Hiring an undercover shopper is a great way to assess whether your business meets or exceeds your expectations and provides the right quality of products and services for your target market. Mystery shopping companies can conduct secret shop audits on your behalf to help you understand how your employees work, and how your business is performing in relation to the goals and standards you have set for it. The question is, how do you go about choosing a mystery shopper that can conduct an incisive audit and provide you with the data you need to perfect your business? Here are three points you should consider as you look for a mystery shopping company.
Must Have The Experience and Knowledge
If your mystery shopping experience is going to be successful, it must be conducted by a provider with plenty of experience. They should be able to present you with successful case studies that demonstrate their experience. Ask as many questions as you need to about their previous jobs and satisfied clients. They should have plenty of customer testimonials to prove that they can do what they claim to be able to do. Take note of how they answer your questions and the kinds of recommendations and observations they make. These will quickly make it clear how well they understand your requirements and what needs to be done to meet them.
Should Have a Process For Choosing Mystery Shoppers
The company you end up hiring should have exceptionally high standards when it comes to selecting their mystery shoppers. Ask them how they go about picking their shoppers. They should have a systematic process, together with a set of rigorous criteria, which they use to select only the best and most appropriate shoppers for your business. For example, some companies run a certification system that involves asking their potential shoppers a set of questions. The shoppers need to be able to provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions in order to be recruited.
Should Have a Robust Feedback System
Mystery shopping providers must be able to provide quality data that you can use to action significant improvements in your business. They should present valuable and detailed reports that clearly explain their findings and make tangible recommendations. The best providers run a program with a dashboard that showcases the outcome, which helps you examine all data clearly and effectively, especially if you monitor multiple shopping locations. Their reporting and feedback system should allow you to review the report based on your KPIs, compare performances over time and across different locations, receive real-time data and set new goals.
Customer Perceptions are leaders in market research solutions. With 27 years of experience, we have developed bespoke research solutions to help our clients to enhance their customer experience, gain insight into their competitors, increase customer retention, monitor standards and ultimately, increase sales and revenue. Mystery shopping is one of the services we offer to help businesses assess their performance as merchants or service providers. If you are currently choosing a mystery shopping provider, contact us and ask us about our services.
