Unraveling Mystery Shopping

Mystery Shopping — By Shopping Blogs on February 3, 2009 9:21 am

The term ‘mystery shopping’ was coined by Wilmark in 1940s which he explained as a method for evaluating customer service. Mystery shopping is known by various names such as secret shopping, mystery customers, spotters, anonymous audits, employee evaluation and paid to shop. It can be described as a tool used by market research companies to evaluate customer satisfaction, employee integrity and even product quality. Mystery shoppers are paid to shop at everyday places where they already shop. Mystery shopping helps not only the company but it also an easy way for anyone to earn good part- time income.

Mystery shoppers visit the targeted shops or outlets as common customers. They perform the usual tasks, such as purchasing a product, asking questions, lodging complaints or creating a certain situation. The mystery shoppers record all these information and experience, and provide a detailed report to the company. Mystery shopping allows the company to know how their employees are representing their company to the customers in the absence of obvious vigilance. Devices like comment cards, suggestion boxes and follow-up letters are constructed for similar functions but for a better insight, it is advisable to hire an individual to sample their services in the guise of a common customer and consequently rate their services. The mystery shopper’s feedback allows the company to identify the drawbacks in their retail outlets and also to improve upon their products.

Various instruments are used for the assessment of mystery shopping, such as questionnaires and audio and visual recordings. Majority of the mystery shopping companies are fully run through Internet. Potential mystery shoppers can register online for participation, find projects online and get payment.

The most common businesses that use mystery shopping includes retail stores, restaurants, fast food outlets, movie theatres, gas stations, banks, health clubs, casinos, amusement parks, auto dealers, websites, hospitals and transportation systems.

There is no specific qualification required to be a mystery shopper. Any legal adult can apply to be a mystery shopper. The gender or job of the applier does not matter neither does being employed, retired, full- time homemaker or student have any effect on the eligibility of the candidate. The applicant should be a good observant, have good writing skills and should have the ability to follow the given instructions.

While on a project, a mystery shopper is required to pay attention to cleanliness or hygienic conditions, quality, service performance, ambience (if applicable) and various other such quality concerns that are significant to the business and to maintain good customer relations. The shopper must be extremely careful about keeping his/ her status of mystery shopper confidential.

The aspiring mystery shoppers should be aware of certain points before involving themselves in any project. One should avoid companies that require the applicant to pay in order to enlist him/ her as a mystery shopper. The contract should be read properly and the applicant should have clear understanding of the reimbursement policy of the company.

Mystery shopping is often misunderstood to be same as market research. Mystery shopping is much more specific and is based upon given set of guidelines on what to do during an evaluation with even specified shops or outlets. Marketing research participants are not given any such guidelines or instructions in advance. One can consider mystery shopping as a part of market research.

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