Mystery Shopping in Russia.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, PhD

CEO of the “YOUR PEOPLE” company 

 

 For last several years we’re realizing systematic investigations of the quality of service in different sectors and industry segments (from elite automobile sales centre and banks till retail) in Russia by the Mystery Shopping technology.

Mystery shopping – the technology of the estimation of the quality of the service with the help of the mystery shoppers – is very actively developing in Russia last 5 years. We think, that it happens because of the following factors:

- The companies, which work on the territory of the former Soviet Union, are trying to get the competitive advantages at the expense of the high-class client service

- The heightened attention of the leading -companies to the operational experience of the transnational corporation.

- Active borrowing from themselves and from the foreign countries of the new technologies in marketing, service and HR-management by the Russian companies.

An analysis of the industry segments of the Russian market with the high level of the competition, demonstrates us, that the companies, which are developing in a highly competitive market place, acquire some clients’ oriented traits.

If the competition or the fight for the client is bigger, then the seller of the article or service has to waste more energy for the “victory”.  

Let’s give a meaning to the main stages, basic tendencies and problems in the development of the service of our country of the last twenty years.

Stages of the development of the service in modern Russia. 

After reforms the service expectations of the Russian consumers were developing against the background of the economics of the Russia.

Years 1991-1998. “Period of the unsystematic and inconsequent copying of the Foreign Service technologies.

In the first half of the 90s a great surge of the assortment in different commodity group – from foodstuff till cars – took place. This surge was accompanied by the connections of the Russian-people with the foreign selling and service standards seen during the weekly holiday trips to Turkey, Egypt and then to the Europe, America, Southeast Asia. Just then the ephemeral and rather unreal in the Russian realities “international service standard” started to penetrate into the social consciousness and into the business-culture. Russian consumer got and could form an unstructured necessity for appearance of the alternative to the soviet service tradition. But it was almost impossible to get “the service of the European level” in Russia. The newly Russian businessman didn’t have great desire to do it, and , actually, they couldn’t have it. Because the merchandise and the service were bought because of the surprise and just to spend American-presidents- faces dollar notes, which had appeared miraculously. Marketing was realized according to “nice article will sell itself by itself”. The competition existed thanks to the prices and to the advertisement only.

                The telling illustrations of the engendering service consciousness business- community of the first half  of the 90s we can consider the occurring everywhere appearance of the commercial toilets, designed in the post-social barocco stylistics, in the big cities; there were also very popular such called “Western-style renovation” at the offices, little shops and apartments.

Years 1998-2000. “Period of the formation of the structured interest to the consumer”.  

Some disbalance in the still weak economics brought the country to the default of the year 1998. It “ate” the financial surpluses of the part of the population and reduced their possibility to buy the expensive articles and services. Employment layoffs, sag of the remuneration of labour, closing of the companies, bankruptcy of the credit organizations were an inevitable catalyst in the development of the Russian service. A real fight for client became stronger. Russian marketing was developing actively. A conception of the marketing of the relationship became popular (F.Cotler, G.Armstrong, J.Sonders, W.Wong). There were a great surge of interest to the books of the foreign guru of the economics and business among the Russian white collars. Another factor, which accompanied and could influence on the development of the service in that period, is a great growth of the qualification of the Russian managers. It happened against the following background:

-       explosive development of the institution of the professional business-trainers;

-       activization of the foreign and national programs of the professional development of the personnel (TASIS, World Bank, Presidential program of the training of the headmaster material, MBA programs) .

In spite of the economy of the corporative budget, the companies were building their own systems of teaching, related with the growth of the effectiveness of the personnel, who work with the clients. The situation in business’s like a metaphor “we’re running faster, but for the lesser price”.  

2001 – September 2008. “Period of appearance of the technologies of the service and of the monitoring Mystery Shopping in Russia”.

Against the background of the strengthening of the line of command and against the background of the general corruption, the economics of Russia acquired an orientation of the source of raw materials and fuel. Many companies worked actively in a sphere of the improvement of the cliental service. In 2006 a worker diktat changed an employer diktat at the labour-market.  Against this background the salaries were growing groundlessly fast, but there was a real shortage of qualified personnel, who could correspond to the growing demands of the Russian companies. The growth of the welfare and of the buying attitude of the people, the economical stability led to the growth and to the widening of the assortment of the bought things. In some segments of the market (car-business, e.g.), the demand passed ahead of the supply greatly. The deficit of the new cars of foreign make, office areas, hotels, restaurants, etc. is still influent negatively on the service aspects of the activity of the Russian companies. Moreover, in such sectors as DCE (Distributed Computing Environment), medicines, clothes and shoes retail, banking, fight for the client was growing. The task, the mission, of the forming of the elemental service for many companies transformed in the task of the creation of the increasingly cluttered service and of the maintenance of it up to the mark at the regional subdivisions. Corporative, in many cases rather clumsy, standards of the client service were forming. A spacious and regional expansion of the middle and large network companies with the “headquarters” in Moscow promoted the development of the service standards in the regions of Russia.

In the middle of the describable period in Russia many companies, specialized on the monitoring of the quality of the service by the Mystery Shopping technology, made themselves known actively. In 2008 there’re more than 80 such companies in the territory of Russia. And this quantity is still growing. In Moscow there have appeared some network agencies, which realize on whole the Russian and on the Commonwealth of Independent States territories the Mystery Shopping investigations by the transnational companies’. The technology of the quality of the service checking was improving and complicating. Network agencies used modern computer technologies actively; it led to the customers of the Mystery Shopping to get the information about the service in the branches (departments, regions) in the on-line regime.

October 2008 - … “Period of the intensification of the competition and of the growth of the role of the service”.

In connection with the world and national economical crisis many companies, which build their business on active involvement of the banking credits, feel a great shortage of the circulating assets. A shortening of the bonuses, salaries, layoffs happen. The companies are shortening the budget items for selection of personnel, the teaching of the personnel. A very expensive teaching of the personnel is going to be considered as an impermissible luxury. The actions of the potential buyers become more reasonable – the number of the impulsive buying is decreasing. The professionalism of the seller is going in the foreground, his ability to reveal and to cover the client’s requirements. It became more and more difficult to earn on the sales. In the USA the new cars’ sales in September have been descended in 20%. In Russia the sales slump of the foreign cars was even more 40%.

“When people stop buying cars and apartments, - they start to buy clothes and shoes…” – said one Russian entrepreneur, business owner of the retail network of the clothing stores, in a private talking with an author of the article with an ironical smile. We’d also like to add that the descending of the sales of the new cars will inevitably increase the sales of the service and of the repairing of the second-hand cars.  In December 2008 – January 2009 we faced with a growth of the prospective customers of the Mystery Shopping in 40-50% (as compared with the previous months). Some new unexpected requests were added to the usual requests of the control of the standard of the service. Offer to use the mystery shoppers to get the new brands, for example.

Of course, in the situation of the economical crisis Russian companies use the unconventional marketing idea and decisions more actively. Such an approach, with the increasing of the requirements to the quality of the service, will let to the most active companies to use this crisis for an growth of their market share. So, we can predict the following successful development of the Mystery Shopping technology in Russia. This development will be accompanied by a highly competitive market place of the providers, by an inevitable increasing of the quality of the service, complicating of the scenario of the checking, shortening of the time of the assignment to the customers of the results of the checking, usage of the mystery shoppers not only for the checking of the standards of the service, but also for the sale promotion.