INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, many techniques have been developed to get market insights, like Survey methods, Focus groups, personal interviews, observations, field trials, etc. But, how to know about existing workforce efficiency, honesty, and compliance with processes? Mystery shopping and audit reports.

What is Mystery Shopping or Audits?

According to Wikipedia,

Mystery shopping (related terms: mystery consumer,secret shopper) is a method used externally by market research companies or 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.

The people who conduct these types of researches are known as ‘Mystery Shoppers.’

This tool was developed somewhere around the late 1940s to calculate the integrity of the management system, whether they are loyal to the company or were just taking money for doing nothing.

Over time the popularity of this technique grew, and now the net estimate of the Mystery Shopping Industry is around $600 million in the US market alone.

Speaking of the US, why should India lag?

India has now become of the most frequent users of this tool, which is benefitting the overall company’s worth and customer experience.

Mystery shopping has become a trend in India, where companies are hiring interns or college students to become mystery shoppers and visit different sites.

This is giving a lot of employment, especially for college going students to earn some extra cash out of their pocket.

Mystery shopping is one of the greatest tools for keeping a check on employees and branches of organizations to enhance customer satisfaction and experience which is popular till today.

Meaning:

It is a process in which a person or ‘Auditor’ visits a location like a retail store or a chemist or a bank branch, even a restaurant to check the status of customer satisfaction. For example-

1. Monitoring the behavior of the staff with their customers.

2. Testing the efficiency of work, by focusing on the waiting line.

3. Checking the product knowledge of the staff members.

4. Reviewing the product displays etc.

Based on these points on an average, companies, and organizations hire research agencies to conduct regular audits and send a report to the parent company to as one say, ‘cure the cause of the Internal bleeding’ within the company.

This entirely depends on observations, which can be carried out on both large and small scales across various sectors even the central and local governments.

Process:

The process involves a researcher going undercover as a regular shopper or customer who reviews the overall activities of the site and notes every detail carefully as they have been asked to do.

These activities could be anything for instance-reviewing the staff activity, friendliness of the staff to make the customer comfortable, or test the knowledge of the team about their products, etc. could be the base of conducting the research.

The researcher also can ask other relevant questions directly to the staff members or queries to the shopkeeper regarding a specific product or service before buying the product.

After the research is complete, the researcher has to fill the questionnaire on the application or any other mode of collecting the data which further has to be reported back to the agency.

Henceforth processing and analyzing the received data is done to help improve the company’s customer satisfaction department and overall benefit of the company.

A general skill of the staff members or salesperson to sell their product is vital in the company if the seller doesn’t know how to sell; the product will never be sold.

This is a critical point that a researcher has to keep in mind.

Also, the researcher never reveals his identity, never!

It is a secret, only known to the researcher or the Mystery Shopping Agency.

Reading this type of research tool may excite some of you readers, to be like a RAW Agent and work undercover, well, anything that motivates you to be one is a profit for the Agency and your pockets as well.

Who can be a mystery shopper?

The answer to this anonymous question is that anybody can be a mystery shopper.

If anybody is interested in being one, he/she can simply take up mystery shopping assignments from different market research agencies and also get paid for their shopping tasks as per the requirements.

The companies don’t need to pay you out straight, but they will reimburse the money whenever the audit report is verified.

It is indeed in very popular demand these days, especially in big metropolitan cities.

Audit Tips:

After an abundant amount to experiments and testing on mystery shopping, the professional auditors have laid down specific tips and tricks to enhance the performance of the mystery shopping agencies and mystery shoppers, to avoid mistakes and better the output of the research.

1. Measuring the hygiene and overall personality of staff:

The marketing and retail of any business is a significant factor when it comes to building a brand name and creating desires within the customers to visit their stores.

After success with this step, who will the customers interact with?

The answer is obvious, the staff.

Now, it is essential for any brand or company to correctly groom and train their employees to communicate with the customers in a rather unique and intriguing way.

The sales representatives are the so-called ‘Brand Ambassadors’ of the company or simply the face of the company. Upon this underlying assumption, the first step to build a positive image of the store or the brand is the proper personality grooming and hygiene of the employees.

Example : Hair should be appropriately combed, clean and ironed uniform, restricted jewelry, etc.

2. Taking your stand:

The mystery shopper enters the store and starts recording the actual on-ground realities.

This is one of the jobs where the auditor has to be completely honest with his observations and note them keeping the ethics of the agency in mind.

In market research audits, authenticity on the ground is the main focus of any agency, so to ensure that authenticity of the audit report, the auditor has to get his report signed by the store manager.

Once the report is signed, it is validated by the agency for further proceedings. But, not all store managers sign the report very quickly, because of the apparent reason for a bad report.

There is no requirement to argue, follow the ethics of the agency, and try convincing the shop manager. If in-case nothing follows, report to the agency.

3. To play the part, look the part:

Dressing appropriate on the day of the audit is very important.

It is taught to prepare physically for an audit, by this I mean, to wear appropriate clothes according to the type of venue and audit.

The shopper has to smartly choose an attire to complement his day of audit research.

Example: A shopper should wear formal while going to the sales office of the office purchase or wear casual clothing to a movie audit.

Not just these, there are many different audit tips given by different professional auditors and researchers some of them can be; reading the questionnaires beforehand for better understanding, certifications, improvement comments, etc.

CONCLUSION:

Mystery shopping is a science involving observation & probing skills for noting down the measure of customer satisfaction in your own business. Well, I am sure that by now you all will be able to understand what mystery shopping is as a process.

You can apply to be a mystery shopper with us, here.

This tool of market research helps to find out what customers think about your brand or business. The detailed audit report is then sent to the data analysis team for analysis. This method helps in monitoring service performance and the client’s responses.

Not only this, but it also makes the sales representative conscious about the likes and dislikes of the customers by identifying their needs through proper training, grooming, and hygiene of the employees.

Overall, this method improves sales opportunities and growth of the company by measuring the customer experiences and tracking the workflow of the staff and business.

We are here for you, and we are wearing our thinking caps