secret shoppers | Writing Boots

Stunned by the violent psychological return to childhood induced by trying on summer shorts in a department store—was this Kohl's or was it Higbee's?—I was bamboozled into getting a store credit card. (I actually thought it was some loyalty program, and the lady offered me 30% off if I did it.)

When I returned to my senses at home, I called Kohl's to pay off the card and cancel it. A recorded voice informed me that I had been randomly selected to participate in a survey about the service I was about to receive.

The customer service agent who was about to help me, the voice continued, "is unaware" that I would be snitching on her performance.

The woman handled my hysterical nitwit self well enough. I didn't tell her about the survey, because I didn't want to scare her. To be honest, she sounded scared enough.

But when she hung up, I did wait for the survey. I wanted to use it to let the company have it for turning customers into secret shoppers. Secret shopping is lazy and cheap and barbaric substitute for real management in the first place. And now you're delegating the job … to your customers?

I was going to tell the survey administrator that. But alas, the survey was automated.

So I hung up and wrote a really nasty blog post and went on with my life.

But what about troubled Kohl's customers who don't have a blog?

Etc., etc.

I'm mad, because somebody whose life-earned craftsmanship I admire—and whether you're a car mechanic or a mob hit man or a cod fishmerman, I admire lifelong craftsmanship over most other things—was spied upon in a kind of "secret shopper" program.

And, by this hired minderbinder with boxes to check and letters to circle, found wanting.

And the thing is, my friend knew it was a secret shopper all along.

How?

Didn't I just tell you this person was a lifelong craftsman?

(Not to mention an all-out hustler and getter of results.)

Yet, my friend's art didn't match the minderbinder's boxes and the letters.

So the score came back, 55/100.

What does that score mean, you ask?

Nothing, of course!

I've always casually loathed the idea of secret shoppers—in general, spying is only slightly more morally cool than torture—but it took until now for me to form the following angry thesis:

If your organization is so shoddily managed that it can't trust its managers to know whether or not the employees are doing good work … and can't find civilized, honest ways to do intelligent spot-checks … then your organization desperately deserves to be toppled by a competitor who can figure out how to profit from truly skilled human beings.

I realize we live in a country full of such organizations. But just because they're common, doesn't mean they're not crap.

Somebody, tell me I'm wrong about this.

Creepy, cheap Kohl’s turns customers into secret shoppers

Only crap organizations use “secret shoppers”