Mystery shopping, also known as secret shopping, is one of the most helpful and versatile business tools for companies who want to enhance their customer’s experiences. For businesses striving to gain or keep a competitive edge by delivering exceptional customer service, adopting a mystery shopping program can yield valuable insights and actionable outcomes. Considering a mystery shopping program is so valuable, it’s surprising how often we hear from potential clients who are uncertain about what it involves. To address this uncertainty, we have developed this comprehensive guide to mystery shopping programs for business owners.
What is Mystery Shopping?
Mystery Shopping is a professional measurement of the actual customer experience against the client’s expectations. We have a varied list of clients and, according to the client-determined timeline, we send our Mystery Shoppers to their stores/restaurants/businesses to assess their service levels. This can be via face-to-face visits, phone calls, or online. For the purposes of this article, we will primarily discuss mystery shopping visits, but most of this applies to all types of mystery shopping.
Why do companies do Mystery Shopping?
There are many reasons a company may wish to begin a Mystery Shopping program. Some may have specific issues they wish to explore, such as a restaurant receiving poor reviews on their dinner service. While others may just want a better understanding of their customers’ experiences. Whatever the motive, Mystery Shopping enables companies to view their business through the eyes of a typical customer. It enables them to keep an eye on Team Members, which keeps them accountable . Put simply, “what gets measured gets improved.”
Why do companies outsource their Mystery Shopping?
Business-to-business services exist because clients realise they need expert assistance. Why struggle to design your own survey? We can do it for you, drawing on our vast experience and resources. Our reporting platform is second-to-none and delivers real-time results. We have thousands of unbiased Mystery Shoppers on our database and, between them, they visit hundreds of stores every month.
Before coming to us, many clients have attempted to conduct their own Mystery Shops, setting out questions in a Word doc and using friends and family to assess their business. The results are always unusable because the questions aren’t designed correctly, they soon run out of people to use, and the results are skewed because the friends and family have little incentive to be thorough and objective. Outsourcing Mystery Shopping to a reputable provider means the program will run smoothly, fairly, and accurately, with little input necessary from the business.
Who are the mystery shoppers?
The flexible nature of mystery shopping means people from all walks of life are drawn to it and their reasons are varied. Most long-term mystery shoppers do it because they like helping to improve customer service. Some do it because they like an unstructured work environment where they can choose their own hours, fitting it in around family and work commitments. A lot do it because of the extra money it provides, which is just as valid a reason.
A mystery shopper could be anyone, from a lawyer to a stay-at-home parent. It could be someone visiting the store alone, or with someone, even their kids. They are regular customers who want to improve customer service.
What’s involved in mystery shopping?
A Mystery Shopper will visit their assigned location, make a specific enquiry, and assess the level of customer service based on the criteria our client has selected. When the visit is complete, the Mystery Shopper fills out their survey form. The same general pattern can also be applied to restaurant visits, phone and website enquiries.
What is the set up process for a mystery shopping program?
Setting up a mystery shopping program involves several steps, but is very easy to do with our streamlined approach at Above Benchmark.
- We begin with an initial discussion and quote. Then we need some information about your business, your ideal customer, your product/service, etc. We also need to know your goals and objectives; what do you want to achieve with your mystery shopping program?
- We then move onto designing your survey and instructions, which includes the time frame and enquiry details. Communication is key throughout the process and we require your sign off on the survey draft. We discuss survey design in more detail in this article.
- As soon as this is completed, we move onto the actual mystery shopping visits and collecting the data. When the mystery shopping cycle is complete, we release the surveys and analysis to you via our client platform.
We regularly receive glowing feedback from new clients about how simple we made this process for them. Some businesses are hesitant to start a mystery shopping program because they feel it’s hard work, but at Above Benchmark, we make it easy.
What do we, the Mystery Shopping Provider, need from you, the client?
Firstly, we need introspection. As mentioned above, we ask that you, the client, think about your goals and objectives so you know what you want your mystery shopping program to achieve.
We also need open communication, not just for us, but also your stakeholders, including customer-facing employees. You need to discuss with your senior management what their mystery shopping program will look like, ask their opinion, and share your objectives.
Lastly, we need consistency. For a mystery shopping program to work to its full potential, we need you to commit to a consistent monthly or quarterly program. This provides solid information about your customer service. It’s more than just a good or bad day in business, it’s statistically significant and actionable data.
How do you choose a Mystery Shopping provider?
For this question, we recommend you read our recent article How to choose the best mystery shopping provider. It’s vital that you look for a provider who challenges you and asks questions. They should have a strong track record of mystery shopping, as well as testimonials from clients and mystery shoppers. They should be a member of the MSPA-AP, the Mystery Shopping Providers’ Association.
They should be easy to contact. If you have trouble contacting them for an initial chat, that is a red flag and you should move on. Don’t base your decision on price alone. If the quote is low then there’s a good chance the mystery shopping provider isn’t spending time hand selecting mystery shoppers for their clients, they probably outsource their scheduling and proof-reading offshore, and their quality will likely be the poorer for it.
Furthermore, if “free design” is part of the program, look very carefully at what they’re offering. Free design may just mean you’re getting stock standard survey templates. Mystery shopping survey design is the most important aspect of the entire mystery shopping program; therefore, it needs to be customised with care and attention to detail.
The mystery shopping provider does not have to have mystery shopped within the client’s industry before or have expert knowledge of each industry. Just because one mystery shopping provider has not run programs for the real estate industry, does not mean they won’t be capable of doing so. Mystery shopping is flexible and can be customised for each industry, per client.
What’s involved in launching a Mystery Shopping program?
Mystery shopping is often misunderstood as spying on employees and trying to “catch them out.” When you involve the whole team from the beginning it gives everyone a voice and a sense of ownership, rather than creating an us-against-them dynamic. The more you blend your mystery shopping program and use positive language, the easier it will be to understand your customers’ experiences, which are integral to your brand’s culture. We have a blog article that discusses how to launch your mystery shopping program.
We also discuss in this article, how to engage your Team Members so they accept the program and see value in it. It’s important to carefully integrate mystery shopping into your business. A key component of this is making sure your employees understand the motives for, and the benefits of, the program.
What does an example month of Mystery Shopping look like?
We start by collecting all the relevant information from our clients: which locations we’re visiting, what enquiry all the shoppers will make, any special requests for the month, and anything else to note.
At the beginning of the month, we list the surveys we have available and our Mystery Shoppers apply for whichever ones they would like to do. Our scheduling team then chooses the most appropriate mystery shopper, from those who’s applied, and assigns them the survey.
Our Mystery Shoppers then read the objectives, instructions and survey form so they know how to conduct their Mystery Shop. If they have any questions, they contact us. Once they have completed their visit they submit their survey on our reporting platform. Our Quality Assurance Team checks the survey and processes it. At the end of the month, we collate and analyse the results for our clients and they discuss these results with their team.
What happens if one of your team members disputes their result?
From time to time we do have team members query their mystery shopping results. We do try to deter clients from doing this, but understand sometimes there can be a valid issue. We take the client’s query seriously and communicate with the mystery shopper. Sometimes mistakes happen, mystery shoppers are only human, but mystery shoppers gain no benefit from submitting false information. In fact, it’s more difficult to write a negative report as we require additional comments to support negative answers.
What does Mystery Shopping mean for you, the client?
A Mystery Shopping program can be invaluable for any business that depends on customers as it provides an unparalleled understanding across their tiered service levels.
It’s a detailed tour of the customer’s experience in the business, through the objective view of a trained Mystery Shopper.
It’s data-gathering guided by custom instructions and questions. A regular Mystery Shopping program will provide the answers to specific questions about the business.
It’s a great way to identify what’s wrong with your customer service, but also what’s right with it. Our Mystery Shopping programs focus on the positives, so our clients Team Members embrace their Mystery Shopping Program.
It’s flexible. We customise Mystery Shopping programs to what’s happening in our clients businesses throughout the year. If they have a promotion or need to collect new data to help decision making, we build it into the program. A good Mystery Shopping Program should be able to change with the business and remain fresh. It can be used for training purposes. Mystery Shopping results are perfect for training new staff and even franchises.
What does Mystery Shopping mean for us, Above Benchmark?
Mystery Shopping is the core offering of our business and has been for the last two decades. Mystery Shopping Providers have two groups of people to satisfy: our clients and our Mystery Shoppers. At Above Benchmark, we acknowledge that equal attention and value should be attributed to both.
We’re the experts. Both our clients and our Mystery Shoppers should trust that our experience in this industry will get them the results they need.
For clients, this transpires into real-time results, increased customer advocacy, and sales growth.
For mystery shoppers, this is seen in our smooth systems, clear instructions, and quick payments.
Improving the experience of customers will lead to more in-person retail and dining. We are shifting towards more online purchases and at-home dining, and risk losing the art of customer interaction. To us, Mystery Shopping is the way to improve the experiences of customers and to provide a critical point of difference between online and on location service.
Why do we do this?
The founder of Above Benchmark, Jen Wells, used to work in retail and her employer had a mystery shopping program. The program was outdated and irrelevant. Jen attempted to liaise with the mystery shopping provider to make changes to the survey questions and to speed up the turnover from the 3-4 months it was taking to receive the store’s results. However, Jen’s efforts were met with refusal from the mystery shopping provider, citing complexity and sluggish turnaround times as the norm.
Undeterred, Jen engaged with numerous other mystery shopping providers, only to unearth an industry gap. Witnessing this gap for a quality mystery shopping provider, Jen endeavored to create a company that was above the benchmark, compared to competitors who were in the industry at the time. A company that would empower clients to exceed their own benchmarks. Above Benchmark was conceived with a singular vision: to ascend beyond industry benchmarks and facilitate our clients in achieving improved customer service and growth.
What’s our guarantee?
At Above Benchmark, we stand behind the quality of every mystery shopping program we deliver. We uphold stringent quality control measures to validate the information captured, providing our clients with the assurance that the insights they receive truly reflect the reality of their customer experience. Our guarantee encompasses the promise of meaningful data analysis and actionable insights, so you can make confident business decisions based on reliable insights.
Who do we work with?
We work with businesses of all sizes, from independent operators with one or two locations, through to national brands with hundreds of locations. Our clients span a wide range of industries, including:
- Cafés and restaurants
- Quick service restaurants
- Retail stores
- Pharmacies
- Veterinary clinics
- Storage facilities
- Hotels and accommodation
- Financial services
- Real estate services
- Travel agencies
- Childcare and education
- Franchises and multi-site businesses
No matter your industry or the size of your business, we can tailor a mystery shopping program to suit your goals, budget and operations. Many of our clients have trusted us for more than a decade, partnering with Above Benchmark year after year to measure customer experience, improve service standards and drive continuous business improvement. If you would like to discuss how we can help your business achieve your customer service goals, please get in touch.
