Hi Fielding,

> Well, you called my bluff so I guess I had better come up
> with an alternative and not just a criticism.

Precisely.

> I'd start with providing new employees training that stresses
> quality visitor services from the start and define what that
> means to your institution. Furthermore, I would continually
> stress their responsibility for providing quality visitor services.
> Creating an environment that is positive for one's visitors
> must certainly depend on having well trained employees that
> clearly understand that they are there to provide a quality
> experience for the folks who pay their wages.

My assumption is that anyone who lands a job at the supervisory level in
visitor/customer understands these principles.

> I am not arguing in favor of not having staff held accountable
> for poor behavior. There must be mechanisms in place to
> handle that and mechanisms in place for visitors to air their
> grievances.

Most likely, we can all deconstruct the myth that random comment cards
from visitors help.  After all, the only visitors who seek out and fill
out comments cards are those who are passionate - either "pro" or
"anti."  I have record of five or six year's worth of comment cards,
numbering in the thousands, that begin either "I like" or "I do not
like."  Often, it's in reference to someone on staff -- always
front-line staff.

Is this an adequate mechanism for evaluation?  No way.  Evaluations are
meant to place the subject on even ground, where positive feedback can
be given for a job well done and where poor behavior can be identified
and, hopefully, corrected.

To have secret visitors could identify both positive and negative
behaviors by front-line staff . . . and need not focus on the negative
as you seem to imply.  [For example: While working at a major bookstore
chain, I helped a secret shopper and received 90%, and a compliment from
my Manager.]

> However, I am arguing in favor of doing one's best, as a
> manager, to monitor your employees' behavior in a less
> surreptitious manner.

Naturally, this depends upon your front-line set-up and, comes down to,
"spying" in another form.

> I realize that there are many management styles and approaches,
> but it just strikes me that the use of secret shoppers is not
> much more than good old fashioned 'negative reinforcement' and
> it sends your employees the message that you don't trust them
> to do the job you trained them to do. I'm may be a bit naïve, but
> it just seems to me that a good manager should know when
> their employees aren't doing their jobs well without having to
> resort to such clandestine measures.

See above . . . you presuppose that simulating the visitor experience by
using secret shoppers is more clandestine than monitoring one's
employees in a less surreptitious manner?  This sounds like double speak
straight out of Orwell's 1984.

> I've only been a museum manager for a few years so I don't
> know, maybe there really are employees out there that like
> to have their boss sit them down and tell them that a secret
> shopper has submitted a report on their behavior.

Maybe there are.  maybe there aren't.  No method will appeal to all
supervisors or employees.  But if you work in customer/visitor service,
you have to expect positive and negative feedback -- more commonly
negative feedback if Robert Hughes' Culture of Complaint describes our
society . . .

And, I'll nod in agreement with George Garner's reminder that secret
visitors ought to be professionals, not 'Joe Schmoe' off the street.

Best wishes, sincerely,
Jay Heuman