Quality of service in banks by applying the mystery shopping technique

Mystery shopping measures the behavior of employees in an organization. Employees of a bank are assessed during the service interaction. Employees are also the first link of communication with the bank consumers. This work is based on a review of ways of mystery shopping in banks and on the results of mystery shopping in the largest banks in Novi Sad. The aim of the research is to show the importance of mystery shopping in banks, focusing on their service quality. The study adopts the research method of employee survey and the review and analysis of the internal financial statements of the banks. As a result, it can be emphasized the way in which mystery shopping affects client satisfaction and how to achieve the quality of service that is above expectations in the banking sector using this method. It is also pointed out that the human factor (employees) is an extremely important category when it comes to measuring service quality in the banking sector. The research identified the steps which should be followed in order to make mystery shopping more successful. The further research that could be carried out are the financial indicators of service quality before and after the use of the mystery shopping tools.

The current situation in the hotel services market is characterized by a high degree of competition, and therefore hotels need to provide high-quality services. The ongoing processes in the hotel industry make it necessary to find and implement new approaches, forms and methods of effective management of the components of the consumer attractiveness of hotels, the formation of management systems for factors, among which the quality of services provided is important when choosing a hotel. The article presents a systematization of theoretical and practical approaches to assessing the quality of customer service in the hotel business on the basis of modern methods and assessment tools. In modern conditions, there are a large number of methods for assessing the quality of customer service of a hotel enterprise. The quality of hotel services is a competitive advantage of the company, which affects its economic activity. Therefore, when evaluating the quality of services, any method should include the improvement and development of the competitive advantages of the hotel. The article presents a model for improving the quality of hotel services by J. R. R. Tolkien. Methods of quality control of hotel services offered by I. Ishikawa are investigated, methods of subjective and objective assessment of quality of service of consumers of hotel services Voita M. N., methods of "SERVQUAL", "Mystery Shopping", methods of survey and questioning of clients of the hotel enterprise are considered. In the course of the research, modern general scientific and special methods were used: comparison, generalization, expert assessment, analysis and synthesis. The theoretical and practical significance of the study is that the presented theoretical provisions of the assessment of the quality of customer service in the field of hotel business on the basis of modern methods and assessment tools can be used in the activities of hotel enterprises.

This article examines the service quality and performance of banks in Turkey. Specifically, by utilizing mystery (secret) shoppers as a benchmarking technique, the study compares the quality of services offered by different types of banks (state, private, and foreign banks) to identify the strong and weak service quality areas. Based on 351 evaluations by university students acting as mystery shoppers, the results indicate that all the banks were offering an acceptable quality of service. Using the overall mean as a benchmark, it seems that the banks are providing fairly good quality of service in most banking areas, except in building rapport and greeting and closing. Comparisons of the service quality by the three types of banks show that state banks offer lower quality service than private banks and foreign banks. Private and foreign banks offer similar quality banking services. The article also discusses the implications of the findings and the limitations of the study.

ObjectivesIn this paper we discuss the main ethical challenges related to the conduct of medicine quality surveys and make suggestions on how to address them.MethodMost evidence‐based information regarding medicine quality derives from surveys. However, existing research ethical guidelines do not provide specific guidance for medicine quality surveys. Hence, those conducting surveys are often left wondering how to judge what counts as best practice. A list of the main ethical challenges in the design and conduct of surveys is presented.Results and conclusionsIt is vital that the design and conduct of medicine quality surveys uphold moral and ethical obligations and analyse the ethical implications and consequences of such work. These aspects include the impact on the local availability of and access to medicines; the confidentiality and privacy of the surveyors and the surveyed; questions as to whether outlet staff personnel should be told they are part of a survey; the need of ethical and regulatory approvals; and how the findings should be disseminated. Medicine quality surveys should ideally be conducted in partnership with the relevant national Medicine Regulatory Authorities. An international, but contextually sensitive, model of good ethical practice for such surveys is needed.

Despite the prevalence of mystery shopping as a quality assurance practice in the U.S. lodging industry, it has not been recognized as a topic for empirical research. This study attempts to explore facts related to current mystery shopping practices in the industry and hotel senior manager's perceptions of the effectiveness of mystery shopping as a tool to monitor service quality. Data were collected from hotel general managers and financial controllers through survey questionnaires. The results suggest that mystery shopping is being widely used in the industry as a tool to monitor service quality. Factor analysis identified three dimensions of service quality that can be effectively assessed by mystery shopping. The research findings provide an analysis of issues related to the implementation of the mystery shopping program that will help marketers develop and conduct mystery shopping programs more effectively.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present mystery shopping as a method for evaluating the quality of catering services. Design/ Methodology/ Approach – The paper is based on desk and field research. A literature review and empirical research were conducted, including 72 catering facilities in the Republic of Croatia. The quality of restaurant, bar and hotel services was investigated. Mystery shoppers used a semi-structured form as a research instrument and evaluated the quality of services according to 36 criteria classified into seven categories. Findings – The research results are encouraging, although there is room for improvement in some categories. The categories Bill and farewell of the guest and Staff and service were rated the best. The worst ratings were given in the Location of the catering facility category. Mystery shoppers also gave 47 suggestions for improving the quality of services. Originality of the research – This research complements existing scientific research on mystery shopping in tourism and hospitality. It also has significant practical value because it clearly shows how, with relatively little effort, the service quality of a catering facility can be examined, and opportunities for improvement can be identified.

Unmasking a phantom: a psychometric assessment of mystery shopping

Customer satisfaction & service quality are two critical principles that firms must grasp if they are to expand and remain competitive in the business world. It is critical for businesses to be able to measure these constructs from the perspective of their consumers in order to better understand and meet those customers' requirements. It is widely accepted that service quality is vital to any modern business since it increases customer satisfaction, profitability, reduces costs, and improves customer loyalty and retention. The main purpose of the research paper is to assess the service quality and its impact on customer satisfaction. Service quality of private Banks is measured by the five dimensions of SERVPERF model i.e. reliability, tangibility, assurance and responsiveness .Both primary and secondary data were used to achieve the aim of the study. The secondary data collected through the Annual reports, past facts and figures provided through internet and journals of respective sample study organization. Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality. The finding of the research proves that customer satisfaction increases by offering high quality service Factor analysis and SEM were used to examine the data gathered from 141 customers in Jammu city. The result of the study proves that apart from reliability all other three variables (tangibility, responsiveness and assurance) plays a vital role in determining the customer satisfaction level. References Al-Slehat, Z. A. F. (2021). Determining the Effect of Banking Service Quality on Customer loyalty Using Customer Satisfaction as a Mediating Variable: An Applied Study on the               Jordanian Commercial Banking Sector. International Business Research, 14(4), 1-58. Anderson, E., & Weitz, B. (1989). 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African Journal of Business Management, 6(11), 4328-4335. Gronroos, C. (1996). A service quality model and its marketing implications. European Journal of Marketing, 18(4), 37-44. Hair, Joseph F., Bill Black, Barry Babin, and Rolph Anderson. 2006. Multivariate Data Analysis, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall. Khraiwish, A., Al-Gasawneh, J., Joudeh, J., Nusairat, N., & Alabdi, Y. (2022). The differentialimpacts of customer commitment dimensions on loyalty in the banking sector in Jordan: Moderating the effect of e-service quality. International Journal of Data and Network               Science, 6(2), 315-324. Parasuraman A, Zeithaml VA, Berry L (1988). "SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring customer perceptions of service quality", J. Retailing. 64: 12-40. Ravichandran K (2010). Influence of Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction, Application ofSERVQUAL Model, Int. J. Bus. Manage. 5: 117-124 Sarkar, E., & Islam, M. S. (2021). 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This paper reports the study of some factors that influence the control intensity exerted by franchisors on the service quality provided by the franchised units of their networks and what interdependencies exist between the different mechanisms that can be used to monitor service quality. On the one hand, three control mechanisms of conformance quality are considered, namely audits, mystery shoppers, and mandatory purchase of inputs and products. On the other hand, polls are used to monitor perceived quality by customers. There are two main findings. First, control intensity is greater in those industries in which customers tend to be non-repetitive. Second, four complementary relationships are found between control mechanisms: between audits and mystery shoppers, between audits and polls, between mandatory purchase of inputs or products and mystery shoppers, and between mandatory purchase of inputs or products and polls.

Monitoring and improving Greek banking services using Bayesian Networks: An analysis of mystery shopping data

Originally the exclusive preserve of the private sector, the mystery shopper technique is increasingly being used in the public sector. In the wake of the reforms to modernise the state, accountability and performance-monitoring exercises are on the rise. They focus, in particular, on service quality and user-customer satisfaction. The article makes a twofold contribution to this topic: methodological and substantive. First of all, the article undertakes a scoping review of the literature on the mystery shopper. This review makes it possible to present the mystery shopper technique and its use in the public sector. For this bibliometric study, a sample of 34 papers was analysed. Second, the article offers a summary of the research into the mystery shopper technique, its potential and its limitations. Points for practitioners This article describes the use of the mystery shopper technique in the public sector. The areas for which mystery shopper surveys are commissioned are relatively limited, most being undertaken in the health sector. However, the scoping review emphasises the potential importance of mystery shopping for the purposes of the evaluation. As such, investigating other areas can be very interesting and promising for the public authorities. We also observe from this literature review that the challenges identified during mystery shopper studies can be overcome.

Travel agencies operations rely to a great extent on measuring services quality, services delivered to their customers and measure whether staffs follow the visions of a company’s service quality standards. It then creates a feedback loop that allows companies to train their staff to consistently deliver services quality. Mystery shopping is a method that utilizes industry experts to assess services presented by travel agencies operations through living the real customer experience and engaging in normal customer - staff encounters and relations, leading to final assessment to be reported to concerned administration in order to optimize the overall performance. This paper aims to evaluate the advantages of the Mystery Shopper to measure staff performance, and assess communication skills of staffs in order to identify their weak points and define the way of Travel agencies’ development. The reason is that their applied abilities are connected with customer´s total perception of offering services. To achieve that, this research employed a method of descriptive analytical methodology by using a questionnaire tool. The sample was mystery shopper in Travel agencies. 200 questionnaires were administered; only (150) returned questionnaires were valid for the statistical manipulation of data with a response rate of 75% from the total distributed questionnaires to travel agencies in Luxor and Aswan. The results of the tools were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, coefficient analysis, and spearman correlation analysis with the support of SPSS 22.0. The research reached several results, there is a positive and significant relationship between Mystery shopping opinions and reasons performed of mystery shopper, Mystery observation and visit (Assess travel agencies staff provided service to customer), Mystery Telephone calls, and Mystery E-mail / Website Visit . The research recommended that Mystery Shopping objectively records travel agencies staff performance. Therefore the scope of a mystery shopping programme must include the variety of best conditions to measure staff performance.

Abstract: Service quality is commonly thought to encompass five generic dimensions: responsiveness, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and reliability. These dimensions form the basis for service measurement tools such as SERVQUAL. Research in this area using tools such as SERVQUAL has predominantly focused on customer perceptions of quality. However, another approach used by many organizations is to send trained raters into the service environment, posing as customers, to evaluate service levels. This approach is often called “mystery shopping” and is very commonly used in both private- and public-sector organizations. This study examines whether the accepted service quality dimensions derived from customer perceptions studies are reflected in service quality evaluations using mystery shopping. It finds that the dimensions that emerge from mystery shopping data resemble SERVQUAL dimensions. Furthermore, a replication found that those dimensions are reasonably stable over time. The findings suggest that data from mystery shopping surveys can exhibit convergent validity.

Mystery shopping: A tool to develop insight into customer service provision

This research primarily explores current mystery shopping practices and branch manager perceptions of service quality measurement via mystery shopping program in chain restaurants. Data were collected by using a questionnaire distributed to chain restaurants. In total, 183 samples were obtained. Statistical techniques employed include descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, cross-tabulation and analysis of variance. The results revealed the analysis of current mystery shopping practice and competitive mystery shopping in chain restaurants, and branch manager perceptions of the effectiveness of mystery shopping as a tool for assessing service quality and preferred mystery shopping programs. Finally, practical implications, direction of future research, and research limitations are proposed.