Mystery shopping is a procedure in which a person goes to a restaurant, retail outlet, bank office, or any other place of this nature with the aim of gauging the caliber of the client experience.
To guarantee that clients will have a positive experience at their sales sites, many businesses specify certain procedures and standards. Examples include:
- How will clients be welcomed?
- How much of a delay is considered acceptable in total?
- What ought to should the facility’s temperature be?
- How many things should be on show, etc.?
These businesses employ Mystery Shopping Companies to carry out routine audits on their sites in order to make sure that these procedures are followed.
The mystery shopping businesses (also known as Mystery Shopping Agencies) choose individuals who fit the intended consumer profile, give them a questionnaire to document their experiences, and provide them some instruction on how to assess certain characteristics. We refer to them as mystery shoppers. These mystery shoppers then go to the institution while pretending to be customers and meticulously note everything they were told to measure. The information is sent to the mystery shopping business, which aggregates and analyzes the information to assist its clients in measuring and improving their customer experience.
Mystery shoppers, who are typically independent people or contractors who do this on the side, do each mystery audit. If the audit requires the mystery shoppers to purchase or consume anything, they are frequently offered a full or partial refund of the money they spent.