The concept of "Mystery Shoppers" has uses far beyond the aisles and
cash registers of retail stores. Retailers and wise businesses that are
highly focused on customer service have long employed people to
secretly shop as if they were actual customers or clients, and then
report their perceptions to management. If you apply this concept to
testing how an organization performs in multiple categories -- not just
customer service -- you will be able to detect the seeds of budding
crises well in advance of serious damage being caused.
Secret shopping can be done in virtually any industry to evaluate vulnerabilities in:
Physical and Information Security. How easy is it to
just walk in to a facility unchallenged? To walk out with a re-usable
Visitor's Badge? To see the contents of files containing what should be
confidential information? Would it have been easy to just pick up a
flash drive or CD-ROM off someone's desk? Are valuable products placed
in a manner that would allow someone to easily pick them up and stick
them in a pocket or purse? Are people talking about company business
within easy earshot of a visitor?
Human Resources
. Does the "Mystery Shopper" prospective employee get treated in a
manner consistent with all EEOC requirements and other applicable laws?
Are there signs of discrimination or harassment in the manner people
talk to each other? Are there vulnerabilities indicated in the answer
the shopper receives when asking any average employee, "what's it like
to work here?"
Financial/Business Matters. Contact
some vendors for the target organization, playing the role of someone
who's also been asked to be a vendor. Find out how they treat outside
vendors (a prime source of potentially damaging gossip), whether they
pay on time, and what the vendor thinks of their business practices.
Investment Matters.
If the target organization is publicly held, become a potentially large
investor who wants feedback from major brokers and/or analysts. And
then ask the same questions of the organization's CFO. Negative
feedback from the former, or inconsistencies between the answers given
by those outside and inside the company, are possible warning flags.
With a little thought, you can probably see how the "Mystery Shopper"
concept can be extended to test much of any organization's operation,
although it is not a substitute for the depth of information that can
be obtained through a comprehensive vulnerability/risk assessment.
Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. (BCM), http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com, a website at which you can access, for no charge, more than 500 articles on crisis management-related topics.
