The “mistery shopping” technique used as a tool of service assesment in public libraries: a Brazilian experience involving Biblioteconomy undergraduates

Abstract

In the context of a brief review of some methods and techniques found in
the literature on the subject of service evaluation, this article reports the experience of the application of the mystery shopping
technique for the assessment of service attendance to
the public in a network of public libraries in the state
of São Paulo, Brazil. Details of how the technique was
applied and the tabulated results are presented. Excluding the control group, 60% of the evaluated libraries
attained the value of “excellent” for the variable “informing”, which refers to the ability of the professional
helping the user to solve his questions and searches.
This result is considered to be highly satisfactory. In
relation to the form employed by the personal in charge with the mystery shoppers, the overall evaluation was
also very good, with 50% of the libraries attaining the
value “excellent” for the attribute “greeting//welcoming approach”. The application of the technique occurred in the context of the course module “Reference
and Information Services” offered on the undergraduate LIS course in a federal university in Brazil, with the
students of the course acting as the mystery shoppers for
the services provided by the assessed public libraries.
In this way it was hoped that the exercise might contribute to forming reflexive librarians with the future
ability to propose new evidence-based services, procedures and measures.