Neither can a mystery shopping project. That's why some of Beyond Hello's most important work takes place before our mystery shoppers ever visit a client's facilities. We work with the client to ascertain his or her needs and goals. We develop a thorough understanding of the client's standards. And we custom-tailor an evaluation form and shopping procedure for the engagement.

Each client's concerns are unique. But Beyond Hello's managers make certain that every client considers evaluating such aspects of employee performance as manner of greeting customers, eagerness and ability to assist customers, and exercise of selling skills. Our managers also suggest features of the client's physical plant that our shoppers might evaluate -- cleanliness, maintenance, ease of access to product and service areas. When a project involves a large number of facilities, our managers help the client develop and weight objective evaluation criteria, to facilitate apple-to-apple comparisons and to enable statistical analysis of our findings.

It's worth noting that we do this for every engagement, including those we undertake for our growing body of continuing clients. As business changes, our clients' needs change. And Beyond Hello's evaluations change right along with them.