Dealer used car mystery shopping has been added to The Warranty Group’s portfolio of services.

The service is designed to provide a real world audit for the effectiveness of the training, infrastructure and products provided by the company.

Peter Rooke, group trainer, explained that the service examined key areas that tended to be ignored by typical manufacturer mystery shopping.

He said: “Manufacturer mystery shopping clearly has its place but tends to be very much about new car sales and, anyway, is frequently identified by dealer staff who have previously undergone the process.

“Our mystery shopping has been prompted by requests from dealer managers who want to audit the investment they have with us in terms of used car sales and added value products.

“Our approach is to make the process as rigorous and close to real world conditions as possible. Importantly, we also get the whole used car sales team involved in order to obtain a picture of all staff capabilities.

“The result is sometimes a little bit ‘warts and all’ especially compared to manufacturer mystery shopping but does provide an accurate picture of the hard sales skills of your used card staff.”

During a pilot programme of the service, The Warranty Group has carried out more than 40 mystery shops for half a dozen dealer groups.

Rooke added: “Interest in the service from dealers has already been very encouraging and we expect to carry out up to 100 more mystery shops during the remainder of 2012.”