the first time its value has been demonstrated in an organizational application. The research suggests that other organizations, services and manufacturing alike, can gain the benefits of a variable interval schedule by using mystery shoppers to gather feedback that managers can use to coach employees. This paper concludes by detailing how this research can be put into action. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]