The practice of mystery shopping looks to be very simple on the surface. Closer inspection, however, reveals that it is a very labor intensive and sometimes complicated process that must be closely managed. It really takes a team to plan, coordinate, interpret, design, schedule, distribute, organize, monitor,  reschedule, communicate, analyze and deliver the reports you will receive at the end of each evaluation period. So if I were responsible for choosing a mystery shopping company to evaluate my firm, I would want to know how big the mystery shopping company is and how it is organized. Most of the firms that work with Market Viewpoint have deadlines. They usually need their mystery shopping information for board meetings, monthly/quarterly/annual reports, supervisor meetings, performance reviews, and upper management meetings. With this in mind, deadlines become critical. You want to make sure there is a team that can deliver your results how you want it, when you want it, every single time…so it’s important that the mystery shopping company have tight control over the work flow.

From the team at Market Viewpoint… Angela, Diane, Janet, Boni, Carolyn, Ron, Bruce, Debbie, Todd, Terri, and Robert…we want to say thank you for reading this post and we want to remind you….the customer is always watching!

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!

As we unravel the mystery of choosing a great mystery shopping company, we are providing you with the questions it’s important to ask a prospective vendor to help you through this process.

The second question you should be asking is how many years of experience a firm has in the field of mystery shopping. As with most situations in life, experience counts for a lot. This is especially true when establishing a mystery shopping program for your organization. Here is how an experienced firm contributes to the success of your program:

• Guidance- An experienced mystery shopping firm can help you navigate through, what can be, complicated and sensitive issues in the launch of your mystery shopping program. Their recommendations for shopper volumes, frequency, form design, reports, internal administration, and staff notification will be critical as you establish any type of service evaluation endeavor.
• Recommendations- As your mystery shopping program gets underway, an experienced vendor will be able to make recommendations for how to use the information that will be collected in this process.
• Analysis – With experience comes the keen ability to spot market trends and areas of opportunity that you may not be capitalizing on that will add significantly to your bottom line.

On a final note, Market Viewpoint, LLC has been successfully helping clients see their operations through the customers’ eyes for the last 14 years. We’d be delighted to help you too!

Experience counts and remember…the customer is always watching!