Tag Archive for: mystery shopping

Using Mystery Shopping to Keep Up with Technology

As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, in the business world, keeping up with technology can be challenging. It is also vital. There’s no escaping the future, and apparently the future is all about technology. The question now is: how can businesses stay up to date with the ever-changing landscape technology creates for the customer service experience? One suggestion? By using mystery shopping.

Between 2012 and 2015, I owned and ran a small cafe in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne, Australia. Quaint little town, homey little cafe. The majority of customers were members of the community. It was all about foot-traffic and locals, not so much about tourist travel or city-folk visiting the Hills. That sort of clientele was reserved for the more ‘touristy’ towns further into the mountains, like Belgrave or Kallista.

In the first year, I had a pretty good handle on our customers. We knew what they liked, what they didn’t like, and how best to deliver it to them. By the middle of year two, however, the demographic was changing, the older generation that had made up my customer-base was moving away and being replaced by young families buying their first home. I was lucky, I caught on pretty quick, but two other cafes in my street didn’t, and they were gone by 2013. Tragic, because they were great little hideaways. Our survival had been simple, and I still put it down to one thing: the introduction of free wifi.

Nowadays, it seems like such an obvious thing: don’t all cafes have wifi? But we were the first in our community. While the original demographic didn’t see the need for it, the new one did. They appreciated that we understood – and answered – their need to be connected. This was our survival tactic, a simple adaptation to the change in our customers’ technological needs.

We were lucky, having only a tiny staff and not much of a set-in-stone strategy; the cafe wasn’t a big enough business to be difficult to change. Other businesses – hospitality or otherwise! – don’t have that luxury. Staying ahead of the times, or at the very least keeping up with them, isn’t as easy for everyone as it might be for a small family-owned cafe.

Which brings me back to the question: how can businesses keep up with the constant technological development?

Customers do it. Especially the Millennial customer with his/her latest smartphone and/or tablet. For the most part, customers are keeping abreast of technological changes quite easily, but that makes sense, they’re only one person. A business can’t just upgrade its systems at the drop of a hat, that sort of stuff costs money. Any business worth its salt will likely look at these changes and go ‘fine, we respect that we need to make some changes, but we can’t change everything, what are the priorities?’. This is a practical approach to a very complicated problem.

For businesses, using mystery shopping to keep regular tabs on their customer demographics is an option to stay on top of this. Mystery shoppers are ‘real’ people, so to speak, and they can judge our customer service and experience on a variety of things, including whether or not we are meeting their technological requirements. By using mystery shopping, businesses gain insights into what the ever-changing customer demographic expects to find in terms of technological ‘upkeep’.

/by

4 Ways Mystery Shopping can help Increase Company Productivity

,

Every business owner wants to increase company productivity. That’s the nature of business, generally speaking: essentially, it’s about sales. Those sales, however, are inextricably tied to the people who make them possible, a company’s employees and its valued customers. Without customers, a business would not exist, and without engaged employees, customers would walk away for lack of a great service experience. As they should.

Mystery shopping is a market research tool through which we can gain valuable insight into a business’ performance. If you’d like to know how mystery shopping actually works, check out this article. The question we’d like to address today is why companies should even bother with it; how does mystery shopping benefit your business? Can it really increase company productivity? How?

Firstly, yes, mystery shopping can increase company productivity, here are just four ways how:

1. Mystery shopping examines frontline employee performance

When a mystery shopper is sent in, one of the things they usually gain insight into is how well the staff on the floor of a business treat them. In other words, how well your company delivers its customer service. This is a great way to tell whether your team members are providing the right types of experiences to your customers. Armed with this knowledge, problem areas can swiftly be addressed to increase company productivity!

2. Is your brand resonating with your customers?

Another thing important to increase company productivity is determining how well your brand messages are resonating with your customers. Are they even aware of what you’re offering? Lack of or failing brand resonance is one of the leading causes of a drop in sales. Properly conducted mystery shopping research can reveal whether or not your brand has lost touch with its message and its customers.

3. Do all your outlets follow the correct product and marketing placement policies?

If you have multiple outlets, it’s important to make sure that all of your shopfronts are following your placement policies. Following on from brand resonance, this is an important way to make sure that your customers are not only comfortable in your store – i.e. they know where to find things, or check for updates! – but also actually see your onsite marketing material. No doubt you put a lot of effort into making sure your customers see what you’d like them to, it would be a shame if those efforts to increase company productivity and sales go down because one of your outlets didn’t get the memo.

Also read this article: Retail Customer Service: Reality of Retail Industry

4. Are your training & incentives programs helping to increase company productivity?

Training and incentivizing our employees is one of the best ways to ensure that they are meeting our company standards. This is by no means a bad thing, but it’s always a good idea to measure the impact of such programs and see whether they are meeting your expectations. At AQ, we’ve successfully used to take the pulse of such programs, particularly in the automotive industry.

And there you have it, a quick selection of 4 ways mystery shopping can help increase company productivity.

/by

Mystery Shopping Scams and How to Avoid Them

Many people believe that all mystery shopping is a scam. This is because of the way mystery shopping has been misrepresented by those performing the scams. Often it’s been set up as a ‘get rich quick’ scheme, or a way to “get cash quick”; people are told they can make a comfortable living off of mystery shopping, which isn’t necessarily a lie but when something looks too good to be true, it often is.

Mystery shopping scams have detrimental impacts on both mystery shoppers and mystery shopping companies, both of whom are simply trying to make an honest living the world of market research.

Types of Mystery Scams

On the whole, there are a variety of different scams, but all of them aim at one thing: stealing money from unsuspecting people.

The most common scam is the ‘fake cheque’ one. This one has been discussed on many occasions, and while there are many warnings about how it works it still occurs today.

Briefly, this scam functions as follows:

  1. You express interest in what you believe to be a legitimate company’s recruitment drive for new mystery shoppers.
  2. A ‘you’ve been selected’ congratulatory letter arrives in the mail, accompanied by a cheque that for all intents and purposes looks very real.
  3. The letter goes on to instruct you to cash the cheque, and then send money via wire transfer to a specific account elsewhere, usually overseas.
  4. They add further pressure, but telling you to do so within 48 hours or the offer expires and generously tell you that whatever percentage is left in the cheque is yours to keep.

Awesome! Free money! Right?

Wrong.

The catch here is that the cheque is fake and you’ve wired money you didn’t have to another account. If you’re extremely unlucky and lack the ability to properly explain what’s happened, you may also be liable for cashing in a fraudulent cheque.

That particular scam comes in all shapes and sizes, but at the core always remains the same.

All in all, not a fun experience, least of all because of the financial impact. Unfortunately, where there is an opportunity to exploit people, scammers are there to take advantage.

It would be easy to apply a blanket rule and say: “all mystery shopping jobs are scams”, but this simply isn’t true. There are plenty of legitimate companies out there providing honest opportunities, and it’s important to recognize what a scam looks like.

What does legitimate mystery shopping look like?

Real mystery shopping is designed to analyze certain elements of an industry, and one of the best definitions comes from Wikipedia:

“Mystery shopping or a mystery consumer or secret shopper, is a tool used externally by market research companies, watchdog organizations, or internally by companies themselves to measure quality of service, or compliance with regulation, or to gather specific information about products and services.”

Earlier this year, I wrote about how mystery shopping really works, giving a basic explanation of how it’s accomplished and what might be involved.

How to tell legitimate mystery shopping companies and mystery shopping scams apart:

As a rule of thumb, it’s good to keep the following pointers in mind and avoid companies that:

  • Require that you pay for “certification.”
  • Guarantee a job as a mystery shopper.
  • Charge a fee for access to mystery shopping opportunities.
  • Sell directories of companies that hire mystery shoppers.
  • Ask you to deposit a check and wire some or all of the money to someone.

Mystery Shopper Scams, The Federal Trade Commission

Not all companies that employ any or all of these tactics are necessarily scams, but err on the side of caution and understand what a genuine mystery shopping company looks like.

Most legitimate companies recruit their shoppers directly from their website, or through legitimate channels such as their social media accounts – only very rarely will they use newspaper ads or direct emails.

In addition, legitimate mystery shopping companies don’t require you to pay a registration or certification fee; they simply ask you to sign up to their platforms so they can keep you apprised of any open visits.

Further, they have a screening process: just because you’ve signed up doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically get a visit. Most companies will use a type of test, to make sure that your language skills are up to scratch – after all, you’ll be recording data for them, it helps if everyone knows what you’re saying – and I know that here at AQ, we also require our shoppers to complete a questionnaire that proves a competent understanding of the visit manual (the guideline that tells you how exactly to complete the shop in question). Any company that guarantees you work straight off the bat, is likely to be a scam.

Legitimate mystery shopping companies won’t charge you to access their shop boards; this beats the point for them after all, they recruited you to fill their shops, why make it so difficult for you to do so easily? Nor will they ask you to deposit cheques or wire money. At most, there’ll be a restaurant shop in which you pay for your meal and get a reimbursement up to a certain amount.

Another good thing to remember is that most mystery shops don’t pay heaps. Depending on the type of shop, you may get $5 to $20. Most mystery shoppers do their visits beside their day jobs to earn a little extra cash.

Can you make a living as a mystery shopper? Yes, I suppose it’s possible, but you’d have to be very motivated and very patient. I imagine that a dedicated mystery shopper would be able to make ends meet, if that was all they did, but on the whole, I wouldn’t suggest it be used that way. For further illustration, I stumbled across this article on Forbes that explains how it’s been done successfully, and an article on I’ve Tried That where it was less successful.

How to check if an opportunity is legitimate?

The biggest rule of thumb you can remember is that companies use mystery shoppers as a tool to gather research data. No company is going to pay you $2,000 (for example) simply to cash a cheque and wire $3k to Australia, it’s not a realistic business plan. It’s it’s one thing you can really trust, is that business won’t send themselves broke.

If you’ve no mind for business management then just remember this:

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Another good thing to do is check if the company is listed on the MSPA (Mystery Shopping Providers Association) website. Not all legitimate companies are members, but it’s a good place to start!

And if you’re in doubt at any point, then don’t sign up. Scammers are creative and often it can be tricky to tell one way or the other; if you think something doesn’t look right and you can’t get a clear answer anywhere then it’s probably a good idea to steer clear. Remember, a real mystery shopping company will be easy to find and be listed in legitimate databases, and you can get in touch with them to ask, whether by phone or by email from their website.

Only doom and gloom then?

Hardly, just like you could swim in the ocean your entire life and never experience a shark attack, anyone can enjoy mystery shopping. If you keep your wits about you you’ll never have to experience the frustrations and financial repercussions from a mystery shopping scam. Mystery shopping is a great way to earn extra money doing what you love.

For more information about AQ’s mystery shopping program, or to sign up for our shops, visit www.ilovemysteryshopping.com.

If you’re a business looking to see how mystery shopping can help you improve your customer service and sales, please Get In Touch!

/by

Mystery Shopping: how it really works.

Mystery shopping is, ironically, a bit of a mystery to many people.

It’s called a variety of things: secret shopping, research shopping, mystery consumer, and several others depending on where abouts in the world you find yourself.

The Short Version

But what is mystery shopping really?

Mystery shopping is a valuable market research a tool where people observe the quality of products and/or services while acting like a regular customer. This information is then collated and analysed to create actionable insights.

Is mystery shopping the right tool for your business?

Mystery shopping can be adapted to most industries that have offer a service or a product. Mystery shopper services are performed all the time for hotels, airlines, restaurants, and retail shops. The only time when it might not be a good approach is for professional services like those of a lawyer or accountant. If you’re a law firm or a doctor you might be able to adapt it to mystery calling to check on the performance of your reception, for example, but obviously that’s as far as you can go. Still, it’s not like it hasn’t been done.

 

The Long Version

And does how mystery shopping really work?

The ‘regular customer’ bit often leads to confusion. Understandably, because there’s a little bit more to it than that.

A mystery shopper is charged with discovering how specific elements of your business work.

Say, for example, that you run a bath and shower soap store. You want to know whether your customers are happy with your staff’s level of service. Of course, you could ask them yourself, but you might not get a realistic response: people are easily influenced by different thing, after all. Instead, let’s say you hire a market research company or a mystery shopping specialist to check into this for you.

You and your new specialist will sit down and discuss the possible options to get to the bottom of what you’re after. For something arguably as straightforward as checking on how your staff is treating customers, a fairly simple scenario can be developed.

The company will select appropriate people and set them up with a visit to your shop. When we say ‘appropriate’ we mean that you and the company can specify the sort of person you need. If, for instance, you only want to know what your middle-aged female customers think of your staff, then you’ll only need women aged between 40-55. Depending on the industry you’re in, or the specificity of the data you’re after, you can narrow it down even further. The goal is to get specific information that will address whatever question you have about your product or service.

So a little bit about terminology before we move on so we’re all on the same page:

Mystery Shop or Mystery Visit: the act during which the research is gathered. Now if we’re going to pick over the semantics, I suppose we could argue that a ‘mystery shop’ is on in which the shopper actually buys something, and a ‘mystery visit’ more closely resembles a simple look around.

Mystery shopper: the individual who conducts the shop/visit.

Shop/Visit Scenario: the steps shoppers must take during their shop/visit.

After having isolated your shopper profile you’ll have to decide on your scenario. Do you want to know how your staff react to a particular customer complaint? Or do you want to make sure your staff is following the correct procedures in closing a sale? The scenario is designed to isolate those specific issues.

Let’s say you want to see how your staff deal with a customer returning an item because they bought it by mistake. You might have a system in place to deal with this, but is your staff following that system? Alternatively, you might just want to see how your people deal with this without any previous training or system.

Either way, your scenario could run something like this:

  1. Shopper browses wares.
  2. Shopper purchases a packet of soaps.
  3. Shopper leaves
  4. Shopper comes back ‘realizing’ they’ve accidentally bought the wrong brand of soap and would like to return the items.

During this scenario, the shopper is assessing the reaction of your front line staff, remembering what they say, how they say it, whether they wore their uniform. All the things you’ve requested the company to analyze.

When the shop is finished, the shopper will fill in the questionnaire.

This questionnaire will be something that you and the company have finalized together after deciding on the scenario. It will run through all the things you’re looking to check.

These finished questionnaires are where the valuable data comes from: they’re checked for quality and consistency and then analyzed. The data that is gathered from this is then presented to you in a report, allowing you to see the answer to your question clearly and quickly.

Obviously this is a general overview of how mystery shopping is conducted; and I haven’t even touched on how mystery shoppers are recruited – that’s something for a completely different entry, and possibly a different department.

/by