Mystery Shoppers Wanted

Then there are a number of ethical issues associated with mystery shopping. There is, for example, a certain level of deceit involved in checking out a competitor who is oblivious to the fact that the "customer" they are serving is far from being an actual customer.

Hudson says that her company has a client who wanted mystery shoppers its competition on a fortnightly basis. This is, however, unusual. Many companies typically limit their checking on the opposition to closer to two or three times a year.

Rosemary Cals, general manager of research and occasional mystery shopping company Consumer Link, says there is a code of ethics for mystery shopping set by the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR). Consumer Link has the only Interviewing Quality Standards (IQS) module for mystery shopping in the country to date.

"In market research you're not supposed to ever identify the individuals without their knowing or especially without their permission. In mystery shopping it could be quite easy for a client to identify who was on a particular shift given that they have probably got the time of day recorded, which day it was and therefore if they had an example of poor service they could identify who it was. But that's the sort of thing that would be really frowned upon in the Privacy Act."

In New Zealand, at least, that doesn't seem to happen.

Prosser and Palmer both avidly reject any suggestion that results from their mystery shopping are used against an employee.

Indeed, Prosser says he takes the view that it isn't a personal issue but a behavioral one and that the key to mystery shopping is to give people on the shop floor information they can use to improve performance, not to judge and make comments about individuals.

To do that, a standard programme starts off with a scoping exercise which provides a benchmark on which the programme can be based.

The second step is to identify the performance standards of the company and to implement an appropriate programme. In other words, link a company's strategy with action.

The third stage is the actual mystery shop. Before a mystery shopping campaign is run all staff are notified that it will happen and are often given a copy of the criteria being tested.

After that, the data is used to establish particular strengths and weaknesses within the organization. From there the company can decide what course of action it wants to take with that information.

Palmer says, "I would say a huge percentage of our clients align their mystery shopping programmes with incentive schemes. So, in fact, mystery shopping is the tool for catching you doing things right to allow us to incentivise you or whatever."

Tracey Brown, manager of brand development for Caltex, says the company will often do a mystery shop to coincide with an in-store promotional offer and use it as a tool to incentivise the forecourt staff to make the offer.

General Manager of Market Pulse, Philip Mercieca, says that, typically, a programme is run once every month across all stores and outlets of any given business.

Mystery Shopping |