Mystery
Shopping

Mystery Shopping is a fascinating technique for checking Real-time feedback on client experience where people are selected to depict real clients that shop at a store. Input is then taken through these ‘mystery shoppers’ and the organization uses it to assess how close the genuine encounter of the clients to the ideal one is. It prompts the organization to consider the zones it is deficient with regard to it and follow up on them.

What does Mystery shopping measure?

Extensively, the method is utilized for assessing an organization or one of its outlets internally. The particular perspectives to be estimated will be according to the customer’s decision. For instance, if a restaurants franchisee would wish to check :

• • Whether the restaurant opens at the right time
  • Are customers being served satisfactorily during peak times too
  • Cleanliness of the toilets and general hygiene
  • Availability of all items specified on the menu at all times
  • Courteousness of the waiters
  • How customers will be greeted?
  • What is the maximum acceptable waiting time?
  • What should be the temperature of the facility?
  • How many products should be on display?

To ensure that these procedures are followed, Market Search India conducts regular retail audits in different areas. This process helps find people who match the objective client profile, gives them a survey for recording their experience, and gives some training on the most proficient method to quantify different parameters like service quality assessment, Customer satisfaction measurement, Customer journey mapping, Customer service evaluation, Retail performance evaluation, etc.

The individual is known as a Mystery Shopper (also referred to as a silent shopper or secret shopper) and is sent to a retailer’s locations on a regular basis to conduct business as a typical customer would. Shoppers then submit objective reports detailing their experience. The data is reported to us, and we then aggregate and break down information accumulated from various areas to understand in-store experience evaluation.

Methods for Conducting Mystery Shopping

While in-person/on-store check is the most widely used method, the mystery shopping exercise is also done through:

• • Telephone
  • Website and social media
  • Hidden audio/video recording

Benefits of Mystery Shopping:

Why Use a Mystery Shopping Program?

Mystery shopping (also referred to as “secret shopping” or “silent shopping”) is used in almost every industry on a regular basis. As the focus on customer service increases, the need for objective evaluations of your business increases as well. The level and quality of service you deliver to your customers are vital to your company’s success. Your customers’ total experience with your company and your staff dictates whether your company will succeed or fail and whether you will be profitable or not by doing a customer behavior analysis.

Mystery shopping programs are valuable because…

• • Most customers who have unsatisfactory experiences will not complain, they will just never come back.
  • Dissatisfied customers are likely to tell many others about their experience, who in turn may avoid doing business with the retailer.
  • The use of mystery shopping provides independent and impartial feedback, which reduces any perception of favoritism in employee incentive programs.
  • This impartial feedback allows you to evaluate employee performance and sales skills in a way that you could not do otherwise. Additionally, you can easily use the analytical reports to review the data collected and improve customer service levels across all employees.
  • Mystery shopping helps determine whether customers’ actual experiences are as intended.
  • Shopping programs can identify areas of training that are working particularly well and which areas need improvement.

Currently, mystery shopping is used for a wide variety of situations for actionable insights. Mystery Shopping is applicable, but is not limited to the following situations:

• • Compliance Issues: A mystery shopper is employed to act like an underage young person attempting to purchase liquor and check whether the individual is gotten and halted at the retail counter. The consistency check can be stretched out to a few different circumstances excessively, for example, at cinemas to check whether an adolescent purchasing ticket for a grown-up film is 18 years old or above.
  • Sales Techniques: Waiters at eateries are typically prepared for intriguing selling strategies and for attempting to upsell a dish. Mystery shopping is utilized for assessing the servers wherein the customer acts like a client to confirm whether a server is doing what he should do according to his training. This technique is utilized for all intents and purposes by a wide range of sales reps, for example, land merchants, business improvement chiefs, and so forth to check their mastery and thus their value.
  • Competition: Since a head supervisor himself can’t look at his rival, mystery shoppers are enlisted to evaluate the opposition’s product, arrangements and generally speaking sentiment of the store.

Overall, the mystery shopping study serves as a valuable tool for businesses to enhance customer satisfaction, improve service quality, and drive business growth by providing actionable insights and a deeper understanding of the customer experience.