4 Mistakes Businesses Make On Scorecard Creation

Businesses use scorecards as part of their strategic planning and management to monitor the performance of their organization. The scorecard can be designed to measure internal and external processes, with the eventual goal of making improvements in underperforming segments. If the scorecard is not created with the right strategy in mind, the data it reveals will not deliver the desired result.

Mystery shopping begins very much in the same way. A scorecard design is created to ensure the right questions are asked to deliver results that can be measured with actionable insight.

Reality Based Group (RGB) creates scorecards after a thorough assessment of your businesses and a comprehensive understanding of what you want your mystery shoppers to achieve. With this goal in mind, a scorecard can be created to provide the best answers for you particular questions.

It is important to point out mistakes can be during the creation of a scorecard, and here are four of them you should avoid.

Too Many Questions

The amount of question you ask will greatly determine the success of your mystery shoppers. If you have identified the problem areas of your business, in the vast majority of cases they can be resolved by answering some key questions.

This is where experience plays a critical role in scorecard creation. At RGB we know more questions won’t necessarily deliver great results. Accuracy and quality data cannot be sacrificed for the sake of volume. One good question can provide more information about the issues you are trying to address than many filler inquiries.

Asking Subjective Questions

The answers to subjective questions have too many variables. Two people will interpret the service a waiter provides differently if the questions are subjective. What maybe friendly to one person, could be annoying to another.

If the questions are objective, and they ask for quantifiable answers, there is no room for misinterpretation. By creating a scorecard with questions that can be measured, you will get answers from your mystery shopper you can use to improve your company.

However, when properly used and analyzed, subjective questions can provide valuable information about how the mystery shopper felt and experienced.

Not Defining Your Objective

Mystery shopping is an invaluable resource, but if you don’t clearly define your objectives, it will not yield great results. You should first identify the behaviors you expect from your employees when they interact with customers.

Depending on the industry you happen to be in, the questions will vary. You can create a scorecard with clear objectives on customer greeting, phone interaction, follow-up behaviors, conclusions, and more.

Having a clearly defined objective will deliver better results, whether your employees are performing as required or not.

Averaging Scores

If you have more than one location, averaging the score can give you a base result, but it will not be granular enough to know what is happening in each store.

By calculating the score for each location independently, you can identify problems that may exist in one store and not in another one.

Creating a Good Scorecard

At Reality Based Group, we know it takes right questions to create the perfect scorecard. We bring more than 25 years of experience in over 15 vertical markets to create scorecards that will deliver results. Contact RBG today so we can create the right scorecard for you.