When it comes to customer service, your staff might be “getting the job done”, but are they exceeding what your competition is providing? Although mystery shopping is a great way to get a handle on the way customers perceive your service, it doesn’t tell you how your company ranks among others within your industry - unless, of course, you opt to mystery shop the competition and find out who really has the competitive advantage.

Whether you’re managing a retail company, call center, or service facility, your business could benefit from a comparison to your competition that identifies your strengths and opportunities for improvement. Once identified, you can market to your strengths and prepare a plan to improve any perceived deficiency.

If you decide to shop the competition, use an “apples to apples” approach. Select the one or two companies that vie for the same market share or demographic. Measure the areas that are most important for the success of your business. You might, for example, focus on behaviors that help form a connection with customers (such as being friendly or offering assistance), or actions that directly impact sales (such as suggesting add-ons or promoting special services).

It will be important to develop an evaluation form that is specific enough to produce valuable data, without being so limited to your single environment that the questions don’t apply anywhere else. The same form should be used across all visits, to allow clear comparison and ranking.

You may also want to capture the shopper’s opinion about how the experience could have been improved. Although subjective in nature, it may offer unexpected insight into areas you didn’t think about measuring.

Since you can’t be all things to all people, it’s important to clearly define your niche and excel in that arena. Use comparison shopping to make sure you’re the best at what you do.