Houston Food Bank has found an unconventional way to improve the experiences of pantry clients by tapping mystery shoppers, a tactic typically used in retail.
With its Neighbor Experience Initiative, the food bank deployed mystery shoppers to report back on their in-person interactions at several pantries. Through the lens of the volunteer shoppers, the food bank now has a better understanding of how its pantries are serving first-time clients.
The initiative comes at a time when food banks are paying more attention than ever to making sure clients feel respect and dignity at the pantry. Efforts to make food distribution outlets feel more like grocery stores, including having food that suits cultural tastes and settings that minimize stigma, are all part of the movement.
“We’re never too far from the idea and the thought of the neighbor, the person at the end of the spectrum who is receiving the resources,” said Nicole Browning, Director of Partner Services. “Highlighting customer voice is something that we have been very intentional and active in creating over the last two to three years.”
Houston Food Bank was fortunate that a connection of one of its volunteers enabled it to take advantage of mystery shopping services from CustomerOptix on a pro-bono basis, saving it tens of thousands of dollars. Out of its 200 partner pantries across 18 counties, Houston Food Bank selected a mix of 50 (based on their size, location and performance) to be available to the volunteer shoppers.
The 21 volunteer shoppers who stepped up to the task of evaluating the quality of service at the pantries ended up visiting 14 random sites over 21 shopping instances. The food bank notified the network that the mystery shopping would be happening, but did not relay specifics about which ones would be shopped.
After visiting a pantry site, shoppers filled out questionnaires where they considered if it was easy and clear to find and navigate through the food pantry based on signs, as well as the time it took to receive help, the quality of food available and staff interactions. Other specific queries included the accuracy of listed pantry hours and whether or not the items received were adequate to supplement their weekly grocery needs.
Once the data was collected, Houston Food Bank was able to identify significant wins. The highest scores were related to interactions with the staff, with 18 of the shoppers describing them as positive and only three as negative. Many described their interactions as welcoming, proactive/attentive and friendly, with none finding them to be rude or impatient.
In general, shoppers described their experiences in a positive way, and said they would recommend the pantries to others. Other highlights included the findings that some sites have wheelchair accessibility and one location giving prizes to first-time clients.
Overall, Houston Food Bank was pleased. “We didn’t expect [the results] to be negative, but this was outright positive,” said Kelli Cavenah, Partner Services Business Process Manager. “Far beyond what we expected.”
A few feedback points are leading Houston Food Bank to make changes. Some secret shoppers, nine out of 21, found a pantry’s scheduled hours to be incorrect. In response, the food bank is looking to give pantry agencies direct access to editing their hours on its food locator map. A transition to Vivery, a tech company that aims to simplify food access by equipping food banks with digital tools, should help with that. In addition, a couple of pantries closed early because they ran out of food, indicating places where the food bank can work with the network to be more strategic about placing orders and setting hours.
Slightly lower scores related to food quality and food adequacy confirmed what the food bank already knew, such as the need to make clear to guests that the network provides food that is supplementary and not always as beautiful as one would see in a grocery store. “We’re going to start developing some signage that our sites can put up that might say things like, ‘Hey, did you know we’re a food rescue organization? So this is why the produce looks this way,’ or just more information about how food banks work and how it supplements groceries,” Cavenah said.
One challenge the food bank faced was communicating to the secret shoppers – many of whom did not meet the criteria for using a food pantry – that it was OK to pose as someone undergoing an emergency and in need of food. “A lot of them don’t live below the poverty line, or they don’t fit other income levels,” Cavenah explained. “Of course, you can still get food if you have a personal emergency. So we were trying to coach them to use that verbiage, but they felt so guilty doing it.”
One way around that barrier might be to invite college students to pose as clients, many of whom would welcome the extra food. And because many of them don’t own vehicles, they could also provide perspective on the challenges of using public transportation to reach food pantries, Cavenah said.
Like many of its peers, Houston Food Bank is emphasizing fresh and healthy food in its distributions and pushing pantries to implement more client-choice access to food. The food bank recently made $500,000 in grants available to help pantries increase their capacity to handle fresh food. According to Browning, at least one third of the network offers some element of choice, and efforts are consistently being made to expand it.
The mystery shopping initiative helped the food bank open up better dialogues with its pantry partners, Cavenah said. She noted, “I like this project because it allows us to really give something positive back to them, to provide encouragement.” – Gabriela Flores
Gabriela Flores is a graduate student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. She is interning at Food Bank News for the summer and has previously reported for Mott Haven Herald, The Rockaway Wave, City Limits and Queens Daily Eagle.
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