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The Use of Mystery Shoppers Part 1
Mystery shopping is a form of monitoring quality assurance. Many times companies
and hire ?mystery shoppers? and send these individuals into retail facilities posing
as regular customers. The mystery shopper then records all aspects of the shopping
experience, including the attitude of the employees, their helpfulness, as well
as their knowledge of a product or service. These individuals also make observations
regarding the facility such as if the shelves were properly stocked, how long they
waited to checkout, was the facility clean and have sufficient light. Mystery
shoppers are independent contractors; most of who are employed by firms specialized
in customer service reporting. These mystery shoppers provide companies with real benefits and insight into how
well they are serving their customers. They also enable the company a means to
monitor product compliance as well as providing a way to identify discrepancies
between assurances made through advertisements or promotions and the actual product
or service that was delivered. However, mystery shoppers do have some very important limitations, with the main
limitation being that while mystery shoppers are seen as customers, they are not
real customers. Therefore, companies must still listen to the voice of their real
customer's voice to fully understand what they need, and are willing to buy. In
addition, it is important that what mystery shoppers measure, is consistent with
customer needs and expectations and that as the ?real? customers' shopping habits
change, so should those of the mystery shopper. Mystery shopping is not a new technique. In fact, this method has it origins in
the 1940's, when it originally used as a method to control employer's integrity.
Today, many companies realize that mystery shopping is a great method for them to
collect information, which may not be available to them through traditional customer
satisfaction surveys. Mystery shopping is used by most industries, including financial services, automotive,
hospitality, telecommunications, retail, as well as the entertainment industry.
Generally, any industry where customers face the employees either directly or indirectly
such as on the phone, or online, can benefit from having a mystery shopping program
to monitor any discrepancies in service delivery. When setting up a mystery shopping program it is important that companies establish
service standards, which are based on actual customer data. This will ensure that
they measure areas, which impact customer satisfaction and loyalty. The program
must be driven by what their customers are telling them.
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