Best Mystery Shopping

American Savings Bank has established a system of accumulated points earned annually to determine the branch of the year. The promotion also includes a second place branch. All employees within the branch earn a share of the award. Since there is an incentive for the branch managers to excel, it is up to them to encourage their employees to achieve the best possible results.

Incentives based on best mystery shopping results at American are based on how all tellers or all personal bankers in the branch have performed as a team.

However, there still seems to be some resistance among employees to the idea of mystery shopping. To correct this situation, Arlene Nakamoto, senior vice president, marketing says, "We are planning on revising our compensation program to one based upon individual performance."

David Lindsey, senior vice president of First Indiana Bank in Indianapolis, explains his bank's perspective. "Service at First Indiana is every bit as important as balancing a teller drawer. It is part of each employee's job description. It is discussed during performance evaluations during their first six-month evaluation and yearly thereafter."

The structure of First Indiana Bank's mystery shopping program calls for each teller, or financial service representative (FSR) to be shopped twice a month.

First Indiana's mystery shopping features a recognition and reward program. The basis for this reward program is its questionnaire, or shopping card. Listed on the card art the following five criteria for evaluation:

* Greet customer promptly

* Smile or make eye contact

* Say one nice thing

* Thank the customer

* Use the customer's name

as well as a request for the shopper's overall feelings about the contact.

Using a point system detailed on the shopping card, FSRs are considered to have a score of: excellent for 80 to 100 Points satisfactory for 48 to 79 Points unsatisfactory for 20 to 47 Points.

Employees earn monthly cash incentives based on a formula of $ 10 for each 85 percent or better rated shop and $ 15 for each 97 percent or better rated shop. (This is up from $ 9 for each 80 percent or better rated shop and $ 13 for 95 percent or better shop because over the past year the bank's average was determined to be 90 percent.)

In addition to these monthly incentives, an annual recognition and reward program is also in effect. At the end of one year, the bank totals the number of months an employee earns an average monthly shop rating of 100 percent. Cash awards are based upon the following criteria:

No. of Months (of possible 12) Cash 100 percent Average Shops Awards

12--$ 150

11--$ 100

10--$ 75

9--$ 50

If individual FSRs were not shopped during a month, their accumulated average shop rating is applied to that month.

Also, if for any reason individual employees have had a bad month, they can earn added incentives by giving shoppers a Tell-A-Friend (TAF) or new customer referral coupon. A returned coupon is worth an additional 10 percent toward improving a month's average shop rating, with a maximum of 20 percent possible for any one month. For example, if the employee earned an 80 percent average shop- rating for a month, they could increase the score to 100 percent by having shoppers return two TAF coupons.

Mystery Shopping |