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

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

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. 

Cheers,
Fielding

Fielding Freed
Redcliffe Plantation State Historic Site
181 Redcliffe Road
Beech Island, SC 29842
803.827.1473
www.discoversouthcarolina.com

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