MSG Team's other articles

10882 Questionnaire Design – Guidelines on how to design a good questionnaire

A good questionnaire should not be too lengthy. Simple English should be used and the question shouldn’t be difficult to answer. A good questionnaire requires sensible language, editing, assessment, and redrafting. Questionnaire Design Process State the information required- This will depend upon the nature of the problem, the purpose of the study and hypothesis framed. […]

10309 Marketing Strategy – Meaning and Its Importance

What is Marketing Strategy ? Marketing strategy is the comprehensive plan formulated particularly for achieving the marketing objectives of the organization. It provides a blueprint for attaining these marketing objectives. It is the building block of a marketing plan. It is designed after detailed marketing research. A marketing strategy helps an organization to concentrate it’s […]

11474 SWOT Analysis – Definition, Advantages and Limitations

SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. By definition, Strengths (S) and Weaknesses (W) are considered to be internal factors over which you have some measure of control. Also, by definition, Opportunities (O) and Threats (T) are considered to be external factors over which you have essentially no control. SWOT Analysis is […]

10253 Managing Customer Concerns – A Part of Selling Process

Consultative selling process is not easy to handle and can be quite lengthy too. However a good salesman never loses his patience with each of his leads and pursues until each case to its logical conclusion. With every sales lead, one gets to learn and better one’s skill. Over a period of time, handling and […]

12525 Broadening the Corporate Governance Agenda: The Corporate Social Responsibility

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on governing corporations according to social and environmental norms and ensuring that the negative externalities associated with them are minimized. When we talk about negative externalities, what we mean are the social and environmental costs that corporations impose on society and which are not factored into […]

Search with tags

  • No tags available.

Mystery Shopping is a fascinating method of gauging customer experience where individuals are recruited to portray actual customers that shop at a store. Feedback is then taken through these ‘mystery shoppers’ and the company uses it to evaluate how close is the actual experience of the customers to the desired one. It prompts the company to think about the areas it is lacking it and act upon them.

It is a form of primary market research that uses quantitative techniques as the mystery shopper usually has to fill out a form rating his experience. Also, this method is used for accessing services only and is not applicable to products.

Onset and Evolution of Mystery Shopping

In the period as early as the 1940s, mystery shopping was used for integrity and security evaluations. People were hired to go into stores and steal things! This was to check whether the staff is equipped to handle such situations. But now with advanced technology security cameras, such checks are not needed. Mystery shopping has now adapted itself and grown into a customer service oriented programme.

Currently mystery shopping is used for a wide variety of situations. Mystery Shopping is applicable, but is not limited to the following situations:

  • Compliance Issues: A mystery shopper is hired to pose as an underage teenager trying to buy alcohol and check whether he or she is caught and stopped at the retail counter. The compliance check can be extended to several other situations too such as at movie theatres to check whether a youngster buying tickets for an adult movie is 18 years of age or above.

  • Sales Techniques: Waiters at restaurants are usually trained for suggestive selling techniques and for trying to up sell a dish. Mystery shopping is used for inspecting the waiters wherein the shopper poses as a customer to verify whether a waiter is doing what he is supposed to do as per his training.

    This method is used for practically all types of sales people such as real estate brokers, business development managers, etc to check their expertise and hence their worthiness.

  • Competition: Since a store’s manager himself cannot check out his competitor, mystery shoppers are hired to size up the competition’s merchandise, deals and overall feeling of the store.

Mystery Shopper

Though mystery shopping is more popular for restaurants and retail outlets, it is also done for numerous other services such as banks, apartment buildings, cell phone providers, car dealers, health care providers, movie theatres, resorts, etc.

A step further in this evolution was the emergence of the middlemen - mystery shopping companies. Earlier organizations would hire their own mystery shoppers. However, after sometime the management and staff got familiar with the mystery shopper hired for a particular outlet since he or she would visit it frequently so the evaluation was not exactly unbiased.

Hence mystery shopping companies came into being that hire several shoppers who are randomly given assignments with different clients.

This is not full time employment; shoppers are independent contractors that are looking to earn some extra money. Shopper is paid as per the complexity of each assignment. For example, mystery shopping for a coffee shop could take typically 30-45 minutes while it could take up to 2-3 days to conduct this exercise in a hotel and hence the compensation in the latter case is much more.

Though there are no specific pre requisites for becoming a mystery shopper, people who are observant and detail oriented are preferred. Frequently, a reference check is done to check the integrity of such a shopper before hiring.

What does Mystery Shopping measure and what outcome is expected?

Broadly, the technique is used for evaluating a company or one of its outlets internally. The specific aspects to be measured will be as per the client’s choice. For example, one of Mc Donald’s franchisee would wish to check:

  • Whether the restaurant opens at the right time
  • Are customers being served satisfactorily during peak times too
  • Cleanliness of the toilets and general hygiene
  • Availability of all items specified on the menu at all times
  • Courteousness of the waiters

The purpose of mystery shopping is NOT to get someone fired by catching them doing something wrong. It is not to give any one a free pass either. The sole aim of the exercise is to tell the company what they are doing right or wrong and how they can improve, to simply tell them what happened as it happened.

Methods for conducting Mystery Shopping

While in person/on store check is the most widely used method, the mystery shopping exercise is also done through:

  • Telephone
  • Website and social media
  • Hidden audio/video recording

Conclusion

Mystery shopping is definitely an effective tool to gain insight into the customer needs and improve in areas where a company is lacking. It also helps in checking the employees’ morality and effectiveness. However, a challenge with this technique is maintaining mystery shopper quality and integrity.

Article Written by

MSG Team

An insightful writer passionate about sharing expertise, trends, and tips, dedicated to inspiring and informing readers through engaging and thoughtful content.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Conjoint Analysis – Meaning, Usage and its Limitations

MSG Team

Case Study

MSG Team

Brand Health Survey

MSG Team