Starting from the month of September the Bank of Italy will carry out a “pilot exercise” of mystery shopping. Those in charge of the business will present themselves "incognito" at some bank branches asking for information and assistance on banking products and services.
The Bank of Italy and mystery shopping
The power to carry out mystery shopping checks has been attributed to the Bank of Italy recently and joins those already existing with the aim of strengthening the role of the Institute in the action of customer protection of banks and finance companies.
Mystery shopping is a survey technique used for some time in the private sector which, through the use of people pretending to be interested in purchasing products or services, verifies the quality of services offered, with the overall objective of improving staff performance and customer satisfaction.
In the context of supervision, mystery shopping will allow us to better examine the relationship between the counter clerk and the customer, taking into account, for example, the staff preparation, the correspondence of the product offered to the needs represented by the customer, the presentation and use of transparency documentation, the placement of specific products, possibly different from those requested by the customer himself.
The results of the visits incognito they may represent a contribution to supervisory action, even if they will not independently initiate sanctioning procedures.
