DSA Mystery Shop
A qualitative research approach is being used to measure the service that customers receive from DSA. The focus of the mystery shopping is on making test bookings by telephone or the internet, booking agents & enquiry point staffs ability to answer general enquiries about testing and associated licensing issues and the quality and the ease of locating information on the DSA web site for people looking for driving test related information.
Every year, around one and a half million Driving Theory Tests and a similar number of Practical Driving Tests are conducted in the UK. At the time of writing, just over half of these are booked over the Internet via the DSA's web-portal; the remainder are booked using the telephone.
The Purpose of the mystery shopping exercise is to discover if the DSA's aims relating to driving test bookings and the provision of test related information are being met.
As part of a broad remit, RED was asked to undertake annual mystery shopping activities, record results against an agreed set of criteria, report on the finding and make recommendations.
The approach involves measuring DSA response to test bookings, and general enquiries. The booking of Tests via the telephone is handled at several call centres in the UK. The DSA also has several telephone enquiry points, mostly relating to particular specialisations, such as the LGV category and ADIs.
Measurements are made through the collation and analysis of data collected by the mystery shoppers.
A pre-prepared set of scenarios has been developed in conjunction with the DSA; these include booking, amending and cancelling various different tests via telephone and using the internet, as well as making test related enquiries.
Analysis of the results focuses on a variety of factors, including the speed at which calls are answered and the ease of making a booking or the accuracy of responses to enquiries. Also examined are the apparent attitude of the call operative and the general feelings of the mystery shopper about the quality of the call.
DSA uses the information gathered from the mystery shopping activities to introduce improvements to their booking processes and procedures, refine staff training and improve the provision of web based information.
