Mystery Shoppers

Prosser says it's being used more and more too. Asked how far a mystery shoppers will go for the cause, David Fougere, managing director of Phoenix Research, recalls going through an entire hospital along with a surgeon playing a stooge patient.

"Finally, just as I was going under the surgical knife the surgeon informed the rest of the crew that I was not a real patient.

"Out of that experience I formulated a list of 25 possible improvements: a number of which were incorporated into the hospital's procedures."

Fougere's case is far from the norm. But it raises some interesting questions. He asks how far a mystery shopper should go in the selling process with real estate agents or car salespeople before letting them know that he, or she, is not a genuine buyer.

"It's a chilly issue with real estate. They have to put a lot of work in before a sale. In my opinion a mystery shop is no good if it raises the angst of the person it's being performed upon."

Palmer says Market Pulse has been asked to mystery shop a real estate agency - although the company has never done it. Interestingly, it was the agents themselves who were interested in gaining the feedback but Palmer argues that mystery shopping would generally be inappropriate for such a situation.

"Mystery shopping is, of course, not always the best way of obtaining research information. In the case of real estate it's probably better to phone a number of clients the agent has helped in the past three months to gain a measure of their performance."

There are a number of steps to ensure accuracy of what's being seen and experienced by the mystery shopper as well. Most surveys are made as objective as possible and it's also important to match the outlet with a typical customer.

Palmer says that in most cases Market Pulse aligns the criteria under review with the client company's training policy. This helps to ensure objectivity. Criteria may include whether or not an employee smiled or was wearing a nametag.

Prosser takes the example of a shopper having to wait while a shop assistant uses the phone. "In this case the shopper doesn't just report 'they were rude and spoke on the phone', which is subjective. They time the conversation and report, 'they spoke on the phone for three minutes before they served me'. That information then goes into the standards."

Prosser also takes the example of the eftpos machine going down. "Provided the person acknowledged the problem when it happened and apologized when they got it correct, they would have been seen to have completed their service standards."

And both Market Pulse and GAPbuster have a policy of not allowing the people on their databases for mystery shopping to become specialist or fulltime shoppers.

Palmer says, "If you were doing mystery shopping and I gave you a list of 40 stores and said 'go and visit them', I bet any amount you like that the 40th store would get a lower score than the first one because you've had enough. And also you're sick of saying 'what a lovely bright store' so you write, 'the third bank of lights on the left was out' because it becomes a profession. You become an expert and you're no longer a casual shopper."

Prosser's explanation is a little simpler but equally as effective. "We've seen situations where people have been eating 13 burgers a day. I can tell you, it's not a pretty sight."

Mystery Shopping |