That said, however,
most mystery shopping work involves visiting retail premises to
check stock levels, cleanliness and hygiene, staff attitude and
courtesy towards customers, customer service, and so on.
As a typical example, imagine Store
A faces a big drop in profits one week and hears that Store B, just
up the street, is having to employ new staff to cope with a 200 per
cent increase in visitors. A first reaction might be that
Store A’s customers have moved to Store B, for whatever reason.
Whether this is
likely to be short term is anyone’s guess, but no business can
afford to wait to find out. Immediate action has to be taken
to learn why customers have stopped coming to Store A, and where
they are going instead. Store B? Possibly, but no one
knows for certain, yet!
And, if customers are
moving over to Store B, is it coincidence, some short-term
irresistible offer from Store B, something related to Store A which
has alienated its customers, or is it the sign of a deliberate
attempt by Store B to poach customers from Store A? If so,
what is the problem, what is the big incentive? Is it
something Store A can copy to win business back?
Or can Store A better Store B’s
incentive and not only win back its own former customers, but
perhaps a sizeable share of Store B’s customers, too? Can
these questions be answered by the manager of Store A or his staff
actually visiting Store B or by questioning customers leaving the
premises? Probably not!
It’s a perfect
scenario for employing mystery shoppers to check both stores, A and
B, to determine which offers the best range of goods, whose staff
are most helpful, who has the best pricing and incentives policy,
and so on.
However, the example
shows just one reason for employing mystery shoppers. In
reality many more tasks are assigned to people who can act,
convincingly, as everyday customers.
