A message from Geni Hulsey, president of the Church Bookstore Network:

Among the wonderful articles in Christian Retailing magazine each issue is the result of a "Mystery Shopper" visit by the magazine to a store somewhere in the U.S. There's always something to learn from reading this anonymous customer report, but let me suggest you go a step further and arrange your own undercover assessment of your store.

There are commercial operations that do this sort of thing, but you should be able to organize your own inexpensively by recruiting friends and church members. A "thank you" coupon could be all you need to invest.

The first step is to decide what you want to know about your operation. Do you want a critique of your entire store, or do you want to focus on a particular aspect, such as customer service, staff knowledge of product or inventory? Maybe you would like an opinion of the appearance and ease of shopping your store?

Once you decide the focus of the secret shopper, you will need to make up a form that the "critic" can complete after his or her visit. Ask very detailed questions that the shopper must answer. You might use the Mystery Shopper reports in Christian Retailing to guide your thinking as you construct the form for the shopper.

The questions need to be specific enough to let you know where the weaknesses are in your store, but also tell you the strengths of your store so that you might commend those who make that happen.

For instance, if your survey is about customer service, it might seem sufficient to ask, "Were you greeted when you came into the store?" A better question, to really find out about how welcome your customers feel as they enter the store, might be, "Did you feel welcome as you entered the store?" Or, "Was the greeting you received when you entered the store personal?"

If you suspect that certain products are not selling, it may be because of lack of knowledge on the part of the staff, so you might ask your personal shopper to go into the Bible department and act totally ignorant of how to purchase a Bible. Have the shopper then report about the knowledge of that clerk in regard to Bibles-the translations, bindings, print size and format.

After you construct the visit form for the shopper, you need to choose someone to make the visit. You might ask a friend from another church, so that person will not be recognized. Consider asking a second shopper, too, for a different view-especially of customer service. You might choose someone very familiar to your staff, to see if they give a known customer the same attention they do a stranger.

Ask your shopper to grade each point from 1 to 10 and then ask them to comment on each aspect of the visit. When the visit is over, sit down with your staff and share the evaluation forms with them. Encourage them not to be defensive, but to look honestly at how, together, you might make your store better.

Be careful not to spotlight individuals in regard to any weaknesses that may be identified, but focus on the issues instead. You want your staff to feel encouraged and motivated, not that they are being spied on.

Remind them that it is really good to have others look critically at our stores and tell us honestly what they see. We look at the same thing each day and sometimes trip over the most obvious areas in which we need to make corrections.

Remind them that this process is for our good--and His glory.

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