Mystery Shopping: The Open Secret

This article will briefly discuss how Mystery Shopping works, which industries use Mystery Shoppers, and the pros and cons of utilizing a Secret Shopper. We also offer some tips and resources on how to set-up Mystery Shopping for your organization.

How is Mystery Shopping Done?

Mystery Shopping typically involves an organization hiring a secret shopper to enter their own or a competitor’s business as a customer to grade a product and/ or service offering. A good Mystery Shop or Visit will set specific information gathering objectives.

For example if you are assessing the general customer experience of a restaurant, you would ask the Mystery Shopper to simply visit the restaurant and order a meal and grade the overall experience. The Mystery Shopper would typically be asked to assess the restaurant appearance, waitstaff, food and timeliness.

However, if you are assessing the handling of returns for a retailer you would be more specific and set a specific scenario for the Mystery Shopper to follow. For example: 1) purchase a specific item, 2) leave the store, 3) return to a different attendant; and 4) make a specific statement to the attendant about the purchase error. The Mystery Shopper would then be asked a specific series of questions grading the overall experience.

Whether it is a general or specific information gathering Mystery Shopper, a checklist is typically used to ensure consistency in measuring experiences.

Pros and Cons of Mystery Shopping

It is important to weigh the pros and cons of performing mystery shopping, particularly on your own business.

4 Tips on Setting-up Secret Shopping

Having weighed the costs and benefits of performing a Mystery Shop here are some tips for setting up a Mystery Shopping audit or self-assessment for your company.

Tip 1: Know your Goals. What do you want to achieve?

Do you intend to check on how your products and services fare versus your competitor’s products and services? Do you want to know if the new policies rolled out are being followed by employees? Will you keep the secret shopping secret or will you let word out to employees that they can expect a mystery shopper anytime?

Tip 2: Know the Costs. How much will you spend?

Will it be more cost-effective if you have your internal market research team do the mystery shopping or will it be better to hire the services of a mystery shopping company?

Tip 3: Prepare the questions/to-do’s. What should you observe? What questions should you ask?

Work closely with your market research team or with your partner mystery shopping company and formulate a list of to-do and questions that you intend your mystery shopper to fill-out.

Tip 4: Use an app instead of paper checklists.

A visible mobile device is more discreet (and convenient) than a piece of paper. The secret shopper can use a mobile app like iAuditor to fill out the prepared form or checklist. With iAuditor, the mystery shoppers can generate and submit reports on right then and there.

Mystery Shopping is a way to put your ears on the ground and have a better idea of how your products and services perform versus that of your competitors. It helps you identify areas for improvement and observe how employees go about doing their tasks in the workplace. Done right, mystery shopping can help improve your company’s standing and gain that edge over your competitors.

Have your mystery shoppers carry out their secret shopping conveniently with iAuditor the world’s #1 mobile inspection app and gather all the information you need. Visit our Mystery Shopping Checklists page to get started with some general Mystery Shopping checklists you can use for your business, whether it’s for a hotel, restaurant, cafe, retail, or other industries, we have it here.