Services - Auditing / Mystery Shopper
Audit work and mystery shoppers can provide real insights into how, why and where consumers buy. Clients use this information to improve service levels and their understanding of how they compete with other companies.
Mystery shopping is a tool used to audit the quality of retail service. Mystery shoppers are employed to 'act' as regular shoppers. 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 the time it takes to receive attention from an employee or to receive a service, or for responses given to questions.
Tools used for mystery shopping assessments can range from simple questionnaires to complete audio or video recordings.
The most common venues to be mystery shopped are retail stores, restaurants, fast food chains, banks, petrol stations, car dealerships and health clubs. Virtually any outlet where there is a customer/business interaction is open to mystery shopping.
The first thing that IQFM will agree with a Mystery Shopper client is a Survey Model which defines what information and improvement factors the client company wishes to measure as part of the process. These are then drawn up into survey forms and distributed to the shoppers.
Some of the common details and information that shoppers will be looking for include:
- number of employees in the store on entering
- how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted
- the name of the greeting employee(s)
- whether or not the greeting is friendly
- the types of products on show and/or offered
- 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 staff
- speed of service
- compliance with company standards relating to service, store appearance, and grooming/presentation
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