Mystery Shopping: How to Choose a Great Mystery Shopping Company – Question #3

Beyond the relationship a mystery shopping company has with its shoppers and the years of experience backing the firm, what else should you be asking about as you interview mystery shopping companies?

Let us recommend that you ask about the background and work experience of the owner. Ask what qualifies them to conduct service evaluation studies.

Mystery shopping is a serious business and has the potential to affect the lives of people and the success of businesses being evaluated. Mystery shopping is also labor intensive and can be complicated.  When doing your due diligence look for companies that are owned and managed by professionals with backgrounds in the fields of marketing, market research, and customer service.  These are professionals who can guide, recommend, and analyze to your best advantage. Program components such as survey instrument design can be tricky and if not done properly, can lead to inaccurate conclusions so the people you have designing your data collection instruments had better know what they are doing. You also want someone who can partner with you on this journey and offer you the best possible advice when it comes to customer retention – one of the most important factors in your firm’s profitability.

So as you prepare to research mystery companies, do a little background checking to ensure you are getting qualified, capable professionals to handle your program. You’ll be glad you asked this question and surprised at some of the answers you’ll get.

Remember…the customer is always watching!

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