Mystery Shopping

Mystery Shopping How-to Guide

Gain a competitive edge for your business by using mystery shopping.  Learn why so many companies conduct conduct mystery shopping, and get tips on the best ways to conduct your own.

Mystery shopping is pretending you are a prospect and noting everything that you experience to document how you are treated online, on the phone, and in person.

Mystery shopping can be done by:

1. A professional mystery shopping service or agency that specializes in this

2. An independent freelancer or several freelancers in different parts of the country who collaborate together to report their experiences

3. By friends of a business owner who visit competitors and report back what they experience and learn

4. By employees or the business owner (if they can be anonymous)

The advantage of someone who is an outsider and professional is that they will be objective and should provide the most insightful and actionable recommendations. They’ll see things with “fresh eyes” or very trained eyes on what to look for. As a business owner, employee or friend of the owner, you will be desensitized to a lot of things that may annoy prospects or customers. You know the industry and your company “jargon” and you know how to be a smart buyer in your type of business. That doesn’t give you much empathy or understanding to prospective customers so you may miss simple things to do to attract more new business. 

It’s always good to shop and visit the competition as a business owner. It may be helpful to formalize this “mystery shopping” if you are losing business or want to attract more new customers. 

Why conduct mystery shopping? 

1. To gather ideas of what your competitors are doing that works, doesn’t work

2. To gather ideas to try in yourself

3. To understand what it feels like to be a prospective customer for the category of products/services you are selling (what is everyone in the industry saying)

4. To understand what messages your customers are getting from competitors that may work to get them to switch

5. To understand what may be causing you to lose business
    

Define the competition

Direct competition should be easy for you to identify – it is the companies/products/services that you think of as your “competitors.”

You may want to expand the mystery shopping to include companies in your type of business who are considered “best in class” so their scores become the benchmark for your mystery shopping. 

How to conduct mystery shopping

1.  Decide who will do the mystery shopping

Some options:

Do it yourself.  One small business owner said a mentor of his told him to “come into your office from the front door so you can see what it’s like for your customers. Is it hard to find parking? Are the signs clear where to go? Is it clean? Is someone there to greet you?”

Hire a company that specializes in mystery shopping or find a freelancer with this expertise

• Find Experts to Hire on MarketingZone
  

• Mystery shoppers, or secret shoppers, are hired by companies like ShoppersCritique.com and SecretShopper.com to pose as customers and go to stores to report back on the quality of service provided—from handling simple transactions to dealing with complaints.

• SecretShopperCompany.com pays people between $20 and $30 per assignment (plus a free meal at the restaurant they're visiting)

TIP:  A benefit of having someone else do the mystery shopping is that they will not have all the “insider knowledge” that you or your employees do. They will see things fresh, like a prospect new to your industry or category will. That will help you be more attuned to what you can do to attract more new customers.

2.  Scope the project

List the companies/products/services you want to include in the mystery shopping

What customer “touch points” do you want the mystery shopping to cover?

Ideally you assess all channels: call (phone), click (website), come in (store/office).

It’s best to look at how your brand (product, service, company or non-profit) and the competitors you’ve listed are marketing and treating customers from a 360-degree perspective. That means you want to understand your customer's experience at all stages of the purchase process (from "not aware" to "purchase") and afterwards (delivery, early use, customer service, replenishment or repurchase).

It’s most helpful to actually buy something from competitors so you know what their purchase process, customer service and installed base marketing programs are. 

Next page - Conduct the mystery shopping