Quality assurance permeates TopHawk’s business. From screening, training and certifying mystery shoppers and quality editors to validating receipts and digital photos of site visits, we ensure our data is accurate. It is gathered and validated by the most talented, skilled, and highly trained people in the industry.

Over the years, we have built and perfected a phenomenal system of checks and balances, our own Quality Assurance PLUS.

Business Philosophy

Mystery shops, compliance audits, or other site visits ultimately return to the employees evaluated in the report. We understand the power of aggregate data but also know that the individual survey is very personal to the employees evaluated therein.

Therefore, we review and approve tens of thousands of reports each month. Our litmus test is always to ask if we would feel comfortable guaranteeing the accuracy of our work while standing eye-to-eye with the employees evaluated in the report. If the answer is no, we gather further details and correct the issue, or we deem the report invalid and don’t use it.

Extensive Story-Like Narratives

We require a more in-depth report from our Field Representatives than most companies, and this allows us to understand some aspects of a visit that cannot be captured with survey questions alone.
The extensive narrative is also a valuable quality control measure because it supports survey scoring with very specific behaviours and, often, actual employee quotations from the interaction. If there is a question about content, we contact the field representative to clarify. If we discover the assignment was not performed correctly, we throw it out and resend it to another Field Representative at no charge to our client.

Quality editors

TopHawk’s Quality Editors is a tremendous benefit that significantly contributes to our ability to offer the highest quality data in the industry. Our Quality Editors are trained and certified client-by-client and scrutinize every score and word our Field Representatives provide. Dates, times, receipts, and the underlying methodologies are all checked for validity.
TopHawk Quality Editors conduct follow-up interviews with approximately 70 % of our field representatives to ensure that all information in their reports is correct. If any item does not adhere to our strict internal guidelines or the client’s requirements, the report is not accepted.

We even edit our Quality Editors’ work. Spot checks, or second edits, are performed randomly to ensure Quality Editors meet our stringent standards. Our clients can be confident that each and every mystery shop, exit interview, or compliance audit will be performed to their exact standards. We guarantee it.

Field representatives

TopHawk’s application process is remarkably comprehensive. Field representatives understand that information must be accurate, honest and actionable. Any less will not be accepted or tolerated.
All new field representatives have an orientation with a live person in our scheduling centre. More experienced representatives still must review and sign off on very detailed written instructions and sample surveys for each and every assignment. They also must pass an online certification test for each client.

Examples of Our Rules-Based Tracking Systems

We audit our field representatives’ scoring habits to ensure impartial scoring. If a shopper consistently submits all high or low scores, he or she is targeted for review and faces possible termination.

We even track how long each user spends reviewing instructions and completing each page of our online survey forms. This is just one of many quality control measures that determine whether adequate time was spent completing an assignment.

We also limit how many times a mystery shopper can visit the same location or client in a given month, year, or period. Limiting exposure to a single location greatly helps maintain anonymity, which ultimately increases mystery shop services.