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Mystery shopping : Trade mission | ||
Mystery shopping is a tool used by market research companies as a tool to measure quality of retail service. Companies send mystery shoppers to 'act' as shoppers or to legitimately shop in return for some combination of cash, store credit, purchase discounts, or the goods or services purchased. Instructions to mystery shoppers can include a script of behavior, questions to ask, complaints to give, purchases to make, and measures to record, such as time it takes to receive attention from an employee or receive a service, or the responses given to questions. PurposeThe purpose behind the concept of Mystery Shopping is to allow businesses to gain improved customer insight into how the customer service related functions of their business are performing, and utilise the information gathered as part of performance management and service improvment initatives. BackgroundMystery shopping began in the 1940s and as a mechanism to measure employee integrity. Tools used for mystery shopping assessments can range from simple questionnaires to complete audio and video recordings. The Internet has provided a medium for mystery shopping online. Many mystery shopping companies are completely administered through the Internet, allowing potential mystery shoppers to use the Internet to register for participation, find mystery shopping jobs and receive payment. MethodologyWhen a client company comes on board with a company providing Mystery Shopping services, a survey model will be drawn up and agreed to which defines what information and improvment factors the client company wishes to measure as part of the mystery shopping process. These are then drawn up into survey instruments and assignments that are allocated to shoppers registered with the mystery shopping company in question. Some of the common details and information points shoppers will be looking for include: * the date and time of the pre-visit phone call * the name of the store on each side of the store visited * number of employees in the store on entering * how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted * the name of the employee(s) * whether or not the greeting is friendly * the questions asked by the shopper to find a suitable product * the types of products shown * if or how the employee attempted to close the sale * whether the employee invited the shopper to come back to the store * cleanliness of store and store associates * speed of service * compliance with company standards relating to service, store appearance, and grooming/presentation Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue (known as scenairos). For instance, a mystery shopper at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping services. Not all Mystery Shopping scenarios include a purchase. From there, the shopper will then submit the data collected to Mystery Shopping company in question. The data is then reviewed and analyised before quantative and qualitative statistical [analysis] reports on the data are then returned to the client company that enables measurment against the previously defined criteria. Copyright 2008 - France BtoB from Wikipédia
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