Mystery Shopping FAQs for Clients

Mystery Shopping is a widely used research method employed by businesses, wherein an individual assumes the role of a genuine customer. The “Mystery Shopper” typically initiates an enquiry with a target business and occasionally even engages in a transaction. Although the target business is often the one commissioning the assignment, this is not always the case.

Following the assignment, the mystery shopper provides a report detailing their experience and the relevant information acquired during the assignment. This feedback and information are then relayed to the client organisation, which utilises it to improve business performance.

If the inquiry is directed towards the client’s own business, the report assists in comprehending customer experiences and enhancing customer satisfaction, as well as improving sales effectiveness and ensuring regulatory compliance, where applicable. The feedback is implemented in various ways, such as modifying products or services, providing staff training, or refining systems and processes.

In the case of an enquiry made to a competitor (or a business of interest to the client for other reasons), the report contains valuable information for the client organisation. This will generally include details about products and services, operations, sales techniques, and customer service.

Mystery Shopping reports aim to maintain objectivity, balance, and sufficient detail in the information provided.

Yes, some of our clients have had bad experiences when they’ve worked with other providers. Those same clients would confirm that we excel in this area by using the best shoppers, and briefing them thoroughly.

Don’t take our word for it. Get in touch with us and we’ll put you in touch with some of our clients!

Retailers, car brands, car dealers, compliance companies, holiday parks, banks, hospitality and leisure businesses, home builders, care homes, surveyors, schools, colleges and universities, insurance brokers, solicitors, manufacturers, home improvement businesses, home buying services, business centres, opticians, dentists, care homes, gyms, beauty product manufacturers, online gaming providers, data centres, card payment and Epos providers, specialist B2B SaaS provider, technology and fintech companies, nutraceutical companies, crane hire companies,  comparison and investment websites,  consultants… the list goes on and on.

We’ve had to rise to many new challenges since 2015 and believe we have shown many times that we’re versatile.

In many cases, over those years, we’ve taken over from “industry expert” mystery shopping providers, despite having no experience in the relevant industry ourselves, and we’ve delivered better service and better results. How? by listening more carefully to clients, engaging more thoroughly and delivering a more “switched on” service.

We work with clients to develop reports and reporting that’s focused on exactly what they need to know. This includes
the content, format and scoring of individual interaction report templates, as well as trigger alerts and dashboards including advanced graphs, charts and visualisations to help them better understand their data and how to act on it.

Clients are provided with access to their data through SASSIE, the most advanced and powerful Mystery Shopping reporting and analytics platform in the world. SASSIE enables us to create intuitive dashboards that help you see the most important information quickly and easily.

In addition, the Kaizen Action Plans feature helps clients to efficiently discuss, manage, and track the actions to be taken based on the feedback that they receive, with much more efficiency, from right inside each report, inside the SASSIE platform.  This saves clients time, while helping them ensure that Mystery Shopping feedback results in real performance improvements. For regulatory compliance purposes, it also provides a useful record of remedial steps taken wherever these are needed.

Too many to list – it is almost endless! People normally imagine hospitality, supermarkets, fashion and other retail shops, but Mystery Shopping is also used by professional and business to business service providers, for travel and transport operators; local authority services; education providers; optical care; tourism; automotive sales and service; property sales; elder care, events, experiences and attractions, and in many other settings.

There are other ways to gain feedback. Many of them can be useful, and cost efficient, but none of them can quite take the place of Mystery Shopping.

It all really depends on what information you are trying to obtain. Mystery Shopping allows you to obtain highly detailed and quite comprehensive feedback about entire interactions or enquiry cycles, and to base these around chosen scenarios or situations.

If a business wants to understand and and improve the experiences of customers, one common challenge is around getting customers to spend their own precious time providing truly detailed feedback. It’s also hard to know if you’re getting a comprehensive, balanced and reliable picture. Even where customers are rewarded for participating in surveys, there will be a limit to what you can expect, and you may not hear at all from those who are cash rich and time poor.

When a Mystery Shopper interacts with a business, they’re following a clear brief,  and they should be appropriately prepared and focused on observing everything that’s relevant, and reporting back as required: they’re being paid specifically to do so. Unlike genuine or real customers, who might have individual preferences and bugbears, the Mystery Shopper reports on everything, impartially.

The quality and depth of this feedback can’t be matched, even by piecing together comments from complaints and reviews, and feedback from customers who can be persuaded to take part in any sort of survey or interview.

They can differ in many ways.

Often, there are tangible differences in terms of service features and capabilities – literally what the companies can offer, in terms of types and volumes of interactions, and how these are handled, and the reporting output they can provide.

Different companies set different standards in terms of interaction quality (and realism), adherence to client briefs, and the accuracy of individual reports. Companies will also differ in terms of their standards of account management, flexibility and responsiveness.  Reporting systems and capabilities will also vary, along with levels of engagement, and the support that they offer to clients on a strategic level.

Different reporting platforms have different features for end clients. These features, and how things are set up, can have a big impact on how much time clients spend examining and dealing with the insights form their data, and therefore on the overall ROI.

One key area is around the pool or database of mystery shoppers that the company has access to. In terms of delivering realistic interactions and feedback from them, a mystery shopping company can only be as good as the mystery shoppers that it uses for assignments. The best companies maintain great relationships with the best mystery shoppers. Other companies… don’t.

Another key area of difference, which can be hard to pin down, is is around the overall quality of service, in terms of project and programme set-up and management, individual interaction quality, and the quality and accuracy of individual reports.

Some companies provide a more “bare bones” service where they are more reactive, and concentrate almost exclusively on delivering the required numbers of interactions the client requires. Some companies are more focused on volumes, margins, and their own business performance, sometimes perhaps at the expense of results for clients.  But of course, they might not acknowledge this.

Here at Customerwise, we aim for excellence in all of the areas above. The feedback we receive from clients (many of whom have used competing providers previously) overwhelmingly confirms that we achieve this.

Yes. There are a few main types of Mystery Shopping including:

• Different channels:
  • Standard “in-person” interactions (which can be very different depending on the industry)
  • Telephone Mystery Shop enquiries.
  • Online Mystery Shopping
  • (covertly) Video recorded interactions and audio-recorded interactions (nearly always supported also by a written report, as with standard/report-based mystery shopping)
  • Multi-stage enquiry journeys which might involved several of the above aspects as well as follow up communication over several stages.
• Those where the Mystery Shopper “reveals” themselves as a mystery shopper (usually at the end of the assignment / visit), and may provide feedback and / or recognition to staff members.
• Activity might be arranged in order to
  • Help a client improve their own customer service, customer experience or sales effectiveness and performance, or
  • to gather competitor information or market intelligence. This might be
    • in-depth and focused on a small number of competitors or
    • to gather market data at scale.

That’s only a brief overview.

Different mystery shopping companies also have their own approaches, styles, strengths, weaknesses, and preferences. Some companies specialise in high volume and reasonably straightforward projects and programmes, using largely automated systems for scheduling and shopper briefing. Other companies are more “hands-on” and better equipped to deliver on more challenging briefs, and to deliver more well-verified data.

Some companies tend to provide reports that are very brief and basic, and others steer clients towards reports are more comprehensive with lots of narrative.

Some companies are very rigorous about quality control and consistency, with others quality might be more erratic.

Differences in the quality of programme design and even survey design are also real and relevant. It’s obviously possible for reports to lack important detail, either through an inadequate brief or questionnaire, or through a poor job done by the shopper themselves.

It’s also very possible for reports to focus on yes/no questions that are too vague or too restrictive, or don’t allow for the variety that exists in real human interactions. Some companies provide reports that are very lengthy, and yet don’t necessarily provide much value to the time-pressed reader.

Indeed, poorly designed projects can fail to highlight real problems.

We try to focus on the issues that have the highest impact on customer satisfaction and sales. Questions are carefully worded in order to be clear, but not overly restrictive. We include “scoring questions” where appropriate in addition to “yes or no” questions, and we invite commentary where it’s needed, but not for the sake of it. We work closely with clients and welcome their ideas and suggestions, and we’re totally open with them about which areas of their organisation are reported on and how.

Our solutions are custom-made and tailored to meet the needs of our clients. Each project and program is priced on an individual basis.

When Mystery Shopping is included as part of our services, the payment we make to mystery shoppers typically represents our largest cost. We determine our own fees based on these “shopper fees.” In order to establish a fair Mystery Shopper fee for any assignment, we require a clear understanding of the following:

1. The specific requirements or conditions for finding or assigning the task.
2. A detailed overview of the tasks involved, from start to finish, including any necessary preparation, all potential interaction stages, and any subsequent time required (e.g., report writing).
3. An estimate of the total time the shopper is likely to spend and how the different steps or stages may be spread out over time.
4. Any potential factors that could make the assignment particularly challenging or uncomfortable.

Once we have a clear idea of the shopper fees, we also take into account the amount of work necessary to deliver the desired output for the client.

Typically, we charge a fixed fee for each individual interaction or enquiry report of a specific type. Additionally, there is usually a setup fee for new projects and programs, and we may also charge for analysis reports and presentations.

We maintain an extensive database of UK Mystery Shoppers, which includes individuals who handle various types of assignments:

– Report-based assignments.
– Video Mystery Shopping Assignments.
– Telephone Mystery Shopping Assignments.
– Online Mystery Shopping Assignments.
– Multi-stage and multi-channel assignments.

Furthermore, we proactively recruit (headhunt) suitable individuals worldwide for multi-stage B2C enquiries and niche B2B enquiries.

Our existing regular UK “database” Mystery Shoppers come from diverse backgrounds, encompassing a wide range of ages, income levels, and interests. We value this diversity as it allows us to select the most suitable individuals for each assignment.

When it comes to Video Mystery Shopping, shoppers are chosen and selected based primarily on their track record and their ability to conduct realistic interactions and adhere to instructions.

For assignments that involve a report, we only allocate them to individuals who possess strong and clear written English skills.

In the case of Video Mystery Shopping, reports are typically not completed by the Video Mystery Shoppers themselves. Instead, they are compiled centrally based on the recorded footage. However, we do incorporate feedback from the shoppers into the reports.

The common qualities that all our shoppers must demonstrate from the outset are keen attention to detail, a good memory, and reliability.