Bureaucrats be warned: that person with a lost wallet or passport application might be a plant.
The public face of the public service better be smiling when secret shoppers – long used by retailers and marketers to test consumer-brand interaction – fan out across the country.
The federal agency that gives Canadians a single point of access to a host of government services wants to know whether staff on the front lines are cheery and helpful.
So the bureau called Service Canada plans to hire secret shoppers to see whether it lives up to its name.
Thirteen programs will be put to the test. People posing as pensioners will rate Service Canada on how well it handles queries about old age and guaranteed income supplement benefits.
Other secret shoppers will pretend to have questions about employment insurance, lost wallets, passports, social insurance numbers, finding a job and getting grants for apprenticeships.
The mystery shoppers will also take to the internet to see how Service Canada fares online.
“The key research objectives… are to measure quality of service, gather specific information about Service Canada services; and, to measure service experience,” says a notice posted on a website that advertises government contracts.
A pilot mystery shopper program ran between 2007 and 2009. A report on that pilot project found most face-to-face dealings with Service Canada staff were generally pleasant.
The findings from this new secret shopper study will be used to measure the level of service in the years to come.
The agency says it wants to “identify any gaps and-or areas of concern with the service delivery experience,” “provide insights into service issues” and “identify opportunities for service enhancements.”
About 1,000 Service Canada locations will be targeted. The work will wrap up by the end of March.
The department of Human Resources and Skills Development, which oversees Service Canada, said complaints did not prompt the secret shopper program.
“The mystery shopper research program is not triggered by complaints,” the department said in an e-mail. “It is ongoing methodology that we use in Service Canada for quality management for continuous improvement of services offered.”
Service Canada isn’t the only arm of government taking a look at itself. Canada Post also wants to know if its people deliver.
The national postal service plans to hire secret shoppers to check out its post offices and retail outlets across the country.
The contract is for three years with the option to extend for up to five years.
