Quality Assurance and Mystery Shopping

Consumer is king. Businesses flourish because of consumers. Therefore, consumer service is of utmost importance for any business to become and remain successful. Though it is easy for the manufacturing industry to assure their consumers of the quality for their goods, the same is not true for the service industry. This is because there are tools and equipment to aid in checking the quality of the products but for assuring the quality of service, there is no equipment. So, how can a service industry ensure that it is delivering the best to its consumers This is made possible with mystery shopping .

Service industries like hotels, spas, self storing, retailers and travel agencies depend on the mystery shoppers for quality assurance. For those who are not aware about mystery shopping , let us explain what it is. In mystery shopping , an individual with an objective to check the quality of service of a company visits its outlet pretending to be a regular shopper. The employees of the company are not aware that any such quality check is going on in their outlet. For example, the hidden shopper in mystery shopping while doing the quality check of the supermarket might use the washroom to check its cleanliness he might ask the attendants to help him get some items he will check how long the consumers have to wait for checking out of the cash counters he will check if the products advertised by the company are well stocked and so on. Through these observations in mystery shopping assignments, the hidden shopper would be able to determine if the staff is helpful and courteous, whether people able to easily locate the products and what are the difficulties that people face at the store. Client companies come to know their strengths and weaknesses through mystery shopping assignment. This enables them to do SWOT analysis.

A company can best judge its quality only through the eyes of the consumer. This is the principle used in mystery shopping . When the company asks an independent person to rate its quality, it does a reality check of the situation.

Sometimes small issues like lack of training for the employees might be the reason for a business to experience a slowdown in its sales. Therefore, it is best to pinpoint the problem as soon as possible so that it could be solved well in time.

There are several companies that handle mystery shopping assignments for the companies. These organizations have a team of trained shoppers that do quality check for the clients. After the completion of the field visit, a detailed report is prepared and sent to the client. Mystery shopping has to be conducted at regular intervals to reap its benefits. A single visit of the shopper is insufficient to rate the services of the company. Moreover, it is better to get the opinion of different shoppers at the different time intervals. Since the companies act on the observations of the person conducting the mystery shopping assignment, it is necessary that such an individual should be able to report facts without any bias.

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