Secret Shoppers and How State and Local Governments Ensure Accountability

The Migration Policy Institute covered a really cool topic back in May right up this subreddit's alley: the machinery behind local governments in the US and how they serve 27MM+ Limited English Proficiency (LEP) individuals.

There were some interesting bits in there, especially the mechanics behind contract management and agencies that safeguard civil rights protections. However, tucked way down into the report was this cool tidbit: secret shoppers.

To move beyond passive reporting, San Francisco deployed "secret shoppers", often multilingual interns or partners from community organizations, who attempted to access services in non-English languages. These real-time tests verified if staff actually connected callers to interpreters or if the system failed when put to the test, providing immediate data on compliance.

I'm reminded of the Jeff Bezos story on customer wait times at Amazon in the early days when he would call the service line in front of the VP responsible for customer success and live test how long it took for someone to pick up 🤣

Anyways I know there's at least a couple researchers in this subreddit, so I hope y'all think about this next time your respective governments roll out a new language related policy. Real-life data + annual reports is a winner.