Public house private eyes
You own a chain of licensed premises and are worried that your staff are not practising the quality control guidelines. Or you suspect something more serious is awry - a hand in the till, or a brewery tie flouted. Perhaps business is being affected by the type of customers that have started using your pub - drug-pushers, for example.
How can you prove, or disprove, your suspicions without being recognised by staff? The answer is simple: bring in a third party, an agency, who will do your survey for you.
That is exactly what Jeremy Spencer, director and general manager of Bass Tavern's 15-strong All Bar One chain, did. He wanted to make sure that his staff were keeping up the brand's quality standards, and contacted The Service Practice to do his undercover work for him.
Together, they came up with two questionnaires - one relating to the dry side of the business, the other to the wet trade - which are completed by mystery guests who visit each All Bar One once a month: "we have absolutely no idea who they are," says Spencer.
The questions are wide-ranging and specific to All Bar One's needs. For example: "Is there a vase of white flowers on the bar - alive and with clean water?"; "Were you given the right change?"; "Did you have eye contact with the staff?"
The guests are supplied by the agency, which has a database of 30,000-40,000 people. All guests fit All Bar One's customer profile: "We are a typical ABC1 market profile," explains Spencer. In layperson's terms, that is professional workers aged 25 to 55.
He stresses how important it is to have the right profile of mystery guest carrying out the surveys. "When we first started doing the surveys we got comments like ‘Didn't like the carpet' from guests who wouldn't normally have visited All Bar One - so we went back and briefed the agency more thoroughly."
Kathy Slattery, director of The Service Practice, believes that, as well as attending to customer profile, prospective clients using her agency for what she terms "standards and satisfaction" work need to ask themselves these questions before attending a briefing meeting:
What am I trying to create for my customers?
What sort of questions would my customer analysis department (if one existed) want me to ask?
What does my staff standards manual (if one exists) demand?
Information from a client who has considered these points makes drawing up tailor-made questionnaires much easier.
Undercover work aimed at checking up on customer service and quality control standards is one thing, but if you have more serious suspicions about your staff - a hand being in the till, perhaps - you may need the services of an agency such as Host Inn Control Services.
The agency employs ex-licensed trade professionals - many of them with military intelligence or police experience - to undertake covert surveillance on clients' premises. Stuart Matheson, operations manager for the company, is reluctant to divulge what techniques his staff employ, but admits that electronic surveillance can be set up if necessary.
"We have a 90% strike rate [of confirming suspected malpractice]," claims Matheson, adding that the practice of "rolling sleeves up" by dishonest staff members to indicate the number of times they have under-rung the till during an evening is still common. The length of sleeve equates to a specific cash total, he explains.
Matheson also gets as much information as possible from clients before sending out his undercover staff, and his agency also undertakes customer standards work involving questionnaires. But observation is the order of the day for clients who suspect dishonesty among their staff.
How much will it cost to hire your own James Bond? That depends on the amount of work undertaken and the size of your operation.
The Service Practice charges £25-£35 plus expenses per visit, together with a set-up fee that Slattery says is negotiable. Results from a job will be on a client's desk within three to four days of a visit, and a hotline facility is available if a customer needs it.
Host Inn Control Services will charge about £150-£175 for a covert, one-off visit, but Matheson emphasises each job is tailored specifically to the client and the costs vary depending on what is required. Results from the work undertaken can be provided within 12 hours, or overnight if necessary.
Taking bookings on the Internet: Need to Know 2 January 1997
