The secret shopper or mystery shopper can be a vital way to get an unbiased and objective view of your business, and more particularly, your customer support. Mystery shoppers will visit the shop where they then shop as a normal customer would. From there, secret shoppers report back to you about what they are going through.
Mystery shoppers may report to you about the quality of the customer support they receive, how the shop looks, and how easy it’s to find what they’re trying to find.
Companies often hire these shoppers when they want to know the quality of work their employees are doing, or they want to know more a few store before they make a deal to buy it.
The following are some specifics things to know about hiring a secret shopper.
An Overview of Secret Shoppers
Secret or mystery shoppers are also sometimes referred to as mystery consumers. These are professionals who do market research. In this capacity, they will collect retailer-specific information based on the parameters they provide.
Sometimes they’re also hired to check compliance with government regulatory guidelines.
They may ensure company policies are properly followed, and for franchised businesses, they compare different locations, ranking them based on predetermined criteria.
A secret shopper doesn’t identify themselves when they’re doing research and gathering information. If employees know someone is coming, they will change their behavior, and the goal is to avoid it as much as possible and get a real, accurate view of what is really going on.
Frequent secret shopper cooperate with market research firms, so they’ve very detailed instructions on what to look for and what sort of interaction they should have. They can take photos using their cell phones as part of research submissions.
After the consumer has made the visit, they will complete a survey or questionnaire and supply other relevant information. An analyst can use this to create a report, and the report may have action items that can be applied to improve the actual buyer experience.
What Types of Businesses Use Secret Shoppers?
A business in essentially any industry and any size can use a secret shopper. If you need an unbiased view of what goes on in the business of dealing with the public in any capacity, discreet shoppers can be of value to you.
We most frequently associate using mystery shoppers with retail stores, but restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and even banks may find this service useful. Sometimes health care companies and even apartment communities will use these professionals to gather information.
You can use shoppers to gather information not only about your own business but also do it for your competitors. You can learn what your competitors are doing, the quality of their service, their prices, and in general how they compare to what you do. You may discover information that otherwise your competitors might not want to freely share with you.
Doing Market Research
This type of research is especially helpful for measuring customer satisfaction and experience. This is a fantastic way, when done right, to get an honest audit of your location and employees. You can then take whatever you learn and apply it to improve the customer experience.
However, you should watch out about how you frame the questionnaire or the information you ask someone to collect. If you want to make sure it is going to be useful data for you, you need to be as clear as possible when hiring the consumer, and you need to consider the analytics that will help you make the most precious changes.
Make an effort to research the questions included in the surveys you give buyers.
You should also check the company you are hiring your buyers for carefully. Some companies use on-demand contractors rather than following strict hiring policies, so you may not get high-quality information.
There are plenty of scams in this industry tooso the reputation of the company you partner with to hire the secret shopper is paramount.
Some of the ways you can take advantage and make the most of a secret shopper program include:
- You can use buyers to evaluate your staff. You may have trained your staff in the process they need to follow, so the purchaser is a great way to judge whether or not they’re implementing that training. You can begin to identify whether the problem your business is having is actually with the staff or perhaps with management. It could be that your training and processes aren’t as effective as you thought. The sooner you can identify skill deficiencies or problems with training, the sooner you can work to fix those problems.
- Along with identifying possible substandard employees, the secret shopper can help you identify high performers. These are the people you might focus on training and developing to ultimately take on larger roles in the company.
- We talked above about using the secret shopper for conduct competitor research. You can see not only their strengths but also their weaknesses and then potentially exploit them by filling the gaps they create.
- Take the opportunity to review your internal procedures. You can take a new perspective and see your business from the perspective of the people who are your customers. Otherwise it is hard to get this sort of perspective when it is something you are very near.
- If you have something that’s failing in your business, like a new service or product, using mystery buyers can help you gain more insight into why it isn’t performing the way you thought it would.
- You can specify compliance with things like your communications policy or dress code. You want to ensure there’s consistency that’s reflected throughout your business, particularly in how you uphold your stated values.
Don’t rush Choose a mystery shopping agent. You want to partner with a company that has a robust reputation and extensive experience sending buyers to business. Otherwise, you are just wasting your money and time.
