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Mystery shopping
assignments vary considerably and that explains why mystery shoppers
find no two days are ever alike, and they are never bored! Mystery
shopping is more than just about buying something and checking its
quality or measuring the length of queue at the checkouts.
Mystery shoppers might be involved in any or all of the following
tasks.
Comparison Shopping: Most
assignments involve a comparison of one firm's performance against
another, usually in the same field. Hence the reason you might
be asked to purchase the exact same goods at several stores to see
which is cheapest, and who offers the best, most efficient service.
Most mystery shops are on a local scale involving a comparison of
stores in the same town or city.
Customer Loyalty/Competitive Positioning:
Competitive positioning closely resembles comparison shopping, but
in this case research takes place over a wider area. Where
comparison shopping largely involves comparisons on a local scale,
competitive positioning has much wider applications and normally
involves the entire market in which the client operates.
In-Store Evaluation:
Here the mystery shopper measures and evaluates actual against
desired performance within the store, with the intention of
highlighting strengths and weaknesses to suggest whatever corrective
action is needed.
Impulse Buying: Few
people buy just essentials and most go home with at least a few
additional items, often purchased on impulse. Unplanned buys
can amount to more than one-third of sales, making it vital that
management understands what goods and display methods induce people
to purchase non-essential items.
Qualitative Research:
This often involves bringing people together into an informal
setting, say a quiet corner in the bar of a small hotel or country
inn where the purpose is to test and sample specific items and
report back on findings.
Receiving Mail: The
mystery shopper is simply asked to retain mail forwarded to his or
her address as part of a local or regional exercise to test direct
mail offers or act as a collection point for direct mail offers.
Telephone Surveys:
Not all mystery shopping involves making personal visits and much
work takes place by telephone, fax or online. For example, a
major high street bank recently hired mystery shoppers to phone
local branches to check how fast and efficiently calls were
answered.
Internet Ordering and Research:
More and more businesses
gaining an online presence has generated huge demands for home-based
mystery shoppers to comment on the appearance and user-friendliness
of web sites, ease of navigation, product range and download times,
delivery times, speed and manner of response to customer queries and
comparison with competing companies on and off the Internet.
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