I am looking for some advice. I am getting ready to start an audit where I will have bank employees call the bank and pose as customers. The reason they are doing this is to determine whether or not customer service staff are adhering to certain procedures. I would like other auditors' opinions on this before I start. What do you guys think? Is this an effective testing method? What do you see as potential pitfalls? Have you done audits of this nature before? How did it go?

We have done this before and did not encounter any problems. We did, however, observe numerous instances where our employees didn't follow proper procedures or give out technically correct information. Training followed...

The outsourcers who offer this kind of testing (usually for fair lending purposes) are extremely strict about following a script to be sure that the same questions are asked & facts presented in every test.

Scripts also help reduce the chance of the "customer" using jargon that only a bank employee would know.

We have done this type of testing. But this is normally done by the marketing department.