Mystery Shoppers are specially selected and trained interviewers matching the customer’s target audience description.

Trade or service facility Mystery Shopping survey is an integrated study as a rule which is carried in line to a customer pre-approved script.

The details and information points shoppers take note of typically include employees’ evaluation (how friendly and professional they behave, how well they know the company product portfolio, their ability to demonstrate interest towards the customer, literacy of speech, their ability to suggest any add-on sales, etc.), as well as the store evaluation (cleanness and neatness of the neighborhood and store facilities, lightning, display quality, POS availability, corporate identity, compliance with corporate dress code, etc.).

Mystery shopper visit can range from 10 minutes up to half an hour depending on the number of information points the shopper has to take note of.

After the visit the shopper submits the collected data in a form of a completed questionnaire (the questionnaire to be filled in when the shopper cannot be observed by the store employees). The questionnaire contains mostly close-ended questions where each information point is to be evaluated on a scale. The questionnaire could also allow for the shoppers’ detailed comments and personal evaluation of the visit (for example, readiness to recommend the visited store to friends, the sales person appraisal and word-for-word answer for the test questions).

On the basis of the gathered data the Agency could evaluate:

• The overall quality of service at the customer’s retail chain vs. competition;
• Each information point individually;
• Each studied outlet across the range of attributes or just by one selected attribute;
• A few waves of the study in the event several waves of a similar study have been executed to track the change dynamics and efficiency (speed and validity) of the introduced alterations.

Mystery Calling is a research technique to measure the quality of service via telephone. It is used to check the quality of the client’s call-centers (for instance, checking the quality of customer service for the household appliance repair hotline), or the client’s office to check the service quality of employees working over the phone (for example, travel operators, etc.).

Data could be gathered off-line as well as on-line (the completed questionnaire is submitted to Business Analytica central server). Upon agreement the client could review the raw data 3-4 days after the completed visit or the mystery call.