Mystery Shopping Methodology

Objectives and Goal Setting

The first step a client company needs to take when implementing a mystery shopping program is to determine why they are interested in having mystery shoppers visit the business.
What kinds of issues do they want to address? Is there a specific concern about sales levels or has the company been receiving a number of complaints about the same kinds of issues?

Whatever the answers to these questions are, they must be something the company can act on once it receives the information. The ultimate goal to using mystery shoppers to gather information when they visit a particular location is to improve the customers’ experience when they visit the business.

To be fair and above board, employees should be told that the client company intends to use mystery shoppers to gauge how they conduct themselves when dealing with customers.

Owners and managers can’t be everywhere at once to keep a close eye on how well employees are performing their duties.

Getting an impression from a neutral third party is a great way to evaluate whether the client company’s training programs have been effective as far as product knowledge and customer service practices. Keep in mind that the vast majority of customers who are dissatisfied after visiting a business don’t take the time to communicate that fact to anyone. They just quietly take their business elsewhere.

Once the client company has a clear idea of where it is at the present time and what goals it wants to achieve in the future, it can work with the mystery shopping company to develop a clear plan for what kinds of issues they want the mystery shoppers that visit the premises to be looking at and reporting back on.

In this section, you will learn much more about the methodologies and processes used by mystery shopping companies. Topics include:

Learn More: Mystery Shopper Program Design