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Mystery Shopping is the practice of using trained shoppersto anonymously evaluate customer service, operations,employee integrity, merchandising, and product quality

Mystery Shopping goes by many names: Secret Shopping Mystery Customers

Spotters

Anonymous Audits

Virtual Customers

Employee Evaluations Performance Audits

Telephone Checks

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When location, pricing, and productassortment are no longer unique, service isoften the key to success or failure

It costs 10x more to get a new customer thanto keep an existing one

One unhappy customer will tell 5 other

people of their bad experience with service

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Why customers leave: 69% poor customer service

13% poor product quality

9% competitive reasons

5% other 3% move away

1% die

What gets measured, gets doneTom Peters.

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Monitors and measures service performance Improves customer retention

Makes employees aware of what is important in

serving customers Reinforces positive employee/management

actions with incentive-based reward systems

Provides feedback from front line operations

Monitors facility conditions - asset protection

Ensures product/service delivery quality.

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Initially, mystery shopping was a technique used byprivate investigators to prevent employee theft -primarily at banks and retail stores

In the 1940s,Wilmark coined the term mysteryshopping and began using the method for evaluatingcustomer service

In the 1970s and 80s, Shop n Chek popularized mysteryshopping by gaining extensive publicity

In the 1990s, fueled by the internet, the mystery

shopping industry experienced rapid growth andacceptance. Into the 2000s, the creation of software packages such as

SASSIE and Prophet have revolutionized the industry

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Worldwide growth of industry Nearing $1.5 Billion (USD) worldwide

More focused on improving customer service than onpolicing bad employees

Clients becoming more sophisticated in use of mysteryshopping

Faster reporting from field to client using the internet

More diverse and specialized services

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Any business/organization that needs to monitor

its operations, facilities, product delivery, and

service performance Banks

Retailers Manufacturers

Call Centers

E-Commerce services

Government agencies

Hospitals

Associations

Franchise operations

Promotions agencies

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Hotels

Restaurants

Movie Theatres

Recreation parks

Transportation systems

Fitness/health centers

Property management firms

Freight/courier services

And many more

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Mystery Shopping Specialists

Marketing Research Firms

Private Investigators

Merchandising Companies

Training Companies

Advertising/Promotion Agencies Others.

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In person/on-site shops

Telephone shops

E-Commerce web site shops

Hidden video/audio recording

Full narrative shops (qualitative)

Checklist shops (quantitative) Purchase & return shops

Discrimination (matched-pair) testing.

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Step 1: Setting Objectives & Goals

Step 2: Program & Questionnaire Design

Step 3: Defining & Recruiting Shoppers

Step 4: Data Collection

Step 5: Data Preparation

Step 6: Reporting Step 7: Review Findings

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