|
Methodology of Research
When a client company comes on board with a company providing
Mystery Shopping services, a survey model will be drawn up and
agreed to which defines what information and improvement factors the
client company wishes to measure as part of the mystery shopping
process. These are then drawn up into survey instruments and
assignments that are allocated to shoppers registered with the
mystery shopping company in question.
Some of the common details and information points shoppers:
the date and time of the pre-visit phone call
the name of the store on each side of the store visited
number of employees in the store on entering
how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted
the name of the employee(s)
whether or not the greeting is friendly
the questions asked by the shopper to find a suitable product
the types of products shown
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 associates
speed of service
compliance with company standards relating to service, store
appearance, and grooming/presentation
Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the
transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service
skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular
service issue (known as scenarios). For instance, mystery shoppers
at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a
clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping
services. Not all mystery shopping scenarios include a purchase.
While gathering information, shoppers usually blend in to the store
being evaluated as regular shoppers. They may sometimes be required
to take photographs or measurements, return purchases, or count the
number of products, seats, people during the visit. A timer or a
stopwatch may be required. In some states, mystery shoppers must
also be licensed as private investigators in order to perform some
of the tasks.[2]
From there, the shopper will then submit the data collected to the
Mystery shopping company in question. The data is then reviewed and
analyzed before quantitative and qualitative statistical [analysis]
reports on the data are then returned to the client company that
enables measurement against the previously defined criteria.
|
