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What is a mystery shopper?Tweet

 

Introduction

A mystery shopper is a person employed by the firm to provide feedback about their interaction with the firm. Firm employees are not told about the mystery shopper before or during the interaction. Sometimes they may know that a mystery shopper is due but not who it will be. Other firms may decide not to mention the mystery shopper assessment at all. This is because if employees know about the assessment they may change the way they (normally) behave with clients.

Face to Face (In Person) Interaction

A mystery shopper could be used by a variety of business types but they are most commonly used by retail shops. In retail shops the mystery shopper will visit a shop belonging to the firm and buy something. They may pretend that they need help and ask the staff questions to establish how well staff help customers and answer customer queries. They will rate their overall shopping experience from the window display through to after sales service.

Examples of things that may be assessed include:

• Levels of customer service.
• Waiting times.
• Whether staff followed company procedures.
• Staff presentation i.e. name tags, uniform
• Store layout and presentation
• Staff communication skills
• Whether staff members were polite, courteous.
• Did staff sell the product or service well? i.e. sales manner and ability

Remote Interaction (Telephone and Online)

Some businesses engage with their clients (customers) remotely. This means that the business and clients are in a different place. For example they may deal with customers over the telephone or through the internet. This is challenging as the firm and the customer can not see each other.

Telephone Interaction

Many businesses deal with customers over the phone; for example to sell things or to provide advice. Effective telephone calls require articulate employees with good communication skills. The firm’s processes will also have to be efficient as customers do not like to be kept waiting on the phone. A mystery shopper survey is a good way to test staff communication skills and the processes used to deal with telephone calls from clients. 

Online Business Interactions

Internet business sales and interactions are increasing every day. Businesses are using the internet to make sales and engaging in live web chats to answer customer queries. For example Dell provides laptop purchase advice through a live web chat with dedicated advisors. The internet has created a lot of competition the challenge is to keep the client interested as through one simple click the consumer can leave your website and visit competitors. In fact they do not need to know the names of your competitors a search engine result will give them a list of other businesses providing similar goods and services as you. A mystery shopper assessment will help to reveal useful information about your website including

• Visual appeal of the website
• How easy the website is to use, navigate, search
• Speed of the website, time taken to load up
• How long did the mystery shopper spend on the website
• Purchase or advice process

 

Conclusion

The results from the mystery shopper assessment will be analysed and used to improve future performance. The survey may have highlighted things that need to be rectified immediately areas e.g. company procedure not followed, health and safety breach or legal rules and regulations broken. Conversely if the department surveyed did something very well, their method may be promoted as a “best practice” throughout the rest of the company.

 

 

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