What Is Mystery Shopping?
Every customer entering your business is an opportunity. Are your employees maximizing those opportunities? A well-executed Mystery Shopping program will tell you.
Mystery Shopping is a tool used by market research companies to gain valuable insight into a company’s operations and performance. Business owners, executives, managers, and employees generally use this objective and actionable data to:
- Determine if policies and procedures are being followed
- Evaluate employees’ performance
- Assess overall customer service and satisfaction
- Identify areas and opportunities for improvement
The data obtained from a Mystery Shopping Program provides objective, reliable information generally unavailable from other sources. Our clients tell us that it is invaluable in developing and improving their marketing and operations!
Businesses of All Types and Sizes Benefit from Our Evaluations
Almost any business can benefit from a Mystery Shopping program. Our clients frequently:
- Have multiple locations. With a Mystery Shopping program these businesses:
- Ensure consistency across locations and shifts
- Get frequent, unbiased monitoring of customer interactions
- Have good customer service (or better) and want to maintain or improve that level
- Are building an employee incentive program and need an unbiased, third party source of information
- Have a specific need to be met – a problem employee, a way to check on new-hires, a specific shift (or location) that seems to lag behind the others, etc.
- Are instituting new incentives, promotions, or training programs and need to ensure accurate implementation
- Understand that a good Mystery Shopping program will impact employee behavior, even when shoppers are not present
How Does Mystery Shopping Work?
Mystery Shopping has been standard practice since the early 1940s as a way to measure employee integrity and performance from undercover evaluators posing as a normal customer. The evaluator’s main purpose it not to shop, but to observe and provide a detailed report about their visit. Variations of Mystery Shopping include:
- Site Visits
The most common variation of Mystery Shopping is a site visit. During a site visit an evaluator enters your business and subtly observes and interacts with the employees then submits a written report detailing the visit based on the business’ policies and procedures. The undercover evaluator may even perform specific tasks such as making a purchase, returning a purchase, registering complaints, or acting out specific scenarios necessary for the assignment. - Phone Shops
For many businesses the phone is the first and/or primary point of contact with your customers. Our telephone evaluations (i.e. Phone Shops) assess how your employees interact with customers during this important interaction.
Depending on your local laws, Phone Shops may also be recorded to provide you with a valuable training tool. For more information about the recording of Phone Shops, please visit our Audio Shops page by clicking HERE. - Targeted Shops
Do you have a specific time of day, day of the week or employee you need to evaluate? Targeted Mystery Shops can help provide valuable information for your assessment.
Such Targeted Shops can be especially helpful in evaluating the performance of a new employee or to investigate suspicious activity. - Revealed Shops
Revealed Shops provide immediate feedback for your employees. These evaluations arm a shopper with a list of criteria the employee must cover during a customer interaction. If all criteria are met, the evaluator reveals their true identity and gives the employee some form of immediate recognition for their hard work. - Video Shops
Video Shops utilize small, hidden cameras to record the video and audio of the customer interaction. For more information about Video Shops, please visit our Video Shops page by clicking HERE. - Audio Shops
Audio Shops provide an audio-only recording of the customer interaction. This interaction may be in-person or via the phone. For more information about audio shops, please visit our Audio Shops page by clicking HERE.
Contact I-Spy Mystery Shoppers today to explore the possibilities of a program for your company.
