MYSTERY SHOPPING - Methodology

MYSTERY SHOPPING Methodology

When a client company comes on board with a company providing Mystery Shopping services, a survey model will be drawn up and agreed to which defines what information and improvement factors the client company wishes to measure as part of the mystery shopping process. These are then drawn up into survey instruments and assignments that are allocated to shoppers registered with the mystery shopping company in question.

Some of the common details and information points shoppers:

* the date and time of the pre-visit phone call
* the name of the store on each side of the store visited
* number of employees in the store on entering
* how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted
* the name of the employee(s)
* whether or not the greeting is friendly
* the questions asked by the shopper to find a suitable product
* the types of products shown
* if or how the employee attempted to close the sale
* whether the employee invited the shopper to come back to the store
* cleanliness of store and store associates
* speed of service
* compliance with company standards relating to service, store appearance, and grooming/presentation

Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue (known as scenarios). For instance, mystery shoppers at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping services. Not all mystery shopping scenarios include a purchase.

While gathering information, shoppers usually blend in to the store being evaluated as regular shoppers. They may sometimes be required to take photographs or measurements, return purchases, or count the number of products, seats, people during the visit. A timer or a stopwatch may be required. In some states, mystery shoppers must also be licensed as private investigators in order to perform some of the tasks.

From there, the shopper will then submit the data collected to the Mystery shopping company in question. The data is then reviewed and analyzed before quantitative and qualitative statistical [analysis] reports on the data are then returned to the client company that enables measurement against the previously defined criteria.

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