Commissioned by Department for Business Innovation and Skills
This mystery shopping exercise was commissioned to test the early stages of contact when businesses seek advice from Business Link, focussing on the level of responsiveness, professionalism and timeliness of the services. 159 businesses with genuine business needs for advice were recruited to act as mystery shoppers and were interviewed after each stage of the customer journey, starting with an initial telephone or email enquiry and progressing through follow-up calls to if appropriate a face-to-face meeting with an adviser. In order to test different aspects of service delivery, businesses were classified into one or more pre-determined business scenarios:
(i) a growth seeking business;
(ii) a business seeking finance/working capital;
(iii) a declining business/business seeking recovery;
(iv) a business seeking training assistance; and (v) a business starting-up.
Findings showed that there was widespread satisfaction and approval of the services received. Where dissatisfaction existed, much of it related to failures in communication at the initial stages. The level of satisfaction increased as the customer journey progressed.
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