What is a mystery shopper?
Many service-oriented industries, such as grocery stores, retail stores, banks and casinos, wish to evaluate their customer service levels, but they find it difficult to be completely objective. Instead, many of these businesses turn to a mystery shopper, a trained and independent service evaluator who visits the facility as a typical customer. Detailed notes of his or her experiences are later sent to managers for careful examination and discussion with the staff. A mystery shopper is usually encouraged to be objective and present both negative and positive opinions based on industry standards. A mystery shopper may simply walk into a restaurant and order a meal, or she may be assigned a specific challenge to test the flexibility of customer service. A mystery shopper may inform the hostess of a restaurant that she is allergic to salt, for example. The restaurant’s response to such an unusual request may be part of the test. A mystery shopper may also act hard to please or attempt to
Do You Know What Your Customers Think Unless you hire a Professional, Your Ignorance Could Cost you Thousands. A mystery shopper is hired to investigate customer service and employee honesty at a business. A secret shopper poses as a customer or client, and tries to find out whether employees at a specific business are honest and helpful. If you own or manage a business, a mystery shopper can save your profits and your business by giving you a realistic view from a customer’s perspective. What exactly does a mystery shopper do? The mystery shopper will attempt to purchase something, will ask questions, will ask customer service for support, and will closely observe the overall experience they receive. Once they leave the store, they will note the quality of their purchase, the quality of their customer service experience, and any evidence of fraud they have seen. Based on this information, a business will know whether they have reliable employees and good customer service or not. Do yo
The mystery shopper program aims to evaluate how a business responds to its customers. The idea is simple: would-be customers who have been previously trained regarding the areas to be evaluated enter a business, use the services available as any random customer would, and report on their experiences. To ensure that a typical experience is captured, the mystery shopper does not inform the employees of their special role. In fact, it is critical for the effectiveness of the program that staff be unaware of who the mystery shopper is. It is important to remember that a mystery shopper evaluates the system, not people.
