To help us better understand the issues raised by our survey, Marketplace consulted customer service expert Shaun Belding, CEO of the Belding Group. Belding is the author of five books including Winning with the Customer from Hell: A Survival Guide. Belding speaks internationally about customer service, and runs RetailTrack, a mystery shopping and consulting company that helps companies track customer service in their stores. RetailTrack has a network of 30,000 mystery shoppers across Canada and the U.S. Belding also blogs regularly about customer service.
RetailTrack sent mystery shoppers into the bottom three stores named in our survey. The mystery shop tested stores in eight cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. Mystery shoppers tested one store from each chain in each city, except in Toronto, where they tested two stores for each chain, due to the size of its market. A total of 27 stores were tested across the country, capturing a snapshot of customer service in practice.
Beldings mystery shoppers scored each store using a report card that tested customer service in key areas: first impressions, availability and attentiveness of sales staff, staff helpfulness and attitude, convenience, and overall impression. The test was built around core customer service values, which Belding says everyone should expect. Each store received a score out of 100. Based on these scores, Belding gave the companies the following grades: Walmart received a D-, Canadian Tire received an F, and Zellers received an F-.
While this test helped us gain insight into our results, the final determination about which company has Canada's Worst Customer Service was decided by our national survey. Read more about the results of our survey.
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