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Mystery Shopping - Ghana Health Service
Mystery Shopping - Ghana Health Service
Mystery Shopping - Ghana Health Service
REPORT
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The Study was carried out by
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Chapter 1 Introduction and Background
1 .0 INTRODUCTION
The Ghana Health Service has been concerned with the recent public outcry of negative
staff attitude in its health facilities and has instituted a customer care program and other
strategies to help improve client services. Mystery shopping was conducted in twelve
purposively selected government hospitals and polyclinics in the Greater Accra Region.
The study will provide baseline information on customer care practices in these facilities
which will be used to review customer care training program and also to improve
performances observed
to capture the experience of customers and staff, and measure their satisfaction level
and performance. It helps to gain insights into their experience at various points of
1.1 BACKGROUND
In recent times the word “customer care practice” has attracted much attention in the
service industry. The word “customer” has therefore been adopted for clients to give
credence and focus on their needs with the view of satisfying them. Customer
satisfaction has now become the priority of every service institution (Goodsell 1998).
The reason can be due to obvious competition among institutions offering the same
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service. The customer in this perspective has a choice and would patronize the
It is not surprising that customer satisfaction has become the core goal in organizations.
reduces loss of revenue because it is likely for the customer to return and even bring
along new ones. Exhibiting poor staff attitude can discourage clients from coming back
again. Poor staff attitude has created a bad public perception of health care workers in
Ghana. The evidence reflects in comments by the public following health staff rampant
strike actions, discussions on radio and television programs (Mmaa Nkomo) and reports
explain that their work schedule is too much to allot them enough time to relate well with
their clients. Others have also cited long working hours and low incentives as some of
the reasons that hinder them to engage to come out with their best. These may be
genuine concerns but in spite of these the public reaction clearly indicates that their
The Ghana Health Service is committed to the delivery of client focused, quality health
services. In the provision of services the clients’ needs and expectations must be met. It
is therefore important that health staff promote good relationship with clients, their
support persons, communities and even fellow health workers. Such an approach will
not only promote good customer relations but enhance the corporate image of the GHS.
It is based on these developments that the customer care program was launched. A
training manual, posters and video tapes for customer care training of all health care
providers within the Ghana Health Service outfit has been developed by a task team at
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the headquarters with support from Ecobank. The training manual was pretested at
Tema General Hospital. However it is necessary to have some baseline study before
training is rolled out to the other health facilities. The information will be used to improve
the training program and customer care practices. It will allow for evaluation at the end
of the training in order to assess how the training has impacted customer care practices
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
One aspect of organizational performance that receives less attention in the actual
process of service delivery is customer care. The quality of customer service provided
delight in courteous and friendly treatment and uses them to assess quality of service”
(Fountain 2001).
organization must put itself in citizens’ shoes and ask questions about how they are
greeted, the appearance of frontline staff, and the aesthetics of the office place”. Such
A mystery shopper makes inquiries and observations and notes specific details about
the reception, environment and the level of customer service provided. How much time
elapsed before the mystery shopper was greeted, and what was the tone of the
greeting? Was the secret shopper treated courteously throughout the visit? Were the
service providers knowledgeable about their work, and did they provide effective
assistance? Was the location clean, organized, and ready to welcome customers?
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organizations use it as customer surveys or a feedback technique that focus on the
to customers and most critical to the success of your organization. This is used to
produce a standard set of questions with marks allotted to each question. At the end of
the mystery shopping assignment, the shopper completes all information on the
questions.
Mystery shopping is not all about finding faults in performance and decor, so they can
be corrected, however capable and experienced the ‘shoppers’ it is also for what’s
being done right! That’s because it’s easier to build on positive performance (e.g.
smiling during conversations and personal interviews (Rouleu 2007). It can be used
anytime and at anyplace and considered as a performance evaluation tool over time. It
clients. http//www.Manufacturedhousing.org
used to measure the quality of customer service provided by frontline staff (Grove and
Fisk 1992). Mystery shoppers can be thought of as participant evaluators who make
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There are three schools of thoughts on who should be mystery shoppers. One aspect
says professional shoppers should be used because they are almost always capable,
shoppers who are employed to work for realty fee. This is best done by staff who’ll take
the time to train and practice with a novice shopper. There’s also the “do it yourself ”
approach to mystery shopping this is less expensive, less detailed, far less effective, but
agency offering service. The technique focuses on “activities and procedures that do or
do not occur rather than gathering opinions about the service experience” (Wilson 2001)
shoppers who are “objective, smart, and able to think on their feet” (Leeds 1995).
The validity of the mystery shopper technique hinges on the employee believing that
the observer is in fact a real customer, not an “undercover” evaluator. To both protect
the anonymity of the shopper and to increase positive interactions, mystery shoppers
may follow a script, or scenario, to solicit responses from the employee or service
providers. Immediately after the interaction, the shopper or evaluator rates the quality of
Although mystery shopping is a valuable tool for assessing the quality of customer ser-
management to reinforce service standards, “the novelty of being shopped can wear off,
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leaving personnel complacent about their service and lacking motivation to take steps to
improve it further” (Wilson, 2001). The technique of mystery shopping perhaps works
best when coupled with other measurement devices, such as general customer service
surveys, and followed up with a concentrated training component for management and
staff alike.
The importance of quality customer service in the health sector cannot be overstated.
Because any given citizen only periodically comes into contact with health personnel,
those few experiences are greatly influential on that citizen’s perception on the quality of
care. For this reason, any Mystery Shopping program serves as a valuable
ways to use the data produced by the shoppers to routinely address areas needing
improvement.
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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY
Customer care as a service discipline has not received much attention in health care
delivery in the country until recently when efforts have been made in health service
delivery to offer client focused services to clients. The problem of poor customer care
has to do with the professionally and technically oriented nature of the training of health
workers with little or no emphasis on customer care in the nation’s training institutions.
Thus the average health care worker is not exposed much to the principles of customer
care during training or even given adequate in–service training on customer care during
employment. This means that the average health care worker, though adequately
equipped with what (technical skills) it takes to deliver the service, they lack the
customer care skills of service delivery. This factor among many others is what has
3.1 JUSTIFICATION
The rampant corporate problem that destroys an organization’s reputation, morale and
services is poor staff attitude which often generates customer complaints. The
for even greater service and loyalty, also creating team pride and an identity that
relishes excellent service. The health service encompasses different sectors, the
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output of each area is crucial to maintain a good reputation. Poor work ethic is an
affront to an enthusiastic competent health service whose frontline staff approach their
work with a genuine desire to serve clients to ensure customer satisfaction. Mystery
needs. The results help to plan and evaluate effective customer care programs, improve
3.2 OBJECTIVES
• Collect data to improve on GHS Customer Care Program for health care
providers
3.3 METHODOLOGY
Twelve health care facilities was purposively selected for the Mystery shopping. They
polyclinic, Tema hospital, Ashiama Health Center, Dansoman Health Center, Korle-Bu
polyclinic, Usher Fort Clinic, Amasaman hospital and Madina Health Center. The scope
of the mystery shopping was limited to the Out Patient Departments of these facilities.
The focus on the outpatient is because that is where majority of patients are seen.
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A mystery shopper initiated an interaction with a service provider in obscurity at the
O.P.D. The anonymity of the mystery shopper was essential to get the right information
that depicts the reality on the ground. The encounter was to know how clients are
treated when they come into contact with service providers, in other words the details of
what actually occurs at the key moment of customer - health provider interaction. The
interaction afforded the opportunity to also examine the appearance of the facility.
A total of four National service persons were trained to undertake the mystery
shopping. One day training session was organized for them to know how to carry out
mystery shopping. Each trained mystery shopper visited six health facilities that was
not familiar to her as a sick person and went through the process on OPD consultation.
Purposive sampling was used for data collection. Each health facility was visited twice
a day that is morning and afternoon by different mystery shoppers. This approach was
to have a blend of what happens during the morning and afternoon at the Out Patient
Department. The mystery shoppers used a questionnaire that reflects the benchmarks
of the customer care. They reported back with detailed and objective information that
helped to determine how their experience measured up to the customer care service
standard.
Names of individual staff were not collected and findings not linked to individuals.
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Data collected was available only to the research team. The immediate benefits will be
to improve customer care practices to patients/clients. It will also help improve content
and evaluate the customer care training program for staff and will contribute in the long
term to improve the image of GHS health facilities. The risks involved were negligible
with no harm to individuals or the facilities. The findings were not to be used to penalize
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CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS
The findings of the Mystery shopping are presented under the following headings
The external appearance of the hospital compounds was generally clean; dustbins were
covered and placed at vantage points. However, in one or two of some of the dustbins
were not covered especially the small bins therefore those places were littered in other
Most of the facilities have clearly visible directional signs to the entrance
• Fading
There was sale of food at the entrance of a few facilities and in some instances
With the internal appearance most of the floors, windows, counters and furniture were
clean. In only a few facilities were some furniture and windows found to be dusty. The
facilities have internal directional signs showing clients to service areas which are
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4.2 Registration and Waiting Areas
Patients were seen in the mornings and afternoons but in one facility after 1.20pm the
nurse asked patients to go to a nearby private hospital as the only prescriber on duty
There were two cards in use the old card and the new GHS folders. The fee schedule
for the various facilities and type of cards issued are shown in table 1.
GHc 5 (1)
The fees were not standardized across board and even in 2 of the facilities the charges
were different for the morning and afternoon visits. “The amount charged on registration
is GH⊄ 5.00 in the afternoon and GH⊄ 4.00 in the morning, receipts were issued”. Yet in
another facility the morning fee was GHc5.50 and afternoon fee was GHc5
Receipts were issued in all facilities. It was surprising to find that some of the receipts
did not tally with the amount paid. Unfortunately mystery shoppers did not check
immediately what had been written on the receipt, it was when they had reached home
that this was noticed “I was issued a receipt but on the receipt, GHC 5.05 was written
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instead of ¢5.50p”.This happened in 2 different facilities and the circumstances at that
The mystery shopper who used her NHIS card did not pay any registration fee and was
Another practice that was observed was the lamination of identity cards at the records
department. The lamination fees charged were GH⊄ 0.30p, GH⊄ 0.50p and GH⊄ 1, No
receipts were issued. These fees were optional or compulsory depending on the facility.
Record staff in a facility were buying second hand clothing and did not even
acknowledge the presence of patients.
In most of the facilities, morning devotion precedes the day’s activities during that time
every activity come to a halt. After that a nurse gives health education talks and shows
the patients where they can locate the washrooms, lab, X ray etc.
There were bulletin boards in several facilities where posters on health education were
displayed however there were no health education leaflets for patients/clients to read
whilst waiting or to take home. Some posters were scattered on the walls and some of
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Facilities also had television sets in their waiting rooms. The televisions were either
Suggestion boxes were also present at the OPD but had no papers and pens.
Most facilities have their O.P.D crowded with poor ventilation. The place can be very
hot. They were delays at the OPD; Some OPD staff did not call patients according to
the queue as they favored some patients over others. This made waiting clients to be
agitated.
There was an incident where the mystery shopper was not present when the nurse
called out her name, when she came back and informed the nurse, instead of her being
called with the next batch of patients she had to wait till the third. A batch consists of 10-
20 patients. In another facility where a man had reported at 7.00am with his sick child
and had not been attended to by 10.00am, when he complained was told to go away,
this resulted in a scene at the OPD. Yet in one facility when the mystery shopper
informed the nurse she was not around when her name was called out, she was
Some facilities charged Gh¢ 2.00 at the OPD for testing diabetes without issuing
receipt. Some of the facilities have laboratory attached to the OPD but most of them do
not work in the afternoon. In one of the facilities a staff directed one patient to go a
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Patients also had to pay an amount of GH¢0.50p at some facilities before they could the
washrooms.
Some incidents that occurred at the screening area are described below. “When one of
us got to the screening room, she was expecting the nurse to ask her to sit before she
does so. Instead, she shouted at her and rudely asked whether she was afraid of her”.
“As the nurse at the screening area was taking my blood pressure, she was busily
chatting with someone which the afternoon patient later got to know to be the doctor on
duty. The doctor had moved from the consulting room and was sitting at the OPD
waiting area watching television and at the same time busily engaging the nurse at the
conversation. When the nurse told him there is a patient, he said “I am tired, I wish we
have closed. Take the lead to the consulting room; I will be with you soon”.
During consultation some of the prescribers probed further after patient gave symptoms
of their illnesses and took their time to explain the patients’ condition to them whilst
some didn’t. Others seldom asked patients questions. One prescriber had time to draw
the abdomen using it to explain something for the patient. Most prescribers were
friendly but others were not polite and complained about work load. In some facilities
because of shortage of health staff, there were delays in accessing services at the
consulting room.
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‘Being the 14th patient to see the doctor, it took 2hours, 30minutes before one of us
finally met the doctor because the consulting room was supposed to have two doctors
but one left to Accra. The one present was also busy seeing to “protocols” whilst we
kept waiting.
There were illegal chargers at the consulting rooms of some facilities. In some facilities
‘At the consulting room, one of us was asked to pay an amount of GH ⊄ 1.00 which I did
not hesitate. Later, I asked two other patients who also went to see the same prescriber
who said they also did likewise. I then asked another patient who went to a different
Again, I questioned the lady at the revenue service point if patients had to pay for
consulting fee in the consulting room but she said ‘no’ and was ignorant about such a
practice. I then went back to the consulting room when the prescriber had left and
requested for a receipt from the ward assistant who was in house attire. To my surprise,
she said “there is no receipt for the money you paid, the money collected is just a token
for the prescriber. If you really want a receipt, then wait for the prescriber to come
back.” The doctor was so nice to me that, I could not wait to question her about it.
In one of the facilities, a prescriber agreed to see a patient who had jumped the queue
for a fee which was bargained, agreed on, and the amount paid in front of the mystery
In another situation where the mystery shopper was asked to pay GHc5 in the
consulting room and she said she did not have money, she was allowed to go without
paying
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One mystery shopper had to buy and pay for some drug from the prescriber in the
consulting room.
It was observed that the shifts were not properly managed, prescribers sometimes left
The staff in majority of the facilities did not wear name tags, some staff also wore mufti
to work.
Polite Courteous
Friendly Maintaining good eye contact
Welcoming
Proactive
Cold Rude
Shouting at patients Unresponsive to patients questions
Irritated when asked questions Disrespectful
Used impolite words Doing their own things instead of
seeing to patients
Buying second hand clothing
instead of working
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In most of the facilities “greeting was a problem, patients had to greet about three times
without response”. Some staff were rude and impolite: When the ward assistance was
mentioning the names of the first ten patients to see the doctor, some cards fell but she
did not organize the cards in the right order. A lady patient got annoyed and tried to
draw her attention to that but the ward assistant spoke rudely to her “should I stop
“We also encountered some negative attitude at the records and waiting area. Two
young nurses in mufti attacked a patient, who thought they were laughing at her. This
annoyed and asked why the patient was brought without prior phone call to the facility
and for that matter the accompanying nurse should take the patient back and phone.
This he said would teach her a lesson. But for the intervention of the consulting room
nurse who begged the doctor and took it upon herself to go and look for a bed this
patient might have been turned away. All this happened in the consulting room in the
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Complaints/Information desk
There were complaint desks in most of the facilities but they were not manned In one
facility security men manned the desk, apart from this facility that has complaint forms
all the other facilities did not have complaint forms. They had registers
A member of staff got irritated when asked for direction to the complaints desk
Notable incidents
1. The nurses were attending to their favorite who came in late at the expense of
the other patients when we were waiting at the OPD waiting area. For instance,
the morning patient got to the clinic by 7:00a.m and later met this calm man with
his sick daughter of about five years of age at the OPD waiting area. She did not
meet them at the records, so it meant they had come earlier than she did. It was
almost 10:00a.m and the child had not been called for screening. Some people
we witness holding their cards and had just passed by were attended to all in the
name of “protocol”. Occasionally we witnessed the “khaki nurse” go through the
cards in the box and removes particular ones and called them to them to be
screened. In fact, it became too much though few truly needed that immediate
attention, the gentleman had to approach the “pediatric nurse” since his child
was also very sick. She did not hear exactly what he told the nurse but she
asked him to go away. The man got angry even though he did not insult the
nurse; he wanted the other nurses to hear him out. It took the intervention of the
senior nurse (in green belt) and a patient to calm the situation. The scene was
appalling.
2. A nurse was able to convince a doctor to admit a patient referred from Pantang
hospital and whose HB was 3.0. The doctor had wanted to punish the nurse who
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accompanied the ambulance since he did not follow the lay down procedure to
refer a patient to the hospital.
3. Delay in change over.
4. Mystery shoppers felt prescribers were few during this period therefore patients
waited longer before seeing the prescriber.
DISSCUSSIONS
The Mystery Client study has brought out a lot of information about customer care
practices in the selected health facilities. There are positive performances that have to
It is encouraging that facilities are keeping their external and internal environments
clean and attractive, however more covered dustbins should be made available at the
OPD and hospital grounds and patients educated to put their general wastes in these
containers
The Outpatient departments were found to be crowded, hot and poorly ventilated. Most
of the facilities are old and have inadequate space for expansion. The introduction of
national health insurance in the country has removed financial barriers and increased
access to health care thus the high patient load at the OPD. The large numbers of
patients in poorly ventilated areas may pose potential threat for spread of respiratory
infections particularly in this epidemic of H1N1. Whilst very little can be done about the
innovations may help to reduce to reduce the volume of patients at the OPD
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. Some staff were friendly and polite while others were rude. Most had no name tags,
this is difficult for them to be identified with any untoward incident. There were variations
in the amounts charged at the records unit for registration at the same facility.
charging money to the tune of Gh¢5.00 before attending to a patient. Others sell drugs
which should have been done at the pharmacy unit with National Health insurance
especially for those who have registered. It was found out that some clients were
referred to private health facilities which is questionable, it was not known whether the
facility has any arrangement with the private hospital. This would have been important
because patients usually pay more in the private health facilities. Information desks in
majority of the facilities are not manned, in such an instance where and how do patients
RECOMMENDATIONS
In facilities where available covered dustbins are not enough, it is recommended that
additional bins should be provided to help maintain a clean environment. Also even
though most facilities used in the study, have sign board directing people to the facility
some are fading and should therefore be changed for easy identification of the facility by
Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that name tags should be
provided for all health workers for easy identification. This will help to deal with the
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negative attitude of staff, since they would be easily identified for any untoward
behaviour.
The study found too much delay in the health delivering process an issue which should
time. Need to look at the flow of patients, the mystery shoppers spent about 2-5 hours.
There should be reorganization of the service areas to make access to them faster to
There should be a way of staff to run the shifts effectively to prevent situations where
health professionals leave when the replacement is not ready, causing a lot of delays.
They study found that most facilities visit have no staff manning the information desk,
It is also recommended that the Institutional Care Division of the Ghana Health Service
should design complaint forms for use in all health facilities so that patients who have
complain can write them and such complains when received should be acted on
immediately. Also health brochures and leaflets should be made available at the OPD
for patients to read as they wait for services. Instead of the patients watching films of all
kinds GHS should develop DVD on health issues for the OPD’s. It is again
the OPD and attend to customer care practices. Staff who demonstrate good customer
care practice should be rewarded, those who exhibit contrary behaviors should be
sanctioned. All health workers should be trained in customer care, since most health
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staff have the technical knowledge required to effectively carry out their work but lack
Finally and most importantly, mystery shopping should be done in all health facilities
and be part of the Customer Care Training program. Trainers can use the results to
review their training contents and include some of the positive and negative incidents as
CONCLUSION
The mystery shopping carried out in twelve selected health facilities in the Greater
Accra Region will form a baseline data to inform the content of the customer care
training programme soon to be rolled out is all health facilities in the country and also to
In most facilities where the study was carried out, both the external and internal
appearance of the facility were clean. Some staff encountered in the course of the study
were polite and friendly, others on the other hand were rude. Certain negative incidents
were reported including collection of illegal fees to which no receipts were issued.
The study therefore recommends that customer care training should be organized for all
categories of health workers to sharpen the customer care skills of all staff to be able to
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Leeds, B.,(1995) Mystery : From novelty to necessity. Bank Marketing 27, no. 6: 17–22.
Patton, M. Q. (1990) Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, CA:
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Rouleau J. (2007) Selling New Homes the Easy Way, Sage. London. page 17
Wilson, A. M., and Gutmann.J (1998) Public Transport: The role of mystery in invest-
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www.beyondhello.com/services
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