I really find this a hard thing to do.

Sometimes, things like friendliness or professionalism are culturally different for people of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds and on top of that you have individual preferences and subjectivity (in other words, these can be in the eye of the beholder).

GRRRRR. Having a tough time with a report, because I spoke with someone who wasn't at all rude, but didn't seem friendly to me personally either. Yet, the person was very professional and serious minded. And I'm wondering if that's how some people show "friendliness." Not every person shows friendliness or thinks of it in the same way. Some could very well think of it in terms of being respectful and more reserved (this is maybe a stereotype, but I think Asian cultures may have this, but I could be wrong). And others may show friendliness or professionalism in a more outgoing way.

I always worry that my own subjective preferences might get in the way of a fair rating. Has anyone had this problem too? As a rule, I've told myself to always err on the side of a non-negative rating when faced with uncertainty about how to rate someone. But then a non-negative comment can have a wide range of rating from neutral to slightly positive to very positive.

On top of that, I sometimes second guess myself. I ask myself questions like am I rating this person too harshly or too kindly? Was I fully paying attention? Was my OWN mood that day affecting my perception of another person's demeanor towards me?

GRRRrrrrrr. These questions are tough and time-consuming sometimes!

edited:
Also, sometimes I have a "feeling" that the service wasn't great, but I can't immediately nail down why. It takes a lot of thought. It's one thing to really have a deep feeling about something and another thing to explain it in words why service (esp., the friendliness part, which I find very hard to judge) was or wasn't great.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2017 06:23AM by shoptastic.

Right. One of my earlier (15 years ago) questions was how is friendliness related to happiness. What exactly is a 'smile' and what is my perception of how much of a smile is an actual smile? How does helpfulness relate to friendliness also. That's why I record everything. Sometimes when I play back the recording I can hear the friendliness that I thought I could not see in the face. No matter what assignment I'm on it's a race to get it done and I can miss some things in the experience so the audio decides it for me.

Shoptastic, I use the term "professionally polite" to note the demeanor of an associate who was not at all rude, but was not outgoing/warm. I will add that there was no "small talk" in the conversation; it was strictly business. You are welcome to "steal shamelessly" if you feel that this will work for you. It does not show any negativity; it simply documents exactly what took place.

I find that a lot of staff are simply indifferent. Not rude, but not friendly either.

I've experienced this on one of my recent bank assignments the banker was polite but not friendly. He did not shake my hand or engage in small talk. But he was very helpful. I had to rate him lower based on the guidelines.

I look at every shop this way: the client is paying me to be a typical shopper and report back the experience that a typical shopper has. Most shoppers (for a house, appliance or a shirt) make up their minds within 6 seconds. So, I don't rethink the experience after I've left the store; I go with my gut (6 second) reaction. I answer every question based solely on my in-the-moment experience. I do not try to analyze the employee or his motivation after the fact.

It sounds like you're mentally debating the employee's heritage and upbringing and how that affects his expression of friendliness. IMHO, you're overthinking the report. Let the client do the analysis. Just report the facts objectively, and when asked for subjective input, input your true, gut reaction.

You really do over-think things. Its not your place to analyze heritage, motivation, or any of the other factors you wish to include to excuse a lack of friendliness. A person's heritage is irrelevant - the only thing that matters is the company's standards and expectations. Friendliness is not hard to evaluate. Smile, warm greeting, pleasant tone of voice, cheerfulness, engagement, and a warm parting remark. That's the expectation. That's what the employee is paid to do. That's what you're paid to report. Nothing more, nothing less.

@Opanel wrote:

Shoptastic, I use the term "professionally polite" to note the demeanor of an associate who was not at all rude, but was not outgoing/warm. I will add that there was no "small talk" in the conversation; it was strictly business. You are welcome to "steal shamelessly" if you feel that this will work for you. It does not show any negativity; it simply documents exactly what took place.

Those phrases are perfect! Thx!

I agree with the people who say that the OP is over-thinking things. It comes across that way with most of his/her posts. Being a perfectionist is really a waste of time and it will greatly cut into your profit margins. Find a happy medium.

I just completed a grocery shop. The cashier is not the type to receive attention from women. However, there were two women who were talking him up, they were giggling in response to what he was saying. He was turning red! When they finally left it was my turn. He was sooooo exhausted from his interaction with them that he was absolutely unable to be as friendly to me as he normally is, he barely made eye contact. Should I downgrade his friendliness to me in this situation? I don't think so.

When I worked in retail banking, I often was called into the managers office to discuss my "serious look". Customers complained that I looked at them crazy and so on.

If I'm dealing with your money, would you want me to be serious or giddy?

Needless to say, I Learearly on that retail was not for me especially since I was judged based on my facial expressions.

I feel like I need a score card; several very valid points have been made on both sides of this question!

First a foremost, I don't think it's truly fair to tell Shoptastic that they're over-thinking or being too much of a perfectionist. Each of us have our own ways of doing things, have our own sets of circumstances under which we've been raised and experienced life in general. We have very individual perceptions of the situations around us and--even when objectively recording and reports facts--have experienced those "facts" quite differently than someone who might have been standing beside us and experiencing the exact same thing at the exact same time. It's part of the human condition, really, and it is why police can have three eye-witnesses to a single crime that yield three completely different versions of what happened. It is also precisely the reason that any good MSP when designing the methodology for the evaluations that we do will have multiple shoppers evaluating the same employees during various situations--because that single employee might very well have been in the exact same mood during three separate evaluations that were simply perceived in three different ways. It is true, I will add, that it becomes the job of the analysts and the clients themselves to qualitatively quantify the results in relations to individual employees.

I applaud Shoptasitc's attention to detail and demonstration of an attitude that says she truly cares about the quality of the work submitted and isn't motivated by simply bottom line profit margins and completing more evaluations in a given time to increase them.

As far as the question itself, regarding cultural differences the the influence they have on things such as friendliness, I think the answer is a resounding, "Yes, they absolutely play a role!" It is our mission as objective observers to report the facts as facts and when asked for our opinions or feelings (i.e., interpretations of those facts) it is imperative to remember that often (realistically, more often than not) the cultural influence at play is really our own uniquely American attitude of entitlement and what it means for an employee to exhibit friendliness and "warmth." Prettygul1 added an invaluable insight, in my opinion, in that he/she brought into the equation the different levels of "friendliness" and questions of how APPROPRIATE they might be contextually.

For me to rate (on a scale of 1 to 10) an employee with whom I;ve just had an retail interaction as a 10 on the "Friendly Scale" isn't the same as someone I might have met a cocktail party. That same person who got a 10 in the retail world, might only get a 5 in a social setting. Whereas a person getting a 10 in that social setting, who displayed the same level of "friendliness" the next day as I was buying boxer shorts, might likely have been rated as N/A - Employee clearly a stalker with psychotic tendencies.

Good on you, SHoptastic, for caring about the work you're doing and the potential effect it might have on those you are evaluating. Err on the side of caution is my own best advice to myself in similar situations, and wherever I can, I make use of the "Extra thoughts" questions most reports have near the end. There I can make any caveats to things rated earlier, add context or interpretation.

Ialso think it's good to question our knee-jerk reactions sometimes. I certainly have a different standard of friendliness during the kind of business transactions we evaluate than at a cocktail party. I like just enough chit-chat to make you comfortable, and then moving onto business. But I won't necessarily downgrade someone for not enough small talk.

I complete a lot of banking jobs and I experience this with bankers that are men. About 99.8% of the time, they just don't do it for me. They are often too serious, not warm enough, and don't build rapport in the way that I would like a banker to. I probably am biased, aren't we all in certain ways? The men bankers might outline the facts and services perfectly, but if they aren't smiling, conveying warmth and trying to build rapport- I leave with a mediocre feeling about the service. I agree with the poster that said just objectively outline the facts and state your feelings if that is necessary. Chances are great that a mystery shopper's viewpoint mimics what other customers are feeling too, and a company wants to know where they can do better.

This is one of the reasons that MSCs send a number of different shoppers to the same location. Different people see things differently, even when the basic facts (timing, for instance) are equal. The employee being shopped has to deal with a wide variety of customers, so a variety of shoppers will represent the clientele more closely than sending all white women or all Asian or Hispanic or Black shoppers would.

Who knows what is going on. The server or clerk may have just got a "pep talk" from an unfair supervisor and they could not smile.or perform and they were torn between serving you and walking out. Maybe they were thrown into the pool sink or swim.