One was greeted in a warm and friendly manner, whereas another was not greeted at all. Not all waiters were wearing name tags either. However staff were confident about their products and able to suggest meal upgrades. Once ordered, food was delivered at a very efficient rate. One of our shoppers noted they received their meal in 4.5 minutes, which is very impressive.

Finally, in last place, we have Fatburger, Dubai Mall with 42%. Although the food was praised, the service was disorganised and staff weren’t attempting to engage or be friendly towards our mystery shoppers.

In one instance, there was a counter-full of people waiting to be served but no one knew who was next, as there was no number system or even an organised line.

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One of our shoppers became quite frustrated when a customer who appeared in line after him was served first.

Good work on wearing name tags and demonstrating sound product knowledge, but not much else.

What could have been better?

• Making an impression is all about attitude and customer engagement. Only 63% of staff across all burger restaurants visited were warm and friendly to their customer; 25% of all staff visited didn’t even make eye contact with the diner!
 

• It’s great to see that most of our mystery shoppers were visited by a manager and asked how their meal was and if there was anything else they needed. This is a nice touch and affirms to customers that they are valued.

However none of our shoppers were 100% sure that it was in fact a manager that visited their table. Why? None of these ‘managers’ introduced themselves or wore a name tag with their designation clearly labelled.

Our shoppers were left to assume they were visited by a manager purely because that particular member of staff was in different dress. If you’re making the effort to personally visit each table, make sure you do the job properly.

Wear a name tag and introduce yourself — leave your customer with no doubt that the manager cared enough to speak with them personally to make sure their experience was exceptional.


 

ABOUT ETHOS CONSULTANCY

Originating in the UK in 1995, Ethos Consultancy relocated to Dubai in 2003, where a team of five has grown to 50 — with an Abu Dhabi office opening in 2008. Our consultants have come from some of the most mature customer service markets in the world, ensuring experience and best practice in everything we do.

Ethos prides itself on being at the forefront of online customer service solutions and was awarded Most Innovative Small Business in the UAE at the 2008 Lloyds TSB Small Business Awards.

Through years of experience, Ethos has developed a variety of services to help clients understand how their business is performing. Our solutions include mystery shopping, satisfaction surveys and a range of benchmarking services. Once clients have a clear understanding of how they are performing, we help them improve via training, consulting and implementation of The International Customer Service Standard.